Originally Posted by
Army80
Carl,
Maybe the company:
1. Wants to get profit sharing for all the help reduced.
2. They believe that in order to accomplish #1, they need to start with the pilots. (The other groups can be done without negotiating) The optics of cutting the non union profit sharing, without cutting the pilot's profit sharing, could be pretty ugly.
3. A contract that adds cost to the pilot group can be offset by the savings garnered from the rest of the employee's profit sharing reduction. Even though the rest of workers will probably see a pay increase, it can be sold in with smoke and mirrors to look like it's a net gain.
I don't see the company's desire to get a quick deal as an automatically bad deal for us.
I'm a bit confused by the negotiating set up this time. First the company wants to open and negotiate early. For what? PR value? They had to know DALPA was gonna open high and had no need to hurry. They have to know this contract is gonna be expensive. Obviously they must want something. Sick leave---? how many true serial abusers exist and how much could they save? May be an irritant to the company, but seriously. A handful of senior F/Os bid with LCAs and leverage a good deal... out of almost 13,000. Those things sound like diversions. Productivity--they will always want more--no surprise there. Serious high value items: more RJ scope relief, Intl scope relief, changes to Profit Sharing. Any of these items are gonna cost DAL a ton if we yield at all. Now they go and flush $5 billion on stock buybacks? So they can claim poverty? If the company wants a quick deal it can be a form of leverage for us. Carl seems to think DAL is trying to screw us out of something. He is probably right. The question is "out of what." OFG