Originally Posted by
gloopy
ALPA does not negotiate for you or your group. Management may like you (and us) to think so, because it drastically lowers expectations and pops a mental drag chute on the backs of any pilot negotiator who falls for it, as well as enlists at least some in the FA ranks to help management with their Bolshevik (and ironically anti labor) heavy lifting. But too bad.
We are different labor groups, with vastly different needs and barriers/costs to entry. Pilots getting an XX% raise has no bearing whatsoever on FA's getting a raise or not or how much it is. Pilots have significantly different medical concerns and therefore should get significantly different (at least for some things) medical and especially disability, and on and on for all the other things in our (not your) contract. We negotiate against our peers which are other pilots, and you negotiate (directly or indirectly) with the union and non union flight attendants in the industry.
I personally hope you can raise your pay and working conditions because I think it helps with recruiting, retention, morale and at the end of the day the product and experience itself. But I will not tolerate any nonsense along the lines that we can't get XYZ (especially if other large pilot groups already have it) because we would have to give it to the FA's too. DL lagged the industry with the jumpseat for years in large part due to management trying to pit FA's against us. Objection: irrelevant, motion to dismiss.
Again, I believe you when you say you want us to get a good CBA, and unlike some I welcome your opinions on this board, in crew vans or wherever. But I wholeheartedly reject the playbook of labor busting management teams industry wide when they reflexively try to link other work groups to pilot negotiations. Pilot labor is the most expensive labor for an airline, so it behoves them to try to lower expectations and this is one of the top ways they go about it.
Not to mention "me too" rhetoric goes both ways. Which labor groups are at or above pre BK pay and which aren't?
We're not owed anything because FA's got it. We seriously lag United and are falling behind each day. Its time for a very positive contract with no concessions. Thanks for your support.
At most other carriers where the FAs are unionized the pilot union does indeed just negotiate for pilots. Officially, that's also what happens at Delta. The problem you run into at Delta is that management is so worried about FAs unionizing that if they were to agree to massive increases for pilots they'd have to give something similar to FAs or fear that they unionize. That's why I said that ALPA "indirectly" negotiates for other work groups as well. You see, the old way of thinking at Delta is that the pilots would get more if the FAs stayed non-union...but we know for a fact that's not the case. Just look at the results you've achieved versus the pilots at other airlines where FAs are unionized. As I've said many times, the pilots actually would benefit from having another major work group unionized.
You can keep on trucking the old, good ole Delta & Moak line of thinking or you can adjust your position based on the information at hand and visible results.