Raptor,

I'm curious. Hypothetically, if you had taken a 42% pay cut 10 years ago and were currently 34% below the buying power you had back then, and your company had fully recovered several years ago and was now making record profits in the billions, would you expect something from ALPA stating an objective of restoring your buying power back to some semblance of what it was, or would you be okay with a generic statement about improving pay (which could be satisfied with a 1% pay increase)?

 

Great flick....

 

Thanks Raptor! Your info sounds like it is right in line with the style of openers we have received here at Delta.

 

I have never heard of anyone with access to the raw survey data or "crunched data" either before or after a TA. We get a very, very general statement from the union that our top issues are, for example, increased pay, no change to vacation, improved retirement, hold the line other benefits, etc. We also are told what the general unratifiable items are such as NO PBS at FedEx. I think we put out the unratifiable positions more because it was a communication data point for the "benefit" of the company.

We have many seniority, union pilots who are in management so any communication the union puts out to the pilots is delivered to the company too. For that reason alone, I don't ever see detailed openers or survey data being provided because it would infringe on the ability of us to negotiate freely. A poker game where one side must expose their cards isn't much of a game.

We receive contract comparison information generally when there is a TA. We benchmark off UPS and the major passenger airlines. So, yes, we are rooting you on in your contract negotiations!

Our pay, at the moment, compares very favorably to everyone. And, since you mentioned the "legacy" contract items, this is a major area where I think we're ahead of most other airlines (or Air Lines as I'm on your thread) as I don't think we work as much as most other carriers, which is an improvement in our QOL. For example, because we line bid, a week of vacation can kill an entire month's work.

FedEx tossed out PBS about half-way though this negotiation process. As you may suspect, this is a contract killer for virtually everyone as it would affect many, many sections of the contract and FedEx isn't transparent with their scheduling process and most of us don't trust them with the keys to PBS. If they stick to that position, we will never have an agreed upon TA. I've heard they wanted to give a 20% first year increase in pay to get this which I estimate would provide them with 30% more efficiency. They could reduce the pilot force by at least 15% which would stagnate everyone. The ripples from PBS for us would be unimaginable so it's a TA killer for everyone.

 

That's pretty funny right there.

 

Disclaimer, no horses were harmed in the destruction of this copy machine.

 

nice ..

 

I can't imagine the pain the process and hits to your livelihood that most all of you have gone through with the bankruptcies. I would be hopping mad at seeing the give-backs that I would have had to make, then seeing executive pay rise and the bonuses they get. The RLA system and bankruptcy process is biased very much against the individual worker/pilot.

That being said, I would think that I would expect only as much as the pilot group would be willing to demand--and I am not in a position to gauge that at Delta. The company wants a 50.001% ratification because any more than that and they think they've given too much. I would think if you've been loud and clear to your union, I would expect as much increase in benefits as you've told them you need--otherwise they couldn't get something ratified? Therefore, you either trust in the leadership you have elected or you don't.

And, that's the crux of what I see in these Delta threads on APC: there at least two major "camps" or "parties" of pilots at Delta. Which is the larger "party" I don't know. And, I don't know if the Delta MEC leadership is a minority or majority "party" in power at the moment?

 

Our MEC chair was our strike prep guy for c2k. He was a pit bull then. Today, his letters don't read pitbullish, but I have to give him a small pass only because he wasn't elected and therefore does not have the political mandate which others either enjoy or at least think they have.

I know he's a solid pro-labor advocate. Without question, that's true. As the strike prep guy, he exhibited strong leadership. That appears blunted currently, but as a somewhat middle of the road (DALPA politics) guy, I feel like he's possibly the best guy we could have for a contract negotiation.

 

I wonder how much the lawyers run the show? Our MEC communications are very "soft" too when many of us would like a stronger public advocacy from our union. But, when I talk to some of the leadership in person, they seem like different people from their published communications. That's why I have to trust that we've got the right people in the job as I have to hope they are pit bulls for the pilot group behind closed doors!