Originally Posted by
sailingfun
Just to make sure everyone understands what purple is talking about, this is what happened. Pilots on long term disability at Delta were being paid 50% of their final average earnings. With the bankruptcy the average line pilot took a 42% cut in pay. No cuts were made to the LTD plan. Not one dime was taken. They drew full disability pay. There were as offsets to the bankruptcy cuts two main pots of money plus the MPP. The two pots of money had distribution formulas that tried to account for many varibles. Pilots drawing full LTD pay got reduced payments from those funds for several reasons. The chief reason was they took no cuts in the bankruptcy. Very few pilots return to the line from LTD. There were a few who did and were negatively impacted since they returned to work under the post chapter 11 contract. Timing determined the amount of impact.
There were multiple law suits filed over the distribution method as there will be every single time. One was from the LTD group. One was from some very senior pilots who felt the junior guys got to much ect...
All the lawsuits failed. None were dropped for statue of limitations. They were all filed almost immediately after the money was distributed.
To further elaborate on SF, the method of distribution was a "silo system". One of the silos, or variables was LTD. If you were on LTD, you received nothing from one silo.
Now fast forward to the JV distribution model. Note that LTD is one of the variables in the metric.
While I was lucky enough to not be negatively affected by this metric, there are those that are unlucky. My opinion was this silo was immoral and unjust. I continue to believe this. No one will ever convince me otherwise. I'm not going to cast blame for this. But, it did raise my hackles when I realized DALPA had pulled this out of the closet and used it again.
Using this distribution method was intellectually lazy and morally reprehensible. Nothing like punishing the weakest amongst us. If it sounds familiar, it's because this is the same sort of thinking with our sick leave issues. I'm will willing to defend the sick, why isn't my union?