Originally Posted by fly2002

Hi tsquare,
I'll try to respond as best as I can. I agree almost entirely with the first part of your post. There are a lot of factors working against the piloting profession, but falling for the same tricks again and again is intolerable. Simply put, negotiating further scope erosion given our current financial climate would be extremely short sighted. In fact a disaster. Delta has, in it's 80+ year history never made more money, and during this time we sell more delta pilot jobs?

I've been an ALPA negotiator myself and have a little over 2 years experience on ALPA's board of directors. From my vantage point,as an outsider of course, it looks like the negotiating committee is being out maneuvered rhetorically. Ill try my best to explain. The company is presenting a very smart proposal on their end. Their smart enough to realize that they can use short term greed to get what they want in the end. They have a master plan and our negotiators SHOULD have known what they were after.

Its like chess....you look multiple moves down the road and your thinking of what your opponent will do.....you already know your own reaction to what their move will be. Their goal is to outsource everything under the sun and have low pilot pay. So ask yourself....how would you do that if you were the manager?

If I was on the other side of the table I would offer a pay raise and a small scope concession. Offer a good raise! Cloud their judgement. I need to get as close as I can on scope to those Boeing 737's and A-320's. I'll sell them on the "ratio" factor for now....I'll use the numbers to lie and mask my true intentions. They'll also feel like good employees for "helping" me get rid of those pesky 50 seaters. What those pilots don't realize is that they've sold, yet again something that they'll never have the power to recapture...scope...their own jobs. In turn I've given them something that blows like the wind.....a pay rate. Unlike the pilots, I'm looking 15-20 years down the road. These chumps are just looking at the next 5 years tops! Once things go south financially in 2018 I can take back that pay rate and I will have achieved everything I wanted. In fact what I'm really after is their queen.....those 737's and A320's. Once I have that it will represent over 80% of the total airline. It's only a matter of time until checkmate. Times become tough....I simply lock out the 777 pilots who are too small in number to defend themselves and I hire easy replacements =Checkmate

Tsquare....I'm long winded but that's what our negotiators should have seen sitting down at the table. In fact they should be smart enough to realize the exact opposite is what we need. Scope has to come first. No scope no power. If ALPA was truly interested in restoring pay they would realize that scope has to come first, but they've created their own monster because now they can't do that. IE dual representation conflict and now mainline pilots that want instant gratification. What would the pilots say to no raises for 10 years because we have to undo all off your past screw ups? Wouldn't go well for the representation.

Ok t square. There it is.

Originally Posted by acl65pilot

Ok Bar now add this in with code share, JV, holding company and transnational protection that we currently do not have and indicated we wanted in the opener. Add a hard cap on the number of DCI jets. Not sure where 315 comes from but lets say that is the hard cap. That cuts DCI by 50%. How does that whole section one sit with you, even if they tie 76 set flying to mainline block hrs and 70 seat(actually66) are effectively a giveme but part of the total hull count?

I am just curious.

Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

No, actually it was just a meeting wondering how it is that a LCA could show such poor judgment as to post the following regarding fNWA pilots:



Shameful post from a clueless author.

Carl

Originally Posted by tsquare

I figured you would take it out of context.. and read something into it that was totally not there nor intended. And you know it, you are just looking for a fight.

Originally Posted by Jack Bauer

OK donning my tin foil conspiracy cap for this but it is an honest question. Who tallies the votes on these contracts? Is there an independent real time audit to make sure there is no "tom foolry" if you know what I mean? Can we get some non ALPA contract selling guys in to verify the numbers when this does come to a vote? Some of these votes in the past...everybody "voted no" and it passed. I hate to ask this but for piece of mind how does the process work? How can we "trust but VERIFY"?

Originally Posted by buzzpat

Aha! Just figured it out. T, are you and Carl married?

Originally Posted by tsquare

I figured you would take it out of context.. and read something into it that was totally not there nor intended. And you know it, you are just looking for a fight.

Originally Posted by Express pilot

Glad we have some NWA guys to vote with us this time around.

Originally Posted by tsquare

So you are assuming that they will blindly vote no.. and that is somehow a good thing? Really? Wow, they must be dumber than I thought.

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Contract 2000 contained limits which were designed to be economic inducements to operate mainline jets:

• Limit planned Delta Connection Block hours as a percentage of System Block Hours.
  
• Limiting stage length
• Limiting hub bypass flying
• Limit flying between hubs
• (and no domestic code share, btw)

I've got to re check some old notes on another computer, but my recall is that the block hour limits were re-set within six months of the ratification of contract 2000. By the time serious concessionary negotiations were happening in 2003 - 2004, those limits were already gone by mutual consent.

The point being, you and I and the Company all have the same economic interest in seeing the Golden Goose live another day. Choking off the Goose's feed when times are rough hurts us as bad (or worse) than it does the Company.

Therefore - we should not build scope limits that will fail under economic duress, because that is precisely when we need these job protection provisions.

Based on economic fact, my argument is that we are foolish to accept the growth of the mainline fleet if more efficient new aircraft are allowed to be outsourced. In any event that causes contraction (plague, terrorism, merger, oil shock, war, etc ...) the economic force will strongly incentive the parking of the mainline fleet while maintaining the smaller, more efficient, capacity that has been outsourced.

The best, and only safe, scope is Delta pilots perform Delta flying, irregardless of the size of the airplane. Any divide what so ever is a flaw, a weak point, the point where the thing will fail to serve its intended purpose of providing job protection and career growth for Delta pilots.

Originally Posted by tsquare

Who tallies the votes on your contention that there are 40% of the DAL pilots that would prefer the donuts? How many of those 40% are ACTIVE?