I believe that we do conduct in-depth comparisons every section 6 and its gets released as a contract comparison booklet. I have found these very helpful.

The problem is we (DALPA) seems to take management negotiation statements as facts written in stone, for example:

"There is no more money on the table."
"If you don't sign this (Crappy - Think TA-15) deal the next will be worse."

Well, no crap, what do we expect someone to say in negotiations?

It almost seems as if DALPA is waiting for something like this:

"This is our current offer, if you reject it we will substantially sweeten the pot." :D

There are multiple reasons for this, I will hit two, including the timing of section 6. It seems we were always leading the pack doing the heavy lifting. This is a bummer because we slug it out with management, trade and negotiate for every gain and then UAL and AMR come along and get bumped up without giving up squat. Well this time UAL is up first. Go get em UAL!

Secondly for whatever reason we have an aversion to professional negotiators. I really think we should look very long and closely about changing this policy.

With all that said I voted yes for TA-16, after strongly opposing TA-15 so maybe DALPA is learning.

Scoop

A veteran negotiator once explained: "They bring in a pot of money, but won't reveal how much is inside. Your job is to get all of it, or else they will take the remainder back to the office and split it among themselves." :p

I wonder how many of the porcshe guys hav some delta pilot bud working on their 100k rides?

Yet we hav exactly that going on with a multi million dollar career. Lol!

You got that right, Scoop! I'm looking forward to UAL hopefully finally doing some heavy lifting instead of us for once... Then again, they were one of the reasons why the dues reduction didn't go through at National (including FDX), so maybe I shouldn't get my hopes too high.

btw- I have a full school in October. It's worth 59:53. That is some bullcrap right there.

I thought that you were doing the A330B-to-A320A pseudo-short course? Perhaps I am thinking of someone else? That has a smaller footprint than a full course.

I just finished A320A full course. For October I had 16 days of training worth 38 hours--not great, at 1/31 of the ALV for each designated day of training.

However...in my six day post-training shadow period, I successfully bid two four-day trips worth 42 hours. No complaints there! I will likely fly far less than that completing my OE. Don't forget the shadow period!

I'm pretty sure we already have professional negotiators:

1) A host of full-time non-pilot DALPA and ALPA national labor attorneys that vet and assist in every part of negotiations that also have knowledge and experience of other ALPA airline negotiations. Many of these people have been doing this job for decades.

2) Outside-ALPA legal counsel attorneys that help with negotiations. They are experts in areas like scope, retirement, and sick leave.

3) ALPA national economic and financial analysis subject matter experts that vet and assist in negotiations. They don't fly planes - they analyze and spreadsheet all day. They are truly remarkable experts.

4) 4 full-time elected pilots that get to quarterback the process. They agonize over every detail of the contract with no other distraction or side business or responsibility. (Their counter parts on the company side do labor negotiations in addition to host of other duties.)

5) A 30 or so member board of pilots (MEC) that also guide and direct the process of negotiations.

Are you proposing to dump all 5 parts for a slick set of Philadelphia lawyers that "promise better returns?"

I remember we tried this once with a stock broker company that was going to optimize the sell of our merger stock so we didn't get hosed. These "experts" took our $12 stock and gave it back to us around $4-5 IIRC.

I'm skeptical we could find "professional negotiators" that 14,000+ pilots would like better than status quo.

There is no short course for 330 to 320, only the other way around. The only short courses are B to A or 320B(A) to 330B(A).

My shadow will be entirely in November.

I did not realize that. We could certainly do better on the initial qual pay rules, pre shadow period at least.

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How is it with all this non pilot expertise....who have this undistracted religious affiliation with spreadsheets and financials...particularly in light of the 1996 management default of their pension obligations....miss entirely the burning disaster of alpa pilot pension?

As for stock fails....after the locked up esop 72/share...converted to common...and then passive reaction to its evaporation to nothing.....galactic fail... maybe the pilot experts thought it better to not play stock manipulators a second time.

Amen. Our training pay is among the bottom of the industry.