Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 1681851)

If you want to go down that road believing that we will get 100% of what we demand, and the company gets 0%, well I can't help you other than to say you need to live in the real world.

Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver (Post 1681805)

I don't know anybody (including myself) who wants to "burn the house down." That's a straw man and you know it (or should know it).

There are no easy answers. Anything significant, challenging, and worthwhile in life takes a lot of hard work and takes some time. Generally, it works better if you get started on a major objective ASAP rather than putting it off, say, 10 years. :rolleyes:

Where do we go from here?

We set the objective and develop a plan to achieve it. As I see it, that STARTS with making our objective known to our own pilot group and to management. Expectations need to be set that are quite different than the expectations we've set over the past decade. Otherwise, all we're going to see is more of the same.

I'm sure that's not enough detail for you. Sorry, I'm not a strategic planning expert. But I do know pretty much what restoration would look like for us and what it looks like when someone is trying (or not trying) to achieve it.

Do we set the objective to restore our profession and what's left of our careers?

Absolutely yes! And make it clear to all concerned parties.


That's why we needed to get started several years ago. But if you want to throw in the towel now, I guess you're just as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine.

Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver (Post 1681857)

Why do you keep saying that? NOBODY is saying we'll get 100% (or even that we should "demand" that) and the company gets nothing. NOBODY.

The point you keep conveniently ignoring is the point I made in a post yesterday. The company got a TON and we gave up a TON just prior to and during bankruptcy. On the ledger of give and take, the company has done a ton of taking and we've done a ton of giving. The ledger is WAY out of balance. I'm suggesting that our objective should be to bring that ledger at least closer to in balance. Given the reality of where we are, that's going to require a lot of taking on our part and a lot of giving on the part of the company. Can't get around the mathematical reality of it.

Sure. It will take some give and take, just like it does in any negotiation. But it's going to have to strongly favor us in order to bring it back into balance. Unless our objective is to accept the out of balance condition as the new norm. Then your argument makes sense.

Originally Posted by hockeypilot44 (Post 1681724)

I'll bet survey participation is even lower this time. There are many pilots like myself who will never fill out one again. Why? I feel our union ignored the last survey and did what they thought was best for us. They came up woefully short on pay. Sold large rj scope, profit sharing, and work rules to get those small raises. I am voting no for next contract without even looking at it. I know it will be no where near my expectations. I learned that last contract.

Originally Posted by hockeypilot44 (Post 1681724)

I'll bet survey participation is even lower this time. There are many pilots like myself who will never fill out one again. Why? I feel our union ignored the last survey and did what they thought was best for us. They came up woefully short on pay. Sold large rj scope, profit sharing, and work rules to get those small raises. I am voting no for next contract without even looking at it. I know it will be no where near my expectations. I learned that last contract.

Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 1681851)

I'll use the term "straw man" here. I am pretty sure that no one put 4-8-3-3 on their survey. Of course 50+ percent looked at the whole package, and decided that it was good enough to vote yes on. So here we go again with the continuation of your straw man. If you want everybody to vote on a 35% pay increase, then that should be the only question on the survey. If you want to go down that road believing that we will get 100% of what we demand, and the company gets 0%, well I can't help you other than to say you need to live in the real world. You are not even going to get 12,000 pilots to agree on what's the most important, ref: my question to M88 about how you get there. Come up with a tactic other than billboards, mission statements and threats.

Originally Posted by DAL 88 Driver (Post 1681797)

Not quite right. It's possible. I've made it clear what that would take. However, I tend to agree with you that it's not possible with DALPA. That would require a major change in mindset (as demonstrated by your post) and, well, I just don't see that happening.

Originally Posted by DALMD88FO (Post 1681774)

I talked to some SLC reps while on a productivity sit in SLC. They had their power point up and running about the state of the union. What I walked away with is that they, meaning DALPA, is going to try and avoid protracted negotiations because our financial people are speculating that there is going to be a down turn in either 2016 or 2017.

They also pointed out that we are top of the food chain in relation to our peers in the industry, so we need to figure out how to get more money in our pockets without huge pay rate jumps because the company won't have us that much more than the other airlines. This, however, becomes a catch 22 because any kind of pay increase in certain other areas (I said we could adopt the DOD travel per diem rates which would be a huge increase for some cities)would not be entertained because the company would have to give it to the flight attendants. So does anyone have some better ideas?

Mine were:
1. DOD per diem rates
2. Definitely increase training pay.
3. Increase vacation pay
4. Increase number of vacation weeks
5. Have trip drops, with pay, for touching vacations like the old contract
6. Increase retirement contribution

I know the company likes to talk about our peers in the industry, however to date it is my belief that Delta does not have a peer. Because of how we went about our merger compared to UCON and AA/USA/AWA, we are at a competitive advantage and at least a few years ahead of the competition. I know the bean counters on Wall street don't like to look at it that way but that is the truth of the matter.

I do know this, I will vote no to any contract which has me partially financing my own pay raises by giving something up that we negotiated and paid for in previous contracts. (Im talking about profit sharing). We negotiated it, the company gave it to the other employee groups, then when the check started becoming really big they needed to get it back from the other groups but needed us to give it up first. Sorry that piggy bank is now closed.