Council 44 Vice Chairman’s Perspective
Over the past several months and certainly the past several weeks I have heard from many of you. As you might imagine the reaction to our tentative agreement is as varied as our pilot group. Some pilots are angry and others are quite pleased. That leaves the majority of us somewhere in between.
Much has been said about the shortcomings of the tentative agreement. But there are also a lot of meaningful improvements to our contract.
There are ten pages of Power Point slides in the negotiators’ overview. These slides list, in bullet point fashion, the gains for each party. The company’s gains end on page one. The next nine pages list only the gains for us. Some of these items have been on our wish list for a very long time. These are real quality of life improvements. Reroute for example is fixed. We also have RCC language that will actually allow the RCC to improve trip mix. You will have better control of your schedule due to adjustments in the reserve required formula, and the use of individual vacation days. Hopefully you won’t need to avail yourself of the disability improvements. But if you are one of those that end up on disability, they are very real.
The pay raise is less than most of us wanted. However, I asked our professional negotiators (combined 80+ years of airline negotiating experience) and our committee if they were certain that nothing was left on the table. They are all, to a man, absolutely convinced that there is no more value available from Delta Air Lines. We are, in my opinion and theirs, in a take it or leave it scenario.
I look at senior management’s history. During the merger, the framework for a JCBA, along with a SLI and Transition Agreement was nearly complete, we had agreed upon wages and DC contributions for NWA pilots, among other things. However we became hung up on the seniority list integration in March. In June, the NWA MEC re-engaged, and we all got $250 million per year less than the initial framework. When senior management approached both the Endeavor and Comair MECs with a request to restructure their contracts, the Endeavor MEC cooperated and the Comair MEC did not. Endeavor grew, and Comair shrank to eventual extinction. When the Comair MEC came back with their hat in their hand, they were told that ship had sailed. When Boeing would not work with Delta senior management, they bought aircraft from Airbus. When Alaska Airlines wouldn’t work with them, they made other arrangements, and we are now expanding rapidly in Alaska’s hometown of Seattle. I cannot identify any situation where our present management team was inclined to sweeten a rejected deal. But history is replete with their willingness to find alternate paths that don’t benefit the people with whom they have bargained.
Section 28 A of the PWA states that absent an agreement by*March 31, 2016*we will jointly petition the NMB for mediation. So the question is, then what? When the mediator asks us for our perspective we would say the company didn’t offer enough. We feel we deserve more because Delta is making a lot of money, many of us lost our pensions, and we are only now getting back to where we were in 2001. Delta will say that they offered us industry leading work rules, industry leading scope, industry leading sick leave, industry leading profit sharing, and industry leading pay including the highest pay rates ever negotiated. They will point to an offer of projected total compensation for the Delta pilots at 15 percent above our counterparts at American, and 23 percent above our counterparts at United. How would the Mediator react?
Meanwhile, the NMB currently has a large caseload and we would naturally go to the back of the line. FedEx has been in negotiations for two and a half years and in mediation since last fall. UPS has been in negotiations for three and a half years and in mediation for a year and a half. Sun Country has been in negotiations for five years and in mediation for three years. Southwest has been in negotiations for three years and been in mediation since last November. Southwest opened at about the time we opened negotiations for C2012. We are now considering our second TA, our second round of improvements with 737 pay far in excess of theirs. Southwest is stuck in the mire of mediation. Mediation is not to be feared, but it’s not a fun place to be. We lose control of the process and the timeline.
The decision before us is a simple one. Do we pick up a minimum of $1.1 billion in additional value, place it in our pockets and come right back into negotiations less than 3 years fromtoday? Or, do we risk getting mired in mediation for years, with a management team with an easily discoverable history when it comes to business dealings? Depending on PTIX, if we wait 1.5 years for a raise, it will take an approximate 25 percent increase just to break even with this TA’s salary. If we wait two and a half years it is 53 percent. It is my personal opinion that this is not a path to success.
More importantly, I also believe that the battle with the Middle Eastern carriers over our international flying is going to be won or lost during the duration of this agreement. If we lose that battle I believe Delta’s profits will be severely affected. The ME3 are angry and they blame Delta for their troubles. They will come after Delta with a vengeance. On that day I would rather be making 21.5 percent more in hourly wages than I make*today.
As a member of the Delta MEC, I had to make a difficult decision on behalf of the pilots I represent. When I removed emotion from the equation, it became a business decision. It is usually my emotional decisions that I later regret, not the logical ones. I voted to approve the tentative agreement and send it to the membership for ratification. I support this TA. I have voted “YES” as a member of Council 44 and I recommend that you do the same.
Fraternally,
Vice Chairman, Council 44