Gooner

I contacted my rep about this while negotiations were being conducted. His response threw a lot of blame at the company’s feet for being extremely conscious of optics towards an employee group unionizing. But then also said that the union believes that more cost savings would be accomplished via an EO that got our highest paid pilots off the books and saved more in training churn.

My read of all that was both sides have essentially stayed in the corner that they always choose.

The company is so used to having unilateral choice while dealing with its employees that they do try hard to maintain that flexibility. I wonder if they realize that in their effort to keep the union at bay they have already succumbed to essentially treating most employees like they have unions.

The union has retreated into its usual hierarchy of making sure to target the most senior end of the list first before getting to the rest. In this case I don’t think they were wrong to target the EO as the priority. But, I was disappointed that they essentially disregarded what I think would be a great option for pilots aged 25-60 to pursue 6/12/18/24/36 month SIL programs. For many of our senior and junior pilots who may not be ready call time on their career these programs would get the pilot group and Delta through what is most likely the hardest part of the recovery. Still hoping that program is coming but I’m not pinning any of my hopes on it coming true.