Originally Posted by gloopy

I do see your point. However I can't fault people for being suspiscious given the track records, the inherent conflict of interest and what isn't said all put together.

That, in and of itself, doesn't "prove" ALPA will do a bad job this time around. But it does warrant significant concern.

If there is a case before the Supreme Court, I don't need to wait for Sotomayor's dissent dissertation to figure out how she is going to rule. Knowing her political tendencies and knowing that she has no problem reverse engineering a decision through ad hoc idealogical "interpretation" to match her pre-existing viewpoints, I (and everyone else) could very easily figure out exactly how she will rule on just about anything, many months before she actually does, and it isn't because anyone has ESP. Because of her track record, conflict of interest and what she says and doesn't say, and her history
of lying to get the appointment in the first place for the sole purpose of being in a position to legislate from the bench to effect social change she personally believes in, I know how she is going to rule and how she will justify it in her written opinion.

ALPA OTOH isn't as 100% clearly defined, and their only current potential alternative doesn't have a long track record either, so its unfair to say that ALPA is 100% wrong 100% of the time. But it is absolutely fair to be guarded and suspiscious of the very institution that has erred very severly, in some cases consistently, in recent history and also has a pre-existing conflict of interest going forward, and that also been unwilling to firmly state what should be obvious; significant contract restoration, SWA plus and at least a very significant degree of outsourcing reversal should be no brainers. And all of that can be stated, quite firmly, far outside the specific confines of any offocial
"contract opener".

SWA plus pay and scope, and an end to the 9-11 emergency bankruptcy interest and principal free decade long loan/gift/sacrifice. Those should be no brainers for ALPA but they aren't. We don't need a survey for that. Especially a survey that can be "interpreted" and double especially a survey we may never get to fully see. But even if we all say pay is number one, neglecting to make scope reversal the first priority is inexcusable. Scope is pay. Scope is retirement. Scope is work rules. Scope is vacation. Not only can Scope not successfuly be sold for any of those
things, the more scope you sell the more you guarantee those other things will be threatened, sooner and more severely, even if they do get a temporary buff at DOS.

So in that respect, it doesn't matter what the survey says because scope reversal must occur for anything else meaningful and sustainable to occur. Likewise, obviously pay will go up, but SWA plus is the floor so even a year out of an official opener, I see no reason why ALPA can't be saying that. SWA+ is the floor for narrowbodies, and obviously widebodies will get more.
SWA rigs and reserve guarantee are the floor. Significant scope reversal is the
floor. Our opener merely reflects our fantasy contract, which will be well above those floors, and we will bargain in good faith to meet in the middle.

ALPA is clearly not doing that. Again, that in and of itself doesn't mean they will fold like a cheap suit, but it gives significant cause for concern that they won't state the obvious for the future given some significant errors of the past as well as an ongoing conflict of interest going forward.

No matter what the opener is, we will be told that is our will and its what the survey said, but we all know how questions are asked can effect the validity of the survey itself, and of course you can't ignore the laws of economical physics like scope. Even if its not high up on the survey, its still the number one issue, by far, because it is every single other issue long term. It should therefore be very easy to state as much. Significant scope reversal and SWA+ are floors, and it shouldn't be considered pre-survey taboo to state something as insanely obvious as that. When its not, we are all right to start questioning motives and intents.

Originally Posted by gloopy

I do see your point. However I can't fault people for being suspiscious given the track records, the inherent conflict of interest and what isn't said all put together.

That, in and of itself, doesn't "prove" ALPA will do a bad job this time around. But it does warrant significant concern.

If there is a case before the Supreme Court, I don't need to wait for Sotomayor's dissent dissertation to figure out how she is going to rule. Knowing her political tendencies and knowing that she has no problem reverse engineering a decision through ad hoc idealogical "interpretation" to match her pre-existing viewpoints, I (and everyone else) could very easily figure out exactly how she will rule on just about anything, many months before she actually does, and it isn't because anyone has ESP. Because of her track record, conflict of interest and what she says and doesn't say, and her history of lying to get the appointment in the first place for the sole purpose of being in a position to legislate from the bench to effect social change she personally believes in, I know how she is going to rule and how she will justify it in her written opinion.

ALPA OTOH isn't as 100% clearly defined, and their only current potential alternative doesn't have a long track record either, so its unfair to say that ALPA is 100% wrong 100% of the time. But it is absolutely fair to be guarded and suspiscious of the very institution that has erred very severly, in some cases consistently, in recent history and also has a pre-existing conflict of interest going forward, and that also been unwilling to firmly state what should be obvious; significant contract restoration, SWA plus and at least a very significant degree of outsourcing reversal should be no brainers. And all of that can be stated, quite firmly, far outside the specific confines of any offocial "contract opener".

SWA plus pay and scope, and an end to the 9-11 emergency bankruptcy interest and principal free decade long loan/gift/sacrifice. Those should be no brainers for ALPA but they aren't. We don't need a survey for that. Especially a survey that can be "interpreted" and double especially a survey we may never get to fully see. But even if we all say pay is number one, neglecting to make scope reversal the first priority is inexcusable. Scope is pay. Scope is retirement. Scope is work rules. Scope is vacation. Not only can Scope not successfuly be sold for any of those things, the more scope you sell the more you guarantee those other things will be threatened, sooner and more severely, even if they do get a temporary buff at DOS.

So in that respect, it doesn't matter what the survey says because scope reversal must occur for anything else meaningful and sustainable to occur. Likewise, obviously pay will go up, but SWA plus is the floor so even a year out of an official opener, I see no reason why ALPA can't be saying that. SWA+ is the floor for narrowbodies, and obviously widebodies will get more. SWA rigs and reserve guarantee are the floor. Significant scope reversal is the floor. Our opener merely reflects our fantasy contract, which will be well above those floors, and we will bargain in good faith to meet in the middle.

ALPA is clearly not doing that. Again, that in and of itself doesn't mean they will fold like a cheap suit, but it gives significant cause for concern that they won't state the obvious for the future given some significant errors of the past as well as an ongoing conflict of interest going forward.

No matter what the opener is, we will be told that is our will and its what the survey said, but we all know how questions are asked can effect the validity of the survey itself, and of course you can't ignore the laws of economical physics like scope. Even if its not high up on the survey, its still the number one issue, by far, because it is every single other issue long term. It should therefore be very easy to state as much. Significant scope reversal and SWA+ are floors, and it shouldn't be considered pre-survey taboo to state something as insanely obvious as that. When its not, we are all right to start questioning motives and intents.

Originally Posted by Dash8widget

Good points - there is a problem though. When you state what your floor is, you are basically stating the minimum you will accept. But that also means that floor is something that you WILL accept. If ALPA publishes something to the pilots stating what our minimum is, then presents the company with a much bigger request, all the company has to do is counter with that previously stated minimum - something that you already said you would accept. By stating in advance what the acceptable minimums are, you significantly weaken your bargaining position.

Originally Posted by Dash8widget

Good points - there is a problem though. When you state what your floor is, you are basically stating the minimum you will accept. But that also means that floor is something that you WILL accept. If ALPA publishes something to the pilots stating what our minimum is, then presents the company with a much bigger request, all the company has to do is counter with that previously stated minimum - something that you already said you would accept. By stating in advance what the acceptable minimums are, you significantly weaken your bargaining position.

Originally Posted by iaflyer

From the sounds of it around here, SWA pay for ours 737, adjusted up/down for size of aircraft, SWA min pay per day, same average days off and reserve guarantee, and scope would be just fine for a contract. Add a 3%-5% per year raise. Sure - that's a pretty good minimum for me.

And as DAL88 pointed out, I don't think DALPA is thinking of that as a minimum. Personally, I think their view of the minimum is 3% raise each year with some fixes to 23K and maybe a few other tiems. They *aren't* going to change much in scheduling - they just did that with the SOT. The only items I bet we'll see are the 5-6 items they couldn't come to a consensus on in the SOT.

Originally Posted by Bill Lumberg

Ask the DALPA guys why the Airtran guys can get Southwest wages, but we can't? I guess they deserve it, and we don't, according to DALPA anyway.

Originally Posted by Dash8widget

Good points - there is a problem though. When you state what your floor is, you are basically stating the minimum you will accept. But that also means that floor is something that you WILL accept. If ALPA publishes something to the pilots stating what our minimum is, then presents the company with a much bigger request, all the company has to do is counter with that previously stated minimum - something that you already said you would accept. By stating in advance what the acceptable minimums are, you significantly weaken your bargaining position.