Originally Posted by sailingfun

First have you called and talked to your reps. If not I suggest you do. Some of what you posted is totally simply not correct. I agree the furlough protection is minimal however the issue was somewhat trivial also. The 19 airframes if we use our numbers more then likely would only have been restricted to 70 seats for about a year. Then they could put the seats back in so the entire discussions comes down the 6 additional seats in 19 already purchased and allowed airframes for around a year.

We could have stood firm and in some respects I would have preferred that for the message it sends. Had we stood firm and gone to arbitration what would be the likely outcome? First your concept that everyone can see that management fudged the numbers is not the view the MEC held. The truth is that both sides felt their understanding was correct and there were reasons to support both positions. The real problem was the language was poorly written in the first place. In these types of cases arbitrators fall back on intent and negotiation notes ect.. There was nothing in that to clearly support either side.
That means in arbitration there were 3 options.
1. We win slam dunk. By the time we win however they may have been back in compliance and not have to remove the seats anyway. If not they would have had to take the seats out for a very limited amount of time. Perhaps months.
2. Split the baby-Arbitrator agrees with our numbers but feels the companies violation was not blatant and allows them to keept he seats in. (Expect outcome by most MEC members)
3. Company wins. Now they get to keep the seats and apply their formula going forward which allows them to have more seats forever based on mainline fleet numbers. Big loss for us.

You have to look at those options and then compare that with what we got. We get to use our numbers going forward without dispute. That reduces the number of 76 seat airframes going forward. We got some very minimal furlough protection we did not have. THis is better then anything we could have hoped for in arbitration. The only varible is the message we may have sent management by saying no and I agree that is a valid point.

One last point. There was no end run. This grievance was handled exactly the way every grievance has always been handled at Delta since I was hired. The grievance committee appointed by the MEC negotiated the settlement not Lee Moak. As the MEC chairman LM is the approving authority on grievance settlements. He approved it. Again exactly the same as every other grievance we have settled the last 50 years.