To me he was saying that we need to all work together to improve our profession and not take acts that do more harm than good.

ALPA has its faults for sure. I don't believe DPA is a better choice.

 

I've been wondering when we'd see you pop up again. Welcome back!

TC call out the troops in response to Kingsley's letter?

In response to your post above, the 2 do not even come close to equating - apples and oranges. The scourge he refers to is DPA, the organization - it is not targeted at any individual.

I've heard him speak multiple times over the last few weeks. He is adamant that no one is to be belittled, insulted, ostracized, etc for having filled out a DPA card. IMO he has exhibited the very spirit of inclusive union leadership in this regard. Like this message board, and any other form of written communication, it is very easy to have your words misconstrued. The "scourge" outrage is misplaced. He has very clearly stated that all Delta pilots are ALPA members and will be treated as such.

 

As an addition to that, I think one needs to remember that so far this is nothing but a website and an idea...a vehicle for a decertification vote and a template for the building of a new union by membership majority decisions. What has caused thousands of members to sign on to a website and an idea?

Now some ALPA folks have said it's because thousands of Delta pilots have bought into lies and misrepresentations. Telling fellow Delta pilots that they're not bright enough to detect lies and misrepresentations is probably not a good way to win hearts and minds. Other ALPA folks claim that the union challenger has almost no members at all outside of one guy still bitter about his furlough. Then why put out a scathing "scourge" letter in response to a small naysayer with no chance of winning?

These inconsistencies will need to be addressed a little better by DALPA if they truly wish to bring clarity to this debate.

Carl

 

+1

Reminds me of my EX girlfriend. Whenever I called her out on being lame she'd get mad at me for being mad at her. Meanwhile, she never corrected her bad behavior. We are no longer dating.

 

That's exactly correct. We haven't just lost pay, but we've given and incredibly we continue to give productivity away. We are light years away from the part time, well compensated career this used to be. 20 percent pay raises considering how much we all work now is just not worth it. Its called a sell out, something the union should have stood firm against. At some point, we could all just fly FAR max, need doctor notes, take 'vacation' on our days off, give up our pensions and accept cola 'raises', all while permitting wholesale outsourcing of our jobs across the entire spectrum of flying... Then why have a union at all? Wait, we're practically there already!

 

Thank you.

Trying to win hearts and minds again are we? And yes, he called me out to come here and remind everyone what bad judgment he showed in his previous emails.

You're missing my point. It has nothing to do with whom or what the "scourge" comment was referencing. The fact he used such hyperbolic language at all shows a lack of ability to control your emotions. It was bad judgment for a leader to exhibit.

I guess that would be like the "fair share" outrage was misplaced with regard to our union describing Delta flying done by our JV partners instead of Delta pilots.

Kingsley would do well to retract his "scourge" comments. It does nothing but harden people's positions. As a leader, he should know better.

Carl

 

I will never forget that the only reason I'm standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky. Stood up when it was hard. Stood up when it wasn't popular. And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.

BARACK OBAMA, speech, Jan. 8, 2008


Many ... are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust that has built up over the years. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith in every country. You more than anyone have the ability to reimagine the world, to remake this world.

BARACK OBAMA, speech, Jun. 4, 2009

Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world. And the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.

BILL CLINTON

Change quote

I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.

LEWIS CARROLL, Alice in Wonderland

If you wish to be happy, think not of what is to come nor of that which you have no control over but rather of the now and of that which you are able to change.

CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI, Brisingr

The most rigid structures, the most impervious to change, will collapse first.

ECKHART TOLLE, A New Earth

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

JOHN STEINBECK, Sweet Thursday

Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.

ALVIN TOFFLER, Future Shock

Every generation gets a chance to change the world
Pity the nation that won't listen to your boys and girls
Cos the sweetest melody is the one we haven't heard

U2, "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"

Nothing’s gonna change my world.

THE BEATLES, Across the Universe

 

You are trying to put words in my mouth. You are attempting to assign fault and blame to someone. ALPA isn't one person it's all of us and it's not the same people it was 10 years ago. There isn't some master plan at ALPA that the new President just picks up and executes. I am trying to say that the basic DPA structure is flawed. They say a vote is coming so I go and look at the constitution and their plan. The constitution is ready to roll, except it's far from perfect and it's in effect day one. There will be interference lawsuits and I fully expect the Teamsters or someone else to show up and they will also want access to the pilots and will file to get access which will cause this to drag out well into 2104. We could easily be in a representational vote during contract openers. Richard Anderson can just use the Doug Parker rule boo and ignore us and make us deal with the NMB and then you have the APA situation again.

I'm not blaming Caplinger I'm assigning ownership to him. There's a big difference. If ALPA chooses to respond to him (I guess they are), then he left them no choice. It's on him. He has to stand up and take the heat for what he's said. He's been running around writing on the walls for the last 3 years and signing his name on the bottom. If ALPA responds then Tim needs to take ownership of what he has done. That's not blame. You are right I am suspect of some of the volunteers they have. I'd probably be suspect of some of ours if they ran around saying we need to clean house and start from scratch as well. Clean house does not say inclusive to me.

When the few ALPA volunteers on here defend their work it's because it is personal and they have a vested interest because they actually did the work. Signing a card and checking the box next to the one thing you hate ALPA for isn't being part of a unified group. The exception here being if you actually attempted to make change happen. After you asked me this last night I went to the other site and read through all the resolutions for the last two years. They all look like issues I've seen on here and they've nearly all passed the MEC. The ones that didn't failed overwhelmingly. Some happen fast and some happen slow. There is clear evidence of resolutions being put in and passed and change happening.

Looking specifically at the Alice in Wonderland RAW bucket resolutions. one makes you bigger and one makes you smaller. The MEC asked for more information, did some polling and basically tabled it because there isn't a clear consensus right now. I agree with Scoop a few pages ago that I'm not seeing a clear cut and definitive problem and that it probably shouldn't be changed right now but we should keep an eye on it and report back.

If you or others are taking the letter from the King personally then you have some identity with the organization except there is no organization. You should have had that with ALPA at some point and if you didn't then why do you have it with the DPA? Did you every defend the work ALPA did for you, ever? ALPA has been under attack before from other unions and other independents like the PPA. The DPA followers are lumped into smaller groups of pilots that have similar issues the biggest of which is the conflict of interest and who doesn't get that one? Every major union in America that represents multiple employee groups is accused of the same thing. State unions that represent police, fire, janitors and security guards have the same concerns but the fact is unions are dying and pooling of assets for a greater good should work.

i started this by trying to hilite that there are significant structure issues with the organization. Look at the MCF arguments he keeps throwing out. The MCF isn't depleted because of just some lawsuits and it's very pertinent on the anniversary of the NWA strike. The MCF payed out $8.5 million to CAL, $10.6 million to UAL, $63.3 million to EAL, $8.4 million to TWA, $3.8 million to UAL, $4.8 million to NWA, $6.1 million to DAL. You want to know where $100,000,000 of MCF dues money went? It went to mainline airlines for them to do business. It's not a missing asset as the DPA claims, it was used to fight the fight.

The American pilots had to come up with $40 million of their own money when they got injunctified by the TX courts. Between the MCF and Kitty Hawk there is no plan in place to replace an asset like those for when we do get sued or there is an injunction. The Captain Jake lawsuit with a bunch of retirees went away a few years ago but it asked to take back every single dollar of note and claim money and redistribute it in a way they felt was right to all the pilots including retired ones. It failed but that kind of lawsuit will come up again as there will always be an angry pilot and a lawyer to take his money. The DPA recognizes this fact because they recruited the DP3 guys into the Retired Pilots Group (RPG) in an effort to get more numbers and more money for the fight. If you read the DPA material they want to spend more contract money on providing retirement benefits. That's a mixed bag at best. There is no restoration in pay if you allocate that money to retiree benefits until they die. That issue alone could take this whole thread. There should be a job for new guys when they get here and guys that retiree should be able to do so.

You are asking me to give you an answer on how to fix all the individuals (each pilot associated with the DPA has a different issue) problems with ALPA and not addressing that there are serious flaws with the DPA plan. A dues increase to 2.25% for Section 6 until such time the event is over without MEMERAT is not an improvement in basic daily business. It's an automatic assessment. Today we get to vote on those. Before you say we can fix the constitution I say how? The constitution building survey is over. One of the often repeated comments in the survey is why did you increase the FPL of reps? Where's the outrage here on the increased FPL? There's still considerable envy of current FPL even though it's no where near the level the new DPA FPL rules are.

ALPA is an evolving organization. It got cold cocked by deregulation and was slow to respond, but it did it with gusto. The Texas Air event was a watershed event and a change in the way the organization worked. It grew into a reactive bloated group in the 90's and then it's turned into a proactive association that has cut and trimmed many expenditures and it shows. It takes time to make this happen and I believe the proactive forward thinking and calling a spade what it is approach from D.C. right now is what ALPA should be doing. The regional vs mainline stuff is sorting itself out as the market has to deal with the inefficiencies. There will either be only one regional or all regionals will be inside their parent group before this is all done. Do you want to force that or let market forces take care of it for you? There are other battles to fight while that natural progression takes place.

No one believes ALPA is perfect. Not even Lee Moak (I'm guessing) but nothing about the DPA breaking the union at Delta, and at United and at JetBlue says to me this is a good idea for the Delta pilots. It says that I'm ****ed at ALPA and want it gone and I'm willing to help anyone and everyone to achieve the destruction of ALPA and not the building of an independent union at Delta. Giving you material to management at JetBlue and the angry United pilots isn't a unifty builder at Delta. It's clearly a conflict in the mission. It's a way to destroy ALPA at any cost. It's a management asset for the next round of negotiations which we are starting in 2014! A split at UAL and DAL while APA/USAPA are down means that we can not pull the Delta Dot back up. I'd get behind an ALPA services company and I'm not sure that's not where they are headed anyway judging by the amount of services provided to other groups right now but that's not what the DPA is advertising.

You want to go down the DPA talking list point by point again? That's fine but there's hundreds of pages here about that already and it doesn't fix the fact that the day one plan for DPA isn't viable for taking over. That should be an issue if you really support a new group. It's supposed to be a better ALPA, better run and better thought out. It isn't. It's time for everyone to use their energy and anger and time spent on here alone (none of you sleep or fly as far as I can tell) and get to work on the evolution of our current member driven association.

 

DOH!!!!!!!!

 

There was a resolution. It was the resolution that removed the term "operational integration" in our merger policy. Unfortunately, I do not have the exact reference at hand, but someone who was at our 2000 BOD meeting might know it.