Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
FTB,
You are right and Sailing's giving you a white wash job.
When the Company was considering furloughs, the issue came up of how the Compass flow down was to operate. Among the many problems of the poorly thought out outsourcing scheme was the fact that Compass lacked the training resources and FAA approvals to dump the entire seniority list and staff with new hire DL pilots. Lee Moak and Bill Kessler stood at the corner of the room and held forth that "our scope works, by not working." That since if was such a mess and could not be implemented, it provided job protection. Now recall, those provisions were carried over from NWA and never intended to function at Delta. The JPWA was an opportunity to fix scope that we did not capitalize on. Provisions were simply pasted together without adequate consideration of their effect. Compass was one, the flow to ASA and Comair was an accidental inclusion (IMO) and we'd have done well to have rethought, Alaska, MidWest and the 76 seat scope definitions. As we all know, there was left over bargaining from merging Section 1.
Warning: I've gotten vehement confirmations and denials that the following ever took place, DYODD. According to management sources, Delta came to ALPA and asked about making CPZ Delta and letting people bid rather than force everybody down through one hole. The Company was thinking current book (CPZ rates). ALPA responded with current book (small jet flying per the DL contract). The discussion ended with no resolution because the economic forecasts changed, taking the pressure off of furlough.
I believe that had the need to right size this airline been much more than the CPZ list, the pressure would have overcome the limitation and washed over the dam like a tidal wave.
I too listened to Lee Moak, both in public and private meetings and frankly, I could not figure out if there was a lot he just did not know because he was insulated, or if it was political talk, or if he just is not a trade unionist at heart. To this day Lee Moak remains enigmatic because his stated positions on scope did not match policy, or actions. Further, the stated positions broke down after the first round of questions were asked. ... positions like expecting Teamsters and SkyWest (non union) to negotiate contracts which built a foundation under the Delta contract, making them do the heavy lifting for our scope. There is no hope that will ever work. A non union group of RJ pilots is not going to do a contract that sees "their work" diverted to mainline and Teamsters will screw us every chance they get because ... they are Teamsters. Positions, like claimang not to know we waived contractual language which stated we had flow rights to ASA and Comair. Action, like crushing any analysis of Compass, then having our MEC split on the divestiture. ... and 76 seat jets.
Further, Lee Moak was fully on board with management on outsourcing. He put together presentations explaining the economics of outsourcing and argued it benefits Delta pilots to outsource our work.
Sailing is correct, there were protections negotiated in our contract and the subsequent letters of agreement, but to state they had a grand plan which worked perfectly is stretching the truth a bit . The story that our "scope works by not working" does not indicate to me a grand plan. That indicates a happy accident and a fortuitous recovery.
Balance in reporting. I was pretty sure we would be sending out furlough notices right about now. I was mistaken (thank goodness) and we are hiring. We are hiring because our airline is doing well and in fact, everyone is doing well right now, even American and US Air.