If I can substitute "sales-job" for "lies", I agree with your post. I'm always amazed at the quasi-religious fervor that comes into play after a TA, any TA (and nowadays, it's two opposite camps). On the sell side, it's like people brought a child into the world, and only want to believe it's beautiful. On the discredit side, they wanted an abortion all along, now they demand a mercy killing, and an immediate apology.

At any rate, most of the guys pushing don't seem to be lying, because they actually believe.

No. He means the 2012 contract comparison that purposely minimizes SWA pilot compensation so as to make management's case that we should only be offered minimal gains. He means the 2012 contract comparison that omitted the compensation of our foreign JV competitors, and said you couldn't give out that information because their unions asked you not to. This despite the fact that I found it online and posted it. That's the 2012 contract comparison we mean.

Post that memo please.

Precisely. As seen by many of us and specifically stated by 5 reps at the time.

Carl

That's a very interesting take.

But what is your view on why our own union would go to such galactic lengths to show heavily skewed data for the sole purpose of making management's case that we should only expect minimal gains? What union would do that? I totally get why management would do it, but why our own union? We had absolutely no advocate on our side of the table. We had note takers that simply communicated to us what management was willing to do...and not do.

Carl

We definetly need a new negotiating commitee to start. I was quite surprised by the makeup of the group to start with.

I get the question, although part of your premise is flawed. I am certain the average union guy is absolutely repesenting us, plus or minus a few scumbags that switch sides here and there, and represent only themselves.

As to why people go to absurd lengths defending TA's, or the union, I wonder about them the same way I wonder about the guys trying at all cost to slam the union, or a TA. There isn't a straw so small that they aren't willing to grasp at it, or too big that the other side is trying to sweep under the rug.

The only rational explanation to this behavior, in my mind, is power struggles. A lot of guys, ALPA or DPA, pro or anti-TA, sometimes N or S, are just in it for their side to prevail against another side. The more I observe, the more I think people get backed into an ideology, a little bit like what's happening in our national political scene, but without any press coverage. I don't think it's about the best outcome, or the pilot group, or the profession, but about the guys trying to steer something their way, get their cronies in, and the other guys' cronies out, and get changes effected, like the retirement age.

As for the rest of us that would just like good governance, and reform... we're just the inconsequential casualties in the quest for a lower ideal.

So if nothing great and stupendous materializes before the end of 2015, you think DALPA will try and sell us another subpar contract? Hopefully this group(Dal Pilots) will be a lot more critical next time.

I found out a long time ago that if you step up and actually do something to improve pilots' lives, rather than just writing about it on a webboard, that you will subject yourself to this type of personal attack. I am so used to it by now that it just rolls off me like water on the windshield.

If you ever decide to get off your butt and actually do something, then you will find out that solutions are never as easy as they seem. It is ironic that the same people that go ballistic on this forum over the "FLY" button on the Delta safety video, then act as if there is a "GET MORE" button at the union office, and the only thing we need to do is push that button and money will flow like the Mississippi in April.

If it were that easy then someone at American, or United, or Continental, or Southwest, or US Airways would have pressed that button a long time ago. Remember American took 6 years and they never found that button, Airtran 7 years, United 3 years, Continental 4 years. Why oh why did they not push that button? Is it just that Carl, and TOGA, and Purple knew where the button was and didn't tell them, or is it because that button does not exist.

I think you can tell that the button does not exist. There is only one thing. Work. Grinding, difficult, stressful work. Of course you don't know that because you have never done it, instead you choose to denigrate those that work on your behalf. But hey, we have a free country so you can say what you want. I just ask all the readers to decide which theory is more plausible; is there some magic button to push or is there just a series of extremely difficult problems to solve and solving them is neither easy nor free of problems. You decide.

The fact is that our deal was the trigger that broke the entire industry out of the bankruptcy era. United followed us. American is directly hanging onto our coattails. US Airways is just along for the ride with American. Without our deal, we are stuck for years and years in stasis.

So launch away with your attacks it makes no difference to me. I know what I did, I know what our team accomplished, I know what it meant to the industry. Almost every negotiator, professional and pilot alike, has expressed their gratitude to the Delta MEC for breaking out of the logjam. I value their opinions over the webboard guys any day.

So I am now much happier that I have peeled off those layers of responsibility layers that affected me both at work and at home for too many years. I feel no remorse because I gave my time, now it is someone else's turn. In the most difficult times I always relied on this quote from Winston Churchill:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

So I have stumbled, I have fallen short, I have dared and lost, I admit to all those failings. But I was there, fighting the best fight I could and others were sitting on the sidelines carping and crying and complaining. If that makes you feel superior then go ahead. I don't see it that way. I have a camaraderie with those guys that I fought with that will last my lifetime. Those are just as important to me as the monetary gains that we achieved. I only wish for you that you can get off this mountain of bitterness that you have built for yourself and get involved in some positive action to better the lives of those around you. You seem to be a particularly unhappy and bitter person. Your attacks mean nothing to me as you aren't in the arena, you aren't fighting the fight, you are just a brick thrower.

I hope that didn't bamboozle you.

Where was the JFK-GEO cancellation published? Can't say I'll miss that 1230am departure. Especially after sitting SC for 15 hours before reporting for the flight.

I thought after getting roughed up during bankruptcy that our pilot
group would have grown a pair. I was shocked to see scope loosened, work rules not addressed, pay adjusted by the smallest amount and hear pilots sound scared if we turned down the first offer. Our union pushed the TA like nothing I've ever seen before.

I'll never understand why the survey results were never published to the pilots. I truly hope that some day our pilots get upset over the set backs we've lived thru.

Minimal gains.
Carl's pay rate premerger 178 per hour.
Carl's payrate on 1 Jan 14. 262 per hour plus 39 per hour DC.
Total new rate 301 per hour.