Scoop

Guys,

Since we are in section 6 negotiations, I wanted to start a thread discussing some of the issues that come up every section 6.

What are you willing to give up for that? Nothing. The company had no problem reducing costs quickly and at huge levels when it behooved them. BK is long gone and we should bargain for and expect our costs to increase. The company will put out the usual memo about keeping costs increases down - that is their job. Our job is to increase our compensation.

Think pattern bargaining. Hopefully UAL will set the stage. This does not mean that every part of our PWA will lead the industry - it certainly will not, but with our current level of profitability we should be in the top tier in most sections and should not lag in any. Vacation and DH quickly come to mind. I am sure that there are others.

PS should not be touched. If anyone says we should trade PS for pay-rates or anything else, please enlighten them to the numerous reasons that this this is a fools errand. Due to pattern bargaining pay rates will normalize. Trading PS for payrates is just giving away PS over time.

Speaking of payrates I hear plenty of folks lament our rates as industry standard. That’s fine but when we set them they were industry leading. UAL and AMR matched us so we could have gotten 10% more and it would still be industry standard if other airlines match us.

Plenty of folks will claim an automatic “No” vote ready to go for certain issues. While I have no problem with that since many of the 14K Pilots will have different priorities I prefer to look at the contract as a whole. Make no mistake the value of our PWA will go up, costs for DAL will go up - other than the airline industry this is called a raise. We are due for a raise.

If I could stress one point it would be that every PWA gain does not have to be “paid” for by other PWA concessions. Yes, this is a negotiation so we will have to negotiate, and the company will have their wants but in total we should be aiming for big overall gains.

Scoop