Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
ACL65,
I'll go ahead and step on the land mine here.
Contract 2000, along with other profligate programs put Delta into bankruptcy. Leo Mullin and Fred Reid's idea that they could use Delta's balance sheet to run US Air and American into bankruptcy first was pure folly.
Back in early 2000 a very dear friend who served as a prior VP of Flight Ops and L1011 manager told me while walking through his North Georgia estate, almost to the month when Delta would go into bankruptcy. While things did change on both sides of his analysis, he hit the target within 45 days with his astonishingly accurate prognostication.
While I do believe we overdo the economic analysis at the cost of unity, I am VERY GLAD that Moak and our MEC are more conservative and thoughtful than I perceive Giambusso was. (I don't know Giambusso, only what I heard) But, it is hard to argue with the results that Moak and the MEC have achieved.
I was a very frequent critic of the policies that I believed compromised growth and job security. If we make it through this downturn without furloughs then I've really got to hand it to our team that led us through these tumultuous times and actually scored some pay increases while keeping everyone working (both in Management and the MEC).
As you know I agree with much of what you state. My issue is with the communication aspect. Pilots want to be told why, not that they are wrong. Educate the group without a tone of superiority. Have humility in your job as a union leader, or a company leader.
I see humility among many of the guys that run flight ops. I see humility with many of the guys that do union work. The problem is that within our union the ones that are the most visible are the ones that seem to have the strongest disdain for the line pilots perspective.
My suggestion is to open up communication. Any movement in that direction will be noticed by many. Bring back the White Papers, welcome differing opinions in public. Let the pilots make their own minds up.
The current administration is very pragmatic. They have a very clear sight picture of how they think things will go. A few pages ago, I have my analysis of what I have determined to be the game plan. Right or wrong, it has not been refuted. We are in the time frame of the game plan to not lose ground nor make substantial ground while the company is building its Empire. Once that happens, I get the impression from multiple sources that RA and co know it will be payback time.
I give plenty of credit to this MEC. They have done a supurb job with this merger. Part of our issue has kept it civil. Keeping communique's to a minimum, killing the bad blood, and reporting what is only necessary has in effect kept the normal disdain from mergers dormant. I see that. I know it is part of the plan, but by god it is high time to start a PR campaign.
I am staunchly pro ALPA at Delta. There are bad parts about it. People that need to go, but there is such a resource there for the line pilot. Problem is they just do not know about it. DALPA needs to resell themselves to the pilots. Show how deep they are, convince them that there is value in it.
In the end, who gets credit for no furloughs can be debated until the ends of the earth. There are many reasons for it imo. Either way, people kept their jobs, got a pay rate at 140 a barrel oil, and have a decent probability of a good decade ahead of them.
Many squawked when we got the JPWA that the raises were not enough, and the fact is that they were not for where we were, but as Lee points out they are sustainable. He is true to his goals and bullet points. That takes a lot of courage when under fire. I credit the MEC for that. (we could argue the cosign of the fact that no one else has taken pay cuts, but we will save that for a post or two down the road
)
Slow, how is that for not being Anti-DALPA and Lee?