Originally Posted by ghilis101

Purple I feel pretty down about this sometimes. For me this is let down #2. The first being AA's signing of their JCBA, I was shocked they passed that by such a wide margin. I thought to myself, ok maybe it barely passes. But it passed by a landslide. The fear factor with mandatory arbitration and the cost neutral requirement killed them.

So I looked at our situation at DAL and I was much more excited that our hands aren't tied. We're well on our way post merger and post bk, making tons of money and growing, good profit sharing that is ZERO risk to the company, no threat of mandated arbitration or cost neutral contracts, etc. We were literally in the drivers seat.

Then I saw that we were negotiating at a rapid pace and I thought to myself, hmmm that's odd. Having sat in on negotiations at my last company, we couldn't even get through 1 section in a 3 month span, as "slow rolling" is almost always advantageous to the company. So I immediately realized the rush wasn't by us, it was by them. Management ALWAYS drives the pace of negotiations. That's important for us to know for our careers, in good times and bad. Its worth repeating. Management ALWAYS drives the pace of negotiations.

I attended the MEC open meeting in ATL when the TA came out. I sat there while MD gave his opening speech, and all of us sitting in the back had expressions of utter shock and disappointment. Those who didn't attend got the details of the TA sent out to them by email minutes later.

The most eye opening conversation I had since Ive been here at Delta was with a man whom I have the utmost admiration for, especially after seeing how he's emerged through this whole process with full integrity intact. His name is Tom B., the c66 CA Rep. We talked about what respect means in this profession, and how this TA clearly communicates the level of respect our management team has for us.

And now here we are, voting window is open. And despite all this rationale and logic to vote no, with the best leverage we've had had in decades, and the best financial health in company history, we're about to ratify a concessionary contract. To say we were outmaneuvered is an massive understatement.

The yes voters will justify this as a "fair" contract. "The pay raise looks nice." etc etc. The no voters try to educate the pilot group on just how detrimental this TA is.. from massive scope implications, to punitive sick language, to FO seniority, to more hours worked, etc etc., to no avail.

Somewhere along the way, our pilots decided to stop reading our contract. Our PWA is 563 pages long. Not one person I know has read it. I have gone through the whole thing but I am still learning little by little as I go. Management learned that pilots don't read their contract, and outsmarted us by making it look attractive in the only section that pilots ever care to look at, section 3B, compensation.

So that's it. It came down to compensation, and not real compensation. pay rates. Our compensation package is what it is for so much more than pay rates, and we don't see it. Our own ignorance is causing our downfall. The yes voter takes the fast money and will never really understand what they gave up, because they never knew what they had in the first place