Originally Posted by
Justdoinmyjob
No offense, but your comment shows that you didn't understand how the Transactional Agreement was structured. The Joint Contract and SLI were tied to each other, which means that they both had to be agreed upon to be effective. Now we are working under a different structure and the two are decoupled, which means that the Joint Contract will be voted on separately, (we don't actually get to vote on the SLI,) thereby keeping any one group from holding payraises for everybody hostage until the SLI is concluded to their satisfaction. This effectively prevents the Delta pilots from using LOA 19 to pressure the NW pilots to accept an SLI slanted towards us. I would think that that is what the NW pilots would want.
I really don't care which one comes first as long as the SLI negotiations are divorced from the economic incentives. Seniority is not for sale. I'd rather work under our crappy BK contract until 2012 than sell my seniority. The economic incentives can be there on day 2, and gone on day 3. Economic conditions come and go, but seniority is forever. The seniority list may have to look good on day 2 as well, but it also needs to look good at year 10. If you don't think LOA 19 was designed to pressure the NWA pilots, then denial really is the name of a river in Egypt.