Nice looking bid. They even hinted that they might backfill some 7ER F/O's.

 

PMFJI your victory dance, but this is hardly holding the company's feet to the fire. As you stated, this is contractual. It is a section of the PWA that is black and white. Even DALPA would've won a grievance here. If it was in the company's best interest to thumb their nose at this particular contract section and have DALPA "fly now and grieve later," they WOULD have. The company chose to take the hit now but it was because they believed it was in THEIR best interest to do so. You obviously want to make the case that DALPA stood up to the bully and punched him in the nose, but that's just not what happened.

Do you honestly think DALPA forced management's hand here? Please tell me what leverage they used? Did they threaten to boycott the next management birthday party? Threaten to inflate the rat in front of the G.O.? I'm being sarcastic here, but really, what threat could or did DALPA make to ensure compliance with the contract?

A "win" against the company in a contractual dispute over areas of our contract where terms such as "normally," "good faith," "reasonably," "reasonable," "best efforts," etc...make the language therein virtually useless, THAT, my friend, would be a meaningful win.

The early conversions that the company agreed to in this circumstance are simply low hanging fruit, so low that even DALPA could "win" it.

And as far as your assertion of DALPA not lifting the company out of a hole they dug, have you forgotten about the PRPs/ROPES?

 

I have been told numerous times by Dalpa that the company cannot feasibly operate at our contractual mins. Now they are operating below the mins in some categories without canceling any flights yet.
It seems our assessment might not be correct.

 

There is no "victory dance" asserted on my part here--nor did DALPA "win" anything, except perhaps to have the foresight in negotiations--which contrary to the keyboard commando mentality, actually require a lot of work and research on the part of many people--to require a documentable and unimpeachable min PBS staffing formula.

As for the PRP/ROPE issue, I'm not sure what your problem is. All PRPs were put at the bottom of their respective category, and we only agreed to the program in the first place to prevent the company from absolutely melting down due to the snowball effect of massive simultaneous early retirements. In fact that is exactly why I respect our DALPA leadership. They actually made a tough call (again, something never required of posters in forum-land) and ensured that there were a lot of protections in place to prevent the lesser of two evils from being anything other than what it was, which was a stopgap truly emergency procedure in an unprecedented and almost assuredly never-to-be-repeated scenario.

In any case that was 8 years ago. I prefer to focus on the present, while learning from the past. I hate to tell this to you, but if we had a crystal ball, I am certain that on that one issue at least (but perhaps not others) ALPA did the absolute right thing and in fact would do it again (not so much for LOA 51).

 

Give him his celebration. When our union actually stands up to the company to abide by a part of the contract without negotiating an alternative solution that's a victory. Kind of like when I expect kudos from my captain for putting the gear handle in the down position.

 

You mean like stopping "Good Faith" calls? Or getting guys their jobs back? Or getting guys $$$ when their contractual rights are violated?

 

I think that is a 2nd hand misquote. What was said is we can train 700-800 organically with a surge capability above that.

600 per yr is a nice steady clip. Don't jinx it.

 

Did the good faith calls stop?

 

They have been reduced dramatically. I can't say with certainty that they've ceased. But I wouldn't expect them to.

 

I must of missed that DALPA humblebrag telling me the company is no longer allowed to make "Good Faith" calls.