I hear your point loud and clear, as you've made it once or twice :D

Have you done the 4 items I listed in the previous post?

I just knocked out the Calls to Action in less than a minute.

Here it is again since we're on a new page:
ALPA On the Issues

I might well agree that there are different ideas among the pilot group about what we can achieve, but I do not agree that there are differences about what we should achieve.

In any case, would you agree that the more we work together in ways suggested by LeineLodge, the more we will achieve?

I've done the survey and the "call to actions."

I can't say that I "regularly" engage my reps because frankly I find that a total waste of my time and theirs. For the most part, they are just going to disregard anything I have to say anyway. I did send them my input for C2015. I also engaged them back in January on the new FAR 117 requirement for clarification on the 8 hour uninterrupted sleep opportunity. (They blew that one big time.) I engaged them on the CDO issue with the FAR 117 TA. And I sent them my input that Lee Moak needed to be recalled after he totally bungled the Bloomberg/Business Week interview and did irreparable harm to our negotiating position for C2015. Of course, most of that basically fell on deaf ears... so why again am I engaging these reps?

As to ALPA PAC... sorry, but I'm not sending money to support any aspect of an organization that doesn't have at its core the objective to restore our profession and our careers back to some semblance of what we all reasonably expected when we got into this profession. And I also don't like the idea that ANY of my money would go to support politics that I think is ultimately damaging to this country.

Well done.

From which they will derive our opener. Again, well done.

Not sure what you're referring to here.

And they clearly listened and agreed.

Out of the four specific issues on which you recently engaged, I count one agreement, one disagreement, one unsure (at least one my part), and one hasn't happened yet. The fact that they don't always agree with you does not mean "deaf ears."

Two issues here. One is whether the objective is high enough and the other is whether there is sometimes a conflict between what is good for our profession and our country.

It seems to me that, regardless of how our reps are aiming, the more we help, the more they will achieve. As such, regardless of whether we believe that they are doing enough, we can only help ourselves by helping them achieve more.

I have no answer for the dilemma that what is good for our profession in isolation may be bad for the country as a whole, or that those politicians who would be willing to help our profession have ideas on other issues with which we disagree. Ultimately, I guess that's a personal decision.

I will say, though, that there seems to be less and less alignment among those who support us regarding their positions on other issues. As such, the money we spend on them, D and R alike, gets ALPA their ear on issues important to pilots, and that can never be a bad thing, unless you disagree with ALPA on those positions.

2.5 out of 4 ain't bad :D

Believe it or not, my personal viewpoint is not very far off from what you continuously advocate for. I do disagree on how to get there, and prefer our method of realizing gains wherever we find them, rather than going all-in or bust. That said...

To me, constructive engagement includes remaining relevant to the conversation, so we have a seat at the table when the pie is being chopped up. I also think we have been at the table long enough that it creates leverage (to get closer to where you/we want) if we were to say that this time we would like more pie or we may have to excuse ourselves from this lovely dinner.

Our current leverage lies in the fact that Anderson is trading, in part, on our "labor peace." To me, that is a beautiful thing, as it puts the power in our hands to keep that peace. Don't want to spook investors? Share some of that pie when it makes it's way back around the table (April 2015,) and we would all love to keep our backpacks on for another 3 years.

I absolutely want Delta to succeed and continue it's wildly profitable run.

I absolutely expect Delta pilots to share commensurately in that success.

+1 .............

recent posts from the shiz...

Hypothetically speaking, if a member of the DAL MEC were to ask these questions under the guise of being just an ordinary guy seeking answers, would that strike you as odd? Disingenuous? Insincere? Just plain weird?

How about a more narrowly tailored question to avoid your "wide net" deflection? Is Shiz a member of the DAL MEC? A simple yes or no will suffice.

You used 231 words in your non-response to me. This questions can be answered in one! ;)

I was referring to the FAR 117 requirement for a 10 hour rest break including an 8 hour uninterrupted sleep opportunity. Back in January, it came to light that the Captain rep in SLC was telling his constituents that the "8 hour uninterrupted sleep opportunity" is the same thing as our contractual "8 hours behind the door." Since it's physically impossible for any human being to have the opportunity for 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep with only 8 hours behind the door, that Captain rep was obviously wrong. When I engaged my reps on the issue, I only got one of them to give me a straight answer. I exchanged multiple emails with all of my reps going back and forth and trying to pin them down to a specific answer (it's basically a yes or no question), but all I got from three of them was politician doublespeak. They even copied our email exchange to the chairman of the scheduling committee at the time and he wrote me saying it was 8 hours behind the door. That is simply not right, and to this day I don't know what ALPA's position is on this. I do know, however, what my position is as I'm not going to violate an FAR just because my reps or a chairman of a committee tells me it's okay to do so.

As to the other issues. The only one on which we had agreement in the end was the CDO issue. Sort of. However, I got no indication from any of my reps that they agreed with me on CDO's. Ultimately, they felt the need to get rid of the CDO's in that agreement because they were getting so much heat, but I don't feel like my input had much of an effect one way or the other. I think the only reason they ditched the CDO's was not because they agreed with the input they were receiving but because they were worried about the political backlash they were going to receive if they kept them. I can guarantee you they don't agree with my input for C2015.

MEC rep? No

Works in the MEC Admin committee structure along with 600+ other Delta pilots? Yes

What did we just accomplish?

Edit: I just saw your point about "asking under the guise". I don't think anyone that's been around here for more than a couple weeks couldn't guess that he is somehow involved. Further, from where he sits he would have no advanced knowledge (beyond you or I) that any polling was going to be done. Refer to my 231 word answer. Shiz is a worker bee and is not part if any "inner circle" whatever that is. You're acting a little paranoid (or bored.)

I'd really like to see you elaborate on that a little more. You say your personal viewpoint is not very far off from mine but you prefer the current method for achieving what you and I both want. How exactly would that work? So far, it has been very ineffective in achieving restoration or even putting us on a vector that has any prayer of achieving restoration. We took a 42% cumulative pay cut to our pay rates just before and during bankruptcy, and 10 years later our pay rates are still 34% below those rates adjusted for inflation. That is VERY little progress. If "proactive engagement" hasn't been effective towards restoration in 10 years, what makes you think it's going to start now?

And don't get me wrong... I'm all for proactive engagement as long as both sides are benefiting relatively equally from it. But when one side is taking extreme advantage of the other, I think it's time (past time) to rethink that.