Originally Posted by satchip

Alfa (great car BTW), I have generally agreed with LM and his approach to union/management relations. As a student of history/economics/politics for the last 20 or so years I see where militant unionism has led.

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Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Militant unionism has its place.

Over the long term, carefully considered, professional and objective leadership nets better results. No workers make much money at an insolvent employer.

You can play the crazy card every once in a while, but you've got to be very careful with that in this business environment. You have to be sure that the other party at the table isn't more crazy and that the net result doesn't harm both sides.

Originally Posted by newKnow

Carl,

I don't have any brand loyalty to anyone or anything and I think it's been working out crappy for all of us for about 8 years. But, I wonder if we as pilots would be more effective as part of a larger group. If your beef with ALPA someting that can't be cured by amending the constitution and by laws and a new (and I mean really new) leadership?

Don't get me wrong, I do not defend ALPA in it's current state to anyone. But, it does provide a framework to work with that will take years to reproduce.

This forum is a great place to have this discussion and I'm interested in hearing what you think.

My opening thought is that bigger is better, and if somehow we could really get the DAL, AMR, UAL, CAL, & US Air pilots to work together, it would be better for us all. Too "hopey, changie" for you? Maybe. But, every great cause begins with someone saying, "what if?" I think we can come up with a few of those.

New K Now

Originally Posted by alfaromeo

Carl that is just not true. There was a very large expense to bring NWA up to the Delta contract. Don't you remember all the whining you did about Letter 19? Don't you remember Dave Stevens whining in Congress about a B-Scale? Don't you remember all that? If the contracts were equal, then why were you guys crying?

Originally Posted by alfaromeo

Okay, and I have known and worked with Lee off an on for almost 20 years. The problem is that people have made this issue hyper-emotional and when that happens they lose perspective. So at least if we are going to deal with the issue, let's deal with facts and not fables.

Lee is very careful about what he says and he would never say ever that he thinks it's good for Delta pilots to have DCI pilots make low wages. First, that statement makes no sense, second he does not believe that. So let's at least put that legend to rest.

What action do you want? You are a single issue person and are somewhat obsessed with this topic. Guess what, there are many other issues to deal with now. Do you really want to open up the contract right now and start talking about big issues? Is this really a good time for that?

While it is easy to pop off on a web board about some issue, it is much tougher to actually accomplish the task. Maybe you could just take a bigger view sometime and think about the multitude of emergency procedures that we have been dealing with in the last five years. In case you forgot, Delta was pretty close to being left for dead in early 2006. We are just 3 years beyond that and are now with the largest airline in the world and hooked up with Air France/KLM in a joint venture. Oh yeah, did I forget that we fought off a hostile takeover that would have cut our pilot force by a one third.

That in itself is better job protection than you can ever write into a contract. Rather than sit back and watch this change happen to us, DALPA has been at the forefront of managing this change and has gotten important contractual advancements at the same time. I am sorry but if you can't see the actions that were required to pull that off then it is pretty pointless arguing with you.

So I see a storm of a handful of people complaining of web boards about how other people are not working hard enough for them, but that is not a mass effort. Your basic problem is that want simple solutions to complicated problems and you want it now. My question back to you is what are you doing about this other than complaining on web boards. Why don't you go to your local representative and find out what you can do for your union. You would be surprised at the amount of work that needs to be done. It takes more time than banging on the keyboard but you might actually accomplish somethng rather than complaining about others.

Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

The success of UPS and Southwest's unions are templates for us. A large strong union whose efforts and dues money are TOTALLY focused on what is best for Delta Air Lines' pilots.