We’re not “parked,” we’re not even “formally recessed,” we just have a lot of open dates on our calendar because the NMB has decided to reallocate their limited resources to cases that actually have a scant hope of reaching an agreement. The NMB controls the clock; the clock is stopped, but we aren’t parked? Really?

Our union has decided to negotiate in public, posting a thumbnail sketch of ALPA and Delta’s table positions on a very narrow spectrum. On the face of it, the two sides look close to a deal, and that is puzzling, because negotiating in public only really works as a ploy when the sides are far apart, and the whole point of the tactic is to paint the other side as unreasonable. A couple points’ difference isn’t going to convince an objective third party (like a mediator, an investor, a Congressman, or a federal judge) of anything.

Negotiating in public makes it difficult – if not impossible - for either side to move without appearing weak or conciliatory. The last Negotiator’s Notepad says we can still meet with the company in the meantime, but what would induce management to view that favorably, since we have let them off the hook with our own false assumptions and flawed direction?

Both sides need a reason to sign a tentative agreement, or one side will find a better alternative in mediation. Again, see the clock? It’s stopped.

On our side of the fence, I see a lot of self-serving fantasies that are enabled in large part by a certain dozen representatives of the Delta MEC. These are the guys who decided that it would be a great idea to ignore the polling data, ignore subject matter experts, and the professional negotiators that we keep on retainer. These are the guys who got us parked last Friday. They have no plan that will ensure the resumption of negotiations, mediated or otherwise.

Our union leadership thinks that we can get the ball across the plane with more street theater, sideshows, and form letters to the chief pilots? None of those things have the slightest impact on leverage or the market for our services.

We have NO PLAN. All we have are some Rush Week fraternity gimmicks to **** off Dean Wormer, a communications plan that tries to moralize when it should be giving a business case, and a representative body that has suspended the normally accepted rules of civil discourse in favor of populist flapdoodle.

Management knows that they have to hew close to the line with the NMB, so this is just a math problem after costing. I think that they refuse to budge from their current position because they have no trust in Malone’s ability to get any deal past the cabal on the MEC. If the company doesn’t have a shred of confidence in the people we send to the table, then they have no reason to deal honestly, let alone approach the limits of their direction.

“I’ll have to ask my boss” always means, “you really should be talking to my boss, because I don’t have the chops to close.”