The President should not authorize negotiations which are not conducted in accordance with the Admin Manual and which violate the Constitution and Bylaws of our union. Further the President should not ratify such an agreement.No change is necessary. That language already exists in the Admin Manual and Constitution. If they ignored this language, what good would changing the language do? Some are now calling for the REMOVAL of the requirements as the suggested fix.

Problem: A guy keeps driving at 80 miles per hour through the School Zone. He did it in 2007 and no one saw him. He did it again yesterday and the cop did not write him a ticket. Rumor is the cop is buddies with the speeder.

Solution: Raise the speed limit to 80 in the school zone ?

(Bucking Bar's solution) Ticket the guy and fire the cop if the cop will not perform his duties as an Officer.

No one thinks otherwise. When are we not being manipulated, especially at the small jet operators? However, we had zero leverage to bargain with. I have no doubt what the result would have been had we voted no. Lesser of the two evils...

That is incorrect. CMR LOA 01-07 contained fleet commitments from Delta. The signature blocks were Comair, Delta, ALPA and the CMR MEC.

In that agreement Delta made similar fleet commitments and agreed that Delta "shall be bound by all paragraphs in this LOA in the same manner as Comair so that every reference to Comair and its commitments in this LOA also expressly binds Delta."

... and the speeder got by the cop ... means nothing other than he did not get caught.

You raise another interesting factoid, that while we were being told we could not bind Republic Holdings, the same counsel wrote the agreement to bind Delta and any successors to Delta even in the event of a change in control. .... Oh... aren't we just rotten to the core when it comes to outsourcing?

I agree that some "straight forward accounting" is in order and I suspect that will happen in February, but until then, some critical evaluation is possible and we should turn to the source documents rather than web forum banter as we examine the issues.

Delta pilot contract

Section 1. A. Recognition

"In accordance with the certification issued by the National Mediation Board in Case No. R-7191, 36 NMB No. 21, January 22, 2009, the Company recognizes the Air Line Pilots Association, International, as the duly designated and authorized representative of the Flight Deck Crewmembers in the service of the Company for the purposes of the Railway Labor Act, as amended."

The Delta pilots are in the service of Delta Air Lines for the purposes of the RLA, not the Pinnacle pilots. The Pinnacle agreement is not a part of the Delta pilot contract, nor does it supersede the Delta pilot contract.

ALPA C&BLs

Article IV Section 2

"A. The Master Executive Council shall function as a coordinating Council for the membership on that airline. Its activities shall be proportionate to and in accordance with the demands made upon it by the Local Councils. All normal or routine local Association business shall, however, be conducted by the individual Local Councils."

The Delta MEC is the coordinating Council for the membership at Delta, not at Pinnacle.

And yes, the meet and confer language is weak in the admin manual. From a strategic stand point, do we want to strengthen it? Do we want other pilot groups involved in our negotiations in the future?

You are mixing apples and oranges again. If RAH agreed to be bound by a contract, then they would be bound by a contract, just like Delta. The RAH issue wasn't about pilot contracts, it was about the definition of an air carrier and US code.

BTW, the Pinnacle agreement doesn't increase outsourcing, if that's a point you are trying to make. It may, in the long run make the reduction of outsourcing easier in the future, particularly if they become WO, like CMR.

Individual pilots aren't guaranteed to be hired but they are required to own a certain % of slots each month.

I would argue Pinnacle pilots are in the service of Delta. Who do believe them to be in the service of?

Further, the "meet and confer" language is how ALPA resolves conflicts of interest internally. Who would you rather have resolve those issues, than us?

How can we coordinate if there is no duty to tell other pilots what is being negotiated with their management? It is particularly important when the negotiations involve things which you would not want to share without the Admin Manual compelling such action.

Absolutely not, but they already are. It's an outrage that the mainline carrier has to meet and confer with the DCI carrier when we negotiate a TA, but that is exactly what we did last time. That the favor was not returned this time, is an insult in addition to an outrage. Actually, I use the term favor, but I really mean obligation. So no, I don't want to strengthen the meet and confer clause, I want to kill it. And here, it just tried to commit suicide essentially, and I just wanted to give it a nice little shove, to let it finish the job it's already started.

Again, the clause has revealed itself as a farce, and so there needs to be consequences. I only see two logical courses of action: either the clause should have been followed and we need a remedy for the transgression, or the clause does not apply, and it needs to be removed.

Did I mention I don't like the meet and confer clause?

True, I guess they could interview them all and hire zero and still be legal? It says "(3) a commitment by Delta to hire a minimum number of Pinnacle pilots" - and then further down lists the numbers that will be hired. So they would either have to exhaust the list the first month....tough to interview that many. Or some of them will be gaurenteed employment each month until that occurs. I don't ever have a problem with preferential interviews, but am not a fan of forced hiring in any industry.