Originally Posted by Check Essential (Post 1643182)

I understand what the MEC was trying to accomplish. I'm just feeling particularly argumentative today.

I think we sold our Narita scope too cheap. We've been doing that for a long time now. Its my opinion that we've been leaving money on the table with all the recent LOAs and MOUs. I don't think constructive engagement is working anymore. DALPA needs to get more aggressive. Management is outmaneuvering us and playing on our residual fear from the near death experience we had in bankruptcy.

I'm afraid its about to happen again with this 117 negotiation. We have a lot more leverage here than the union wants to acknowledge.
If our union had the will to do so, we could throw a great big handful of sand into the well-oiled Delta machine this summer. Perfectly legally and well within the bounds of the Railway Labor Act. But they won't do it. They'd rather maintain peace and good will toward men and have Richard come to their meetings in "closed session" and whisper some juicy info to them and stroke their egos.

We deserve more money. We deserve a union that will go and get it for us.

Don't misunderstand. I don't want the DPA. I want to keep ALPA. I just want to slap them upside the head and get some fire back into the organization. This "cooperation not confrontation" thing has run its course. Management is eating our lunch.

Originally Posted by Roadkill (Post 1643217)

Sailing,
I've noticed lately that very time you post, you stand up this straw-man argument "massive job loss forum guys said" and then knock it down.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to push this false point--that is NOT what anyone on here ever said, ONLY YOU. What we said has been borne out: REDUCED MANNING NEEDS. We said the contract gave increased productivity that would reduce our manning needs. We said that instead of the company needing to hire "1000" replacements, they would only need to hire "300" (numbers just thrown in by way of illustration, not specifics). We said that rather than hiring the 1 for 1 retirement replacements PLUS the manning for the new airframes, the company would only have to hire some fraction of that amount.

One of the classic failures of logic in debate is when someone builds up a "bogus argument", then falsely claims that argument represents the side of their opponent, then destroys the argument---and claims they've won. Except all they've really done is tear down their OWN bogus and falsely attributed argument: the "Straw Man Argument". It's a sign of intellectual dishonesty and an attempt to fool your audience, always.

You go to such lengths to move the discussion away from the ACTUAL points you're attempting to obfuscate, and to falsely characterize them as something foolish you're able to tear down... I don't understand why.

Why can't you just discuss the costing numbers on their merit? Some of us on here think that the allocations of "# of jobs gained/lost" for various contract changes turn out to not have been accurately costed. Why is that such a threat to you that you constantly attack and attack the concept?

Calculations were made for how many pilot jobs each of these, and others, would gain or lose:
-vacation pay
-reserve full changes
-allowing reserves to be involuntarily used above 70ish, up to ALV+15
-changing 31 day months during peak flying to 30 day months, reducing manning needs by 1/31 for those months

Stating that, without various productivity gains, the company would have had to hire MORE than it now has to hire, and that this reduced hiring IS A LOSS TO US, is a far cry from YOUR bogusly attributed position that "there would be massive job loss and furloughs". Please... it's time for you to stop your every-single-post-spin on this position. Much of the rest of your valuable input and thoughts are poisoned by the clear invalidity of your straw-man argument in this area, and I wish you didn't dilute your position this way.

Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 1643222)

The union costed out all those jobs. They felt the job loss was about 150 jobs. In practice the company has used the same manning assumptions pre and post contract. The number of CA awards backs that up.

Originally Posted by 80ktsClamp (Post 1643205)

Okay guys... I'm trying to figure out where I went stupid on bidding in June.

I asked for:

1. Prefer off June xx, xx, xx, xx
2. Prefer off Sundays, Tuesdays, Saturdays
3. Prefer daily credit > 5:14
4. Award Pairing if length 1 day
5. Award Pairing if length 2 days
6. Award pairing if length 3 days
7. Avoid pairing if pairing length > 4 days.


I didn't get unstacked and it gave me 3 5-days trips while awarding day trips to those junior to me. What gives? It even says "honored" in the reasons report to avoid pairings longer than 4 days, but it obviously didn't honor it.

Originally Posted by iaflyer (Post 1643232)

I looked up your bid. The reason is that at #3 (which is actually Award pairing, not prefer) it awarded 4 pairings that had more than 5:14 and got you in the LCW so PBS didn't even look at 4,5,6, or 7.

Originally Posted by Check Essential (Post 1643182)

I understand what the MEC was trying to accomplish. I'm just feeling particularly argumentative today.

I think we sold our Narita scope too cheap. We've been doing that for a long time now. Its my opinion that we've been leaving money on the table with all the recent LOAs and MOUs. I don't think constructive engagement is working anymore. DALPA needs to get more aggressive. Management is outmaneuvering us and playing on our residual fear from the near death experience we had in bankruptcy.

I'm afraid its about to happen again with this 117 negotiation. We have a lot more leverage here than the union wants to acknowledge.
If our union had the will to do so, we could throw a great big handful of sand into the well-oiled Delta machine this summer. Perfectly legally and well within the bounds of the Railway Labor Act. But they won't do it. They'd rather maintain peace and good will toward men and have Richard come to their meetings in "closed session" and whisper some juicy info to them and stroke their egos.

We deserve more money. We deserve a union that will go and get it for us.

Don't misunderstand. I don't want the DPA. I want to keep ALPA. I just want to slap them upside the head and get some fire back into the organization. This "cooperation not confrontation" thing has run its course. Management is eating our lunch.

Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 1643219)

I am curious how you would say throwing a great big monkey wrench is legal under the RLA. We were found in violation when pilots just refused to fly overtime. The court even acknowledged the union had nothing to do with the lack of overtime flying but ruled the union had a duty to control it's members. Lots of other rulings in the last 15 years. Can you cite one that would allow what your saying?

Originally Posted by 80ktsClamp (Post 1643236)

Ah. So how would i get it to give me trips that are 1-3 days and greater than 5:14 credit?

Did you see the irony of the "honored" on the avoid trips greater than 4 days?