Originally Posted by
BtoA
NO, not everything is terrible. The pay rates are decent. But, we are giving up a lot of concessions for those pay rates.
The scope section is a loss for us. I'm sorry you do not agree. Without dollar signs blinding me, I see that we are selling our pay rates for scope. THAT IS NEVER THE ANSWER! I don't care what else you sell in your contract, scope should never be on the table. Get every gain you can any chance you can get, but do not give an inch on scope. THAT'S YOUR JOB! THe 2000s were terrible for this industry because of RJ scope. Ask NWA mechanics how their scope gives worked out for them. I CANNOT every agree to a sell in scope. I wish everybody saw it the same way. People complain incessantly that this company is a glorified domestic feed yet they agree to give huge concessions on JV scope. ***?
I really wanted this TA to be a win. I do not have an ulterior motive. I do not have any desires for DPA to take over or anything like that. I support my reps and tell them how much I appreciate them.
As for last year, I don't know what you are talking about. I was not allowed to even vote for the last TA. I think you have me confused with somebody else.
Go figure. Maybe an older brother that works for Delta?
Fair enough, we'll move on.
It appears to me you're systematically exaggerating the negatives. I think it's hard for anyone to label the Scope section as either a huge win or loss. It's sort of neutral.
One of the reasons Scope is sort of neutral (and I imagine we'll come at this from a very different perspective), is that we got really myopic on the RJ's. According to a JS rider on the MEC, the only thing that separated the "7" and the "12" were RJ's. The 7 saw value, the 12 a threat. Since this was said to be an absolute must for the company (oops), and worth hundreds of millions to them (oops again), we were said to cave (oops a third time). So we "won" on RJ's.
I would hope that you would like that, and file it in the "win" column. I know that not losing something you have shouldn't sound like a win, so let's simply say your view prevailed. Fair?
I actually view the RJ status quo as a loss for us. We didn't shrink DCI and we're operating above NB ratios that we're not codifying into the contract. Meanwhile the zombie 50-seaters linger on, at company discretion. And I haven't seen the 76-seat order for mainline yet.
So we learned vastly different lessons in the previous decade, I suppose. But in either case, it seems like our Scope battle was fought on the small-gauge end, and it seems like the MEC got a little distracted. What would the deal have looked like if we traded on 76-seaters? I have no idea. Were there better protections available on the WB end? No idea. If the DPA salesman is right, and negotiators told him that there were "hundreds of millions" available to the company, then perhaps some of that saving should have been shifted over to the WB column?
So the Scope section, in my mind, is a bit dull. I think we failed to capture an opportunity on RJ's. OTOH, looking around the world I don't envision us breaking through any unexplored frontiers and capturing a ton of flying. Considering the alliances we have or might have, I figured we'd try to protect what we have. I figured we also need as much downside protection as we can get. I don't like the EASK metric on the downside, but it's great on the upside. I had heard we were going to shift to BH only, but I'm very pleasantly surprised that we're getting a hybrid. So the whole thing is boring, for sure. A surprise? Hardly. A complete fail? Nope.
I think we got exactly the Scope deal the internet was asking for.