Originally Posted by Check Essential

I"m just worried about the process.
My point was not to attack anybody personally or question their motives or integrity.
I just think we should all understand that 6 or 8 guys decided this was going to be our contract.
The administration didn't bother with the membership or the elected reps at all.
Management called them in early and offered them a deal and they took it.
Now, after the fact, they're selling it to the reps and membership.

I haven't decided if I will vote for the TA yet but I'm concerned about how it was arrived at.

If the Master Chairman has this much power, maybe in the future he should at least be elected by the pilots. No offense to the individual reps, but as a body they seem pretty much impotent. They are bystanders just like the rest of us.

Originally Posted by rvr350

Now we're just justifying why we aren't worth what we're asking for in the survey. Just a few months ago, many here were touting "Time to get paid, with interest"... It isn't too quick for us to see a few shiny coins in this TA, and stop looking at the long term impact of this TA.

Do you think this TA is only 18 months long? We are gonna have to expand that much negotiating capital to, again, "recapture" everything this TA fails, and guess what, in 18 months, we definitely won't know what kind of environment we'll be in.

Our fight for QOL, pay, and every other improvements are a constant battle. We drop the ball in this one, and we're gonna reap the results in the next TA, the one after that, and so forth. We deserve the 16% raise and much much more.

Originally Posted by Sobchak

I heard the DTW reps were not invited to their own roadshow. You think it'll be a sales job?

Originally Posted by CVG767A

Average reserve at Delta flies 45hrs/month, according to DALPA

Originally Posted by acl65pilot

I have been talking to a few pilots inside the roadshow. I will refrain from commenting until someone that is there comments.

Originally Posted by Check Essential

Did these men get it right?

Lee Moak
Tim O'Malley
Parri Olmstead
Mike Pinho
Rick Dominguez
Roger White
Rich Harwood
Ken Rogers

Let's not kid ourselves. I undoubtedly left a few names off the list but these are the men who wrote this contract. With stunning speed, the whole intricate (and time consuming) "process" was circumvented.

When we cast our vote the question we need to answer is do we trust the judgment of the handful of people who brought us this contract? This is not the contract the pilots wanted and it is not the contract the MEC wanted.
This was done by a very small group of people who decided what they thought was best for Delta Air Lines and the Delta pilots. They largely disregarded the survey, excluded the elected reps and cut a deal. They then used the powerful machinery at their disposal to get it out to membership ratification. The information and communication resources they control are formidable. They overwhelmed our MEC reps with National's lawyers, economists, political types warning about our chances at the NMB, etc. etc. They are doing the same with the pilot group as a whole.

Make no mistake. These are smart guys. Big picture guys. They've been in power a long time. They are not management but they clearly view themselves as managers of the pilot group. They are pilot advocates and they want everything they can get for the pilots but they also see themselves as responsible for the corporation's health. They believe deeply in the philosophy of labor participation in "corporate governance". They place great value on a pilot member of the board of directors. etc. etc.

I haven't seen the survey but it seems obvious that in many areas these people substituted their judgment for the collective wishes of the pilot group and our elected reps.

On the other hand, "Time value of money" is not just a slogan or cliche. It is real. The dysfunctional, anti-labor NMB is also real. These men made a strategic decision to make an end run around the long, torturous, drawn out NMB negotiation and mediation system that has undeniably been broken for the last decade. That may have been a stroke of brilliance and the best thing that ever happened or it may have cost us hundreds of millions. Would the Railway Labor Act have worked for us or slowly smothered us? That's the decision we have to make. Will we really do better by taking that long road?

It's done. Fait accompli. We have a TA. We are going to vote.
We need to decide -- did these men get it right?

Originally Posted by orvil

That's not my problem. The Company selected the fleet. They should manage the fleet. If they want SWA efficiencies, they should simplify the fleet. It's not my job to manage anything other than my airplane.

Originally Posted by Jack Bauer

From today's NNP:



Nice. Additional 1% to start in 2014. Looks like we will all be able to retire early

Originally Posted by Check Essential

I"m just worried about the process.
My point was not to attack anybody personally or question their motives or integrity.
I just think we should all understand that 6 or 8 guys decided this was going to be our contract.
The administration didn't bother with the membership or the elected reps at all.
Management called them in early and offered them a deal and they took it.
Now, after the fact, they're selling it to the reps and membership.

I haven't decided if I will vote for the TA yet but I'm concerned about how it was arrived at.

If the Master Chairman has this much power, maybe in the future he should at least be elected by the pilots. No offense to the individual reps, but as a body they seem pretty much impotent. They are bystanders just like the rest of us.