ALPA 1941 assistance
 

Long time lurker 1st thread started... Be gentle and use some lube in your responses :)

This probably could have gone in the other 1941 thread. I did see it mentioned in there several pages ago, by Sailing I think. The idea seemed novel and it wasn’t discussed at all.

Before I go into detail on this idea, let me explain my thought process. I think the likelihood of furloughs being prevented by any of the possible means is very low. I also don’t fully trust the company to abide by any no furlough agreement, and I really don’t want to concede items in the contract that will take years/decades to recover.
I also want to help out our soon to be unemployed ALPA brothers/sisters. So the goal for me is to mitigate the suffering of the furloughed while not conceding anything to the company.
My solution is to have ALPA increase dues by 5% on all Delta pilots that have NOT been displaced from A to B. To me those pilots have less financial wiggle room than the rest of us. This extra 5% would then be distributed to the furloughed 1941. My initial thought is to have ALPA hire the 1941 as independent contractors.
Cocktail napkin math says about 8,000 pilots would be on the hook for this extra contribution. Average annual salary for that group I estimated at 200-215k. That generated a benefit for the 1931 furloughed of 40-45k per year. Obviously not as good as them keeping their job, but way better than nothing at all. And likely saving many marriages, bankruptcies, ect...
The extra dues would have a termination point sometime in the future. A year seems appropriate. At that time we would need a MERAT to continue the program.
The extra dues would immediately terminate if there were concessions in any part of the contract.
My favorite parts to this plan are
1) it solves attempting to regain losses in our contract.
2) it shows other employee groups the benefit of being in a union. Imagine a ramper hearing that the furloughed pilot is making +40k from ALPA
3) it helps take away some of the stigma with working GS while there are furloughs since 5% of that GS is going to a furloughed. (I know touchy subject about GS.)
4) it is almost instantaneously cancelable since we are negotiating with only ourselves.
5) it’s a much smaller pay give than the company floated 15% ALV reduction.

I’m looking for constructive feedback if the idea has merit or if there are some hurdles of which I am unaware.

For transparency I’m 1 of the rescued 617

All great ideas. I would much rather do this to help the furloughs than a 15% ALV cut to help a company that is not doing everything it can to help itself and will furlough regardless.

I can abide with the rest, but the bolded part is why I like your idea the most. This is as much an information war as it is a contract one.

Great job getting outside the box.

I’d personally want to pay back this money back over the course of some years upon my return to the payroll.

This is a win/win for the reasons listed.


I’d also keep the Miata!

I just have a problem with your A to B comment. There are just too many variables to not make it an across the board cut. To me a 73A to 330B has more wiggle room than say 7ERB to 220B. But, each situation is different.

I went back and forth on this idea too. It’s very nuanced and every situation is different. I’d be ok with an across the board cut too for the very reason you state. I can’t determine who took the bigger pay cut WB B to NB B or NB A to WB B.

Your idea has merit but I think it should apply to everyone. No carve out. Convince me otherwise.

Denny

As a soon-to-be-on-the-street guy, the fact that folks would even remotely entertain this is humbling.

Honestly, I don’t know how I’d feel about being given 40-45k a year.

Don’t get me wrong, it would be great reassurance for me and the family...but I don’t know how I could accept it without feeling an enormous amount of guilt (as silly as that may sound, not sure if that’s the word I’m looking for)

Interesting idea. One way to frame this would be to come up with a number, say $40K, that seems like an agreeable amount to help get furloughees through one year. Then figure out the % that would need to be deducted from the active guys’ paychecks to meet that. It might be, say, 4.2%. Then vote on that (basically this would make everything precise—it would define the benefit and hopefully drive a number even lower than 5%).

Even more likely to pass would be to basically just put out to everyone: “if all active pilots deducted 5%, furloughed pilots would receive $xxxx per month, so please consider a 5% deduction”, then make it voluntary and hope the majority of guys would opt in. I’m new in the airline biz and maybe it’s laughable to think many guys would do this voluntarily, just throwing ideas out there.

{ full disclosure, I’m in the 1941}

Good point. I agree that it would be weird to be “paid” $40K from fellow pilots.

I’m a bit older and not in a bad spot if furloughed, but when I posted earlier about this being an interesting idea, I was thinking of the 29-year old new hire that just had a kid and has only flown airplanes for his adult life (minimal job prospects). This crisis is not a normal black swan; there’s never been revenue loss and uncertainty like this. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to at least discuss helping the very junior guys out more than a “normal” furlough situation.

Take the 5% and just buy FA pro union votes. At this point I'd rather stick it to the company since they seem so hell-bent on sticking it to the furloughs.

Great ideas! I agree with those that are advocating no carve outs. Too many QOL bidders out there with family circumstances to entertain the A to B carve out.

Are you floating a 5% dues increase or adding 5% to the existing 1.85%? I think you actually mean to increase ALPA dues by almost 300%. Some of those rampers are going to hear we just added about a $1,000/month assessment to union dues and offset some of that union excitement.

My job is not to convince anyone about the merits of a union. Frankly, our FAs are going to compare their situation to FAs at UAL and AA, not to ours. I'd wager that the folks on the bottom actually feel pretty good about the management team that just promised not to furlough them when their peers hired as far back as 2000 at UAL (when many of ours were literally in diapers) could be on the street 1 Oct.

Many folks are going to do just fine during furlough. Stay at home moms and dads whose spouse does well at their job or even has more time to plus up their own income to get the family right back where they were. Retired O-5s and O-6s with sizable pensions, free GI Bill college for their kiddo and a government contractor side gig. Entrepreneurs with stable income elsewhere and health care funded by their union.

I'd rather have those who are really struggling apply for financial assistance. Everyone won't need it, so let's get the dollars flowing where they are needed. I've already donated to ALPA's fund for this purpose, and if people want to spend $1,000/ month of their own family COVID budget to do the same, they certainly can. VEOPers could do the same if they feel so moved.

I also think the A to B carve out in your proposal is a little odd. What's the purpose? Just because someone had a high water mark a little higher than mine, they needn't contribute? Plenty of my classmates took early opportunities to A positions while I prioritized QOL and seniority... and now my lower income starting point pre-MOAD obligates me to a record-setting dues assessment the other guy doesn't have because he used to make more money? Does being absolved of guilt for GS flying still extend to these exempt pilots?

Assuming you can easily determine which families do or do not have "financial wiggle room" seems pretty dangerous. We can all make judgements about where folks SHOULD be re:income vs. expenditures, but you never easily know. I don't have a dollar coming my way from poor, unhealthy aging parents and step-parents, so I save for my end years and theirs. On the other side, I have friends with $5M inheritance heading their way in the not-too-distant future from parents with long term care insurance funding their own care. I also happen to have education benefits for my kids, a reserve retirement someday, and a spouse who worked her a$$ off (and still does) to produce income...albeit at the significant expense of being away from her kids. I say all of that because I think anything we do, we do together. We're either all in, or all out - just like we all work under the same PWA. I personally think certain versions of ALV reduction (uniform, across all categories, long term or permanent that actually keep everyone working) are far more palatable than your proposal. Let's hope negotiations produce some results.

I don't see there being much enthusiasm for the plan you propose, but appreciate your creativity trying to problem solve for soon-to-be struggling brothers and sisters.

Quick math on this idea. To achieve a flat $40K. The average contribution would be $616/month by the 10,500 working pilots. That works out to 3.7-3.4% range if I assume an average annual salary 200-215K for the 10,500 pilots.

There are certainly deeper issues that I, for one, haven't fully considered. So thanks for sharing your perspective and experience with us.

thanks for the feedback. You are correct 6.85% total was the original idea. I liked jiggawatt’s thought of setting a distribution target rather than a contribution target. I came up with 5% as contribution because it is far less than the 15% ALV the company has been discussing. By approaching the issue from the other way and using the distribution target of $40/yr the the total contribution is reduced to 5.25-5.75%. It’s a range since I don’t know our collective average annual income and I’m trying to use conservative numbers of $200-215k. A vast majority of Captains out earn those figures and a large percentage of FOs beat those numbers too. ALPA has the actual data and would be able to set a much more accurate dues increase. If our income is higher, the dues increase is lower.

I’ve been sousing this idea out for a few days. I included the carve out because I saw the biggest potential hurdle in getting this approved was if pilot’s thought ALPA would be taking too much from those that recently lost the most income potential (out side of the furloughed pilots). However, the feedback so far from yourself and others has been in favor of everyone or no one. I am completely on board with that concept, and using all ~10,500 pilots lowers the dues increase as well.

I like this idea MUCH better than concessions to the company. I could definitely get on board with this depending on the details.

Two things. One, this would have to be an assessment from and for DALPA pilots and not dues run through national. Two, I absolutely agree with the safety net but it should be based on need. The only way I see that being fair is to have the individual in need make the request. We have a furlough support structure and an assessment to fund that seems more appropriate. No interest loans that we may forgive would be my suggestion. Not sure how it all works but at a previous employer that’s how it was handled. My $.02.

Do those previously furloughed also get paid $40k per year furloughed?

When I proposed the same thing most on here said no way. I can tell you from trying to push the same thing on past furloughs it won’t meet with wide approval. In the last furlough my proposal was we assess pilots 4% which matched the yearly raises we were getting with pilots on the street. I would say 25% were onboard to forgo one raise. The rest said let them eat cake.

Soon I'll be furloughed, and I'm looking at a barren desert of a job market with no leads. The safety net described would be life changing for my family. However, I suggest upon recall allow us to either payback this assessment to our peers that lent it to us, our let us pay it forward into a fund or trust for future pilots (like DPMA).

Its a good idea in principal, some thoughts:

what do you say to those pilots who are senior on the list that already went through furloughs with no help and then got shafted in bankruptcy and lost their pension? Those guys were called out for trying to get overweighted retirement improvements in the recent contract discussions (precovid). My position was inline with most mid seniority to junior pilots...Sorry, but to take from the young to fund the senior 15 years later is not a viable solution. Hence it’s a hard argument to say to them, well the shoes on the other foot now, so help me now when I was unwilling to support making said dead zoner retirements whole.

second, many guys might have an issue with people getting 40k while not actually doing anything to earn it. Spitballing, but how about you make it a loan to said furloughed pilots, who when theyAre back on property have an additional dues deduction to repay said funds, say 3% until the ‘loan’ is repaid? This money can go back into a special account, and eventually it gets repaid to the initial pilots who had the additional funds withheld to help the furloughed guys.
not sure about the tax implications...for any of this.

its pretty clear the company doesn’t give a sh!t about these guys, and are willing to sacrifice them on the alter of a contract / work rule reset....so anything we can do to help with in reason should be on the table for discussion.

well said, beat me to it while I was typing....
that damn 240 second thing....I clearly don’t post enough, or are posting too much lately, as it’s the first time that’s happened to me😎

Another out of box idea I thought was interesting, I can’t take credit for it but I heard in crewroom: since so many folks are upset about GSing, maybe we could change IA process (during furlough only) to being a seniority based call out vs inverse seniority. Seems it might make for more palatable relationships between junior and senior folks...???

I've been saying for a long time that the IA step as currently implemented is no longer relevant in today's connectivity environment. There are plenty of times I've been interested in a trip at double pay (IA), but not as a GS (e.g., won't meet the trigger, or there's not enough credit on reserve X days). Just code up ARCOS to let me give three answers to each GS proffer...1. Yes, 2. No to GS but yes as IA, 3. No. With one ARCOS call, the system has already sorted by seniority the GS and (I)A processes. Subsequent to that, they could actually inverse assign anything else.

I’m not at risk of getting furloughed for now, but I’ve been balls deep starting a second career over the last six months knowing that our future is going to be vastly different and that the survival of the company and the industry is in doubt. I’m doing this for my family. I’m doing it for my kids. We have voted to fund medical benefits for our furloughed pilots. I won’t be white or greenslipping anything while guys are out which I would normally.

However, every single one of us knows the risks we take in this business. If a single pilot that is UNA is not actively looking for a new gig/job/skill/business/etc, at this point I don’t feel we need to subsidize them beyond the medical. I don’t expect nor should a single furloughee simply wait to be recalled. Get out there and earn. Don’t wait for a job to find you, go find it. Start a business, go to school. Don’t just sit there and wait. We’ve had six months to get our ducks in a row. There shouldn’t be any excuses if you are of sound mind and faculties.

I might be more receptive if this came down overnight but it hasn’t. Everyone has had ample time to prepare and I’m already sacrificing plenty to help get guys back faster as well as pay for medical coverage.

Good point on the retirement benefits discussion. I fell into the junior but ok with giving them a little extra camp. I had a lot of peers try to convince me otherwise, so I know I was in the minority there. I can see how a senior pilot might be turned off by the idea of giving to help a junior guy who so recently wouldn’t do the same.

To them I would say this is about protecting our profession. I’ve heard too many times how much better the job used to be. The reason for the degradation of our profession in my opinion is negotiating away our contract in crisis with the losses never to be regained. This is a way out of that box.

We as a group are left with a decision:

1) do nothing and see what happens

2) have ALPA do something to help the furloughed. (Cobra is a great idea and I’m glad we voted it in)

3) negotiate with the company to “save the furloughs.”

ALL of those choices have various advantages and disadvantages, and each of us need to consider what we think is the correct way forward.

From what I’ve read/heard most don’t want to do option 1, but if you are in that camp I don’t besmirch you. As stated each option has advantages.

My proposal is an expansion on option 2.

As for option 3. The last time through this ALPA did negotiate, and achieved a “no furloughs” agreement... until the company had other ideas. Meanwhile some of the givebacks have never returned and others only very recently returned. For this reason I’m more in favor of option 2 than option 3.

So far ALPA has done a lot with voting to providing healthcare. Now I say we can look at expanding to financial care. A lot of the feedback has been to structure the benefit as a loan. When drafting the idea, I had considered this but it seemed improper to ask for what some will view as a lifeline back. I do see the advantages of a loan protecting the recipient’s pride and at the same time being more palatable to the “I got through it so will you” crowd.

This kind of was one of the main reasons for starting this thread. To see if there is a way to make this idea agreeable to most of us. Thank you to all who have had constructive feedback.

What’s wrong with trying to make things better rather than having to live through the same BS we did? A pending furlough can be devastating. I’m all for anything that’s helps limit the devastation.

Thats the part I don’t get. Many posters want to make this a big DALPA verses the company issue. The basic truth is the contract provides the company a method to reduce pilot costs. The company is going to get that cost savings. The negotiations are essentially how they get that money. It’s not about if the company will get it. We as pilots have to decide if we require the bottom of the list to provide all the money or we want to spread it out over the entire pilot group. The company is getting the money. Our choice is who it comes from. Being furloughed can be devastating. A 68 hour ALV not so much especially considering it would keep many pilots in a higher paying seat. The contract also provides many ways to circumvent that 68 hour ALV.

If it were that simple sure. We are talking about PWA retrenchment and the future which may or may not include more furloughs or bankruptcy, right? Fighting for survival and all. If they have the savings and there's no question I don't see any reason to amend the PWA.

No reason other than keeping your fellow pilots employed and avoiding the devastation a furlough would mean for many.

That is a company decision. I still don't understand how retaining more staff than needed at any price is a good business decision if survival is the goal. Amending the PWA always permanently changes the landscape.

Its a good business decision for the company because a ALV cut allows them to reduce training substantially and positions the airline to rebound quickly should demand return. That is why in every department except flight ops Delta has instituted the equivalent to ALV cuts to manage staffing.

Which is something Delta has discretion to do with noncons. If they desire that same situation for pilots they would have already implemented other voluntary options to hone down on the cost, but they didn't.

I floated an idea like this to a pilot I was flying with a few months ago. She laughed me out of the room and started saying that she didn't think ALPA should even be paying for our COBRA. "ALPA should not be in the business of taking people's money and redistributing it," was the sentiment and something about it being socialism. I feel like you'd have a lot of that at Delta.

The other thing to think about is, with the next bailout package there is going to be some level of extra Federal assistance. Say 1200 from the Feds and 1600 from the state on average. Would this money disqualify you from those benefits?

In the end everything with the PWA and the company is a cost. It's nothing personal. There is a cost to carrying excess personnel in every business. Can all the jobs be preserved? Yes at a cost and at the expense of something else. The price tag from the company is too high right now. You may be able to argue the cost claimed by the Union is too low. Agree to what that amount is and then let the union internally decide the mechanism of how to achieve it. We get bogged down in conspiracy theories and the mechanisms in place to execute those theories.

With regards to the minimum balance. The majority of the group that would have been eligible had not been furloughed or only encountered a short furlough. The middle seniority group is who had the long furloughs. Since they were junior around 9/11 they did not have much vested in the pension. However, the age 65 hit was big. No movement for furlough plus an additional 5 years of stagnation. Delaying moving to the left seat by 5 years is a massive hit on compounding for retirement when your only vehicle available from the company is a 401. The minimum balance was extremely unpopular in a lot of this group. Much of that group was also caught without reinstatement rights. The biggest issue imo for the furloughee is protecting future seat progression and funding their 401 when there is time for compounding.

I’d kick in 5%.

But:
- I think DALPA and the company are trying to work out something to mitigate furloughs.
- CARES 2 is looking more likely as Trump just threw Senate Republicans under the bus saying he wants a bigger CARES 2.

Thats incorrect. Many employees have been shown the door. Either take this package or leave empty handed. 100’s of positions have been outright eliminated.

I applaud the out of the box thinking on this, but still having a hard time with an employee’s Labor union providing the employee with a paycheck. Or what amounts really to strangers giving furloughed pilots a portion of their pay. Look, we have a lot in common with one another, and we have to work together to collectively improve our work lives, but the truth is, every time I come to work, I’m basically meeting a stranger that I’ve probably never met before. We have lots in common and get along great, but that person doesn’t owe me anything. My job is a relationship between myself and my employer. I try to put myself in the place of a 1st year Delta pilot, and I just don’t think I’d have any expectation for a stranger to reach into his pocket and give me a substantial amount of money each month. Just doesn’t seem real.

I have no dog in this fight and I am not looking to start a conflict but what would be the difference between this and the strike pay assessments that were done in the past?