Originally Posted by
captkdobbs
I did not know that about AA and UA contract. That detail changes my mind.
This is exactly the type of detail comparison we should be doing prior to exchanging openers next year. Anything that ANY carrier has that is better than our current book should be in our opener. Negotiation strategy 101 says that you ask (within reason) above what you expect to end up getting. If other carriers have something in their book, I'd say it is within reason to ask for the same or a little bit more.
Of course, once negotiations start, the NC needs to focus on the polling data and the voice of the membership for the end result, but in this negotiations/economic/retirement environment we should shoot for the moon as every contract negotiation following ours will try (and possibly succeed) to one-up us.
I believe that we do conduct in-depth comparisons every section 6 and its gets released as a contract comparison booklet. I have found these very helpful.
The problem is we (DALPA) seems to take management negotiation statements as facts written in stone, for example:
"There is no more money on the table."
"If you don't sign this (Crappy - Think TA-15) deal the next will be worse."
Well, no crap, what do we expect someone to say in negotiations?
It almost seems as if DALPA is waiting for something like this:
"This is our current offer, if you reject it we will substantially sweeten the pot." 
There are multiple reasons for this, I will hit two, including the timing of section 6. It seems we were always leading the pack doing the heavy lifting. This is a bummer because we slug it out with management, trade and negotiate for every gain and then UAL and AMR come along and get bumped up without giving up squat.
Well this time UAL is up first. Go get em UAL!
Secondly for whatever reason we have an aversion to professional negotiators. I really think we should look very long and closely about changing this policy.
With all that said I voted yes for TA-16, after strongly opposing TA-15 so maybe DALPA is learning.
Scoop