I'm a little late to this, but I'm not sure that M80 is doing anything but saying, "it could happen to you". It's not a pretty sight to push off the gate in LAX and to see a RAH EMB-170 in MidWest colors sitting where a MidWest 717 sat just months ago. Sends a chill down my spine. I'm sure it will be a EMB-190 before long. If we think it can't happen to us, we have our head in the sand.

MD80, I feel for you guys, and I know that doesn't mean much. My union has turned a deaf ear to this issue for years. There's a higher percentage of us over here that are making noise about this, but no real traction yet with our union. Many of us at Delta have been through a furlough and been out on the street at least one point in time during our career. I hope you can get your feet back on the ground soon and you're able to weather this alright. Best to you and your family during this trying time. My personal apologies that we have been no help to your pilot group.

Frequently, my union doesn't speak for me!

Respectfully,

TC

Thanks for the kind words and do your best to spread the word about this to all Delta pilots.

There are many of us that get it over here. Like Tomcat stated it is getting traction. I personally feel that if we loosen scope anymore, they will be a mutiny.
Many of us, myself included rather be on the street than see scope relaxed or a J4J type deal that puts us at a regional. That does nothing for this profession and is very short sighted.

TC,

Two questions:

1. What exactly should your union have done?
2. What are you doing to make up for your lack of action, as your union doesn't speak for you?

The sad part is that DALPA has given every time the company has asked to my recollection. Until we are able, as a conglomerate of the major's airline pilots, to organize and hold firm, companies will continue to use such dumb provisions like force majeure to force it up our a..es.

If you do the math the cost to restore us to a decent lifestyle is not huge. And no, I will not do math in public. You get what you demand. We've got Lee Moak. I'm all for this warm and fuzzy relationship with the company where you drink koolaid at the big mahogany table; however, there are ways to maintain the relationship and do what our 1.95% demand: protect and improve our lifestyles. Unfortunately airline unions have failed miserably in this respect with exception of Malone and C2K.

Now before you blast me with bankruptcy, high oil prices, weak revenue, the business traveler is gone, bla, bla, bla, there is one point I continue to make when on this subject. Don't EVER negotiate AWAY things. We could have given all the past needed concessions but with a reset date or renegotiation clause built in. ALPA's fault and as they say, our bad, for accepting it. Here's the problem. The industry sucks so we are all real happy to have our current contract, myself included. When the industry picks up, we will be ill prepared, industry wide, to recover what we have lost. The companies will play "but United only pays this, American that, we wont be competitive, etc" well my friends, I want my part of the "synergies" that this merger provided. I want UAL and AA and CO to get them too.

I'm tired of ALPA calling me ignorant (mostly because I really am) when I say I want my dues to "to represent, in both specific and general respects, the collective interests of all pilots in commercial aviation." Hey DALPA guys, you wrote it! Until we get our "collective interest" in line, we will not prevail. My point of all this is that our speaking out on scope has gotten the attention of our reps. Let's prevail on scope, not just maintain, but improve the scope language before it is completely to late. When we take it back, then is the time to move on to other issues with the collective backing of the membership. You ATL FOs, work on your Captains. They play like they know it all but you need to politely improve their knowledge. Do it over dinner and not in the cockpit. They were not going to buy the beer anyway. I'm not talking about the 99% of the ATL guys on this forum who already get it. I'm talking about the sheep that follow the leader down there and is always the largest group of supporters for concessionary agreements.

I love Delta as much as the next guy, but I love her more when she puts out more!

BD

Great post!!

The relationship should not be warm and fuzzy, but rather a professional relationship...where we both need each other.

The funny thing is that during the BK negotiations there was a proposal out there that had us keeping the Pension. Neither side wanted to hear it, so they removed that author of that proposal from the room.

Either way, it is all water under the bridge. We need to look forward.
It is quite simple, the first words out of our mouths should start with, "No."
I agree with what you are saying BD. My point was that there are enough people in the collective pilot group that will not stand for it. I know that Lee may try it, and if he does, there will be more than one individual seeing a recall of the LEC reps to get at the MEC. I hope that the MEC has listened, and taken note of the desires of the pilot. With this information they better negotiate accordingly.

1. Acted like a union and not sold everyone's unity and job protection as "bargaining credits" to offset concessions to a few members retirement and pay packages (and I'm not just talking about D-ALPA). A union's top priority must be unity. Outsourcing is absolute poison to the association.

Worse, what exactly they (we) got for those "bargaining credits" is highly questionable. Frankly, they got nothing.

When resolutions calling for study at the LEC level are responded to at the MEC level with votes of acclimation crushing the action requested by members, what are members to do? The next step is very destructive and truthfully, as an ALPA supporter, I'll blink 10 out of 10 times before stabbing my Rep in the back, or trying to undermine my bargaining agent. The representational relationship has to be based on mutual support to work effectively. So, if our association mows over us, does it benefit us to go nuts and set up USAPA Chapter 2? :eek:

The best we can do is continue to support our association and hope that it finds a moral compass to update its position from.
2. The truth is, his union does legally speak for him, but has forgot it has a representational duty to consider his input and act accordingly. ALPA does not listen. He has done his part.

Your question challenges those of us who want change to seek relief through external mechanisms like decertification, or litigation. Before you corner people with that question, first think about whether the answer is going to be your desired outcome. Your very question is the issue that got the hot heads on the phone to Mike Haber.

MidWest's outsourcing got away from them. There are lessons to be learned here and we should not be so arrogant as to think we have outfoxed management and have nothing to learn from their disaster. They started down this road the same way we did, with voting to amend ALPA's Consitution and Bylaws to remove merger and fragmentation protections by removal of "operational integration" triggers. They piled on during the ASA and Comair push for integration at the 2000 BOD. Now they cry that their operation has been outsourced and they lack the tools to do anything about it. (well duh - they helped break those tools)

Every exemption and permission in our scope weakens it to the point where we can't even be assured of contract compliance. No one seems to be able to prove whether Republic Shuttle is in compliance and ALPA seems to have tried to shift the debate to whether the airplanes are "operated" over the permitted weights when "Certification" is the actual hinge point. I guess no one considered that Certified weights can be changed by Service Bulletin, which in this case is held confidentially in Brazil and by a third party airline management who is EXTREMELY HOSTILE TO ALPA. I'm not even sure our association's contractual right to inspect documents extends to a third party that is not a signatory to our agreement. Would Bryan Bedford lie to ALPA? Absolutely - he would get great pleasure sticking it to us and taking our flying.

Oh, by the way, that's the same "bad" guy who operating MidWest's outsourcing.

You are correct.

Correct again. There is nothing sadder than a former MEC Chairman that loses his position. They don't understand why there are no more invitations to Super Bowls and World Series games. They walk around babbling: "I thought we were friends...I thought they really liked me...now they don't even call!"

I take that back, there is something sadder - a membership that lets this continue.

Exactly.

No you ain't!

Can't be said any better than that.

http://emonizer.googlepages.com/smiley_beer.gif

Carl