Originally Posted by
nerd2009
PG,
I agree with what your saying about the company employees at the negotiating table. However, I believe the direction and depth of the negotiations are essentially laid out by "consultants, for example, "Seabury Group" and then implemented by the negotiators, who have only a certain amount of room to negotiate.
The same thing happens on the Union side. We employee some of the best labor law firms in the country during negotiations. Most pilots have very little idea how contract negotiations work. There is no big table where teams struggle back and forth. Its done by paper exchange. Dalpa will produce a proposal. This is constructed by pilots on the negotiation committee and professional labor attorneys we hire. It is sent over to the company. They read it and will sometimes request a short meeting to clarify some points. Then they send over a paper counter proposal. Again the labor attorneys and pilot negotiators work out a counter. The concept that we throw 3 pilots out there to negotiate the contract is completely false yet many pilots believe that.