What I love most is how ALPA is trying to spin the sick leave changes. Here is a quote form their Face Book page:

"What is Delta Health Services?
The new agreement requires that all verifications of sickness be submitted to a newly-created, Health Services Department at Delta. This removes the Chief Pilots’ Office from the verification process and helps to maintain confidentiality by ensuring that confidential medical information is accessed by as few people as possible. Delta currently has a Director of Health Services (DHS) and this agreement makes no change to that. He will be tasked with administering Delta Health Services which will oversee the verification of sickness process."

Improvement to privacy???? This is a glaring example that illustrates the complete lack of honesty from our union. The TA allows the company to access your medical records whenever they choose after the verification threshold. Read the language carefully. Once you cross the the verification threshold the company can require a medical release if "DHS is not able to assess the medical basis for the use of sick leave." I used a sick call this year for an issue which I went to the doctor for. I got a sick note from the doctor just to cover my back side even though I was no where near the 100 hour mark. The note from the doctor says " XXX is under my care and should not return to work until X" With the new TA the DHS just has to decide that this does not provide enough information to access the medical basis for the sick leave. I either give them access to my medical records or go back to the doctor and have him write another note weeks after the fact on my own dime - great.

Once you cross the medical release threshold they can ask for access to your medical records with no cause needed.

I understand that the medical release is limited in scope the days surrounding the sick instance. The problem, as already posted, is that those medical records may also contain information not related to the sick occurrence - loss of privacy!

The TA significant expands the instances in which a pilot has to grant the company access to their medical records. To say otherwise both insults my intelligence and makes me question the honesty of the people making the claim. I completely understand that there may be a difference opinion on whether this is important enough to reject the TA and I have no problem with someone who looks at this and says they aren't concerned. I think they would be wrong but so be it. What I do expect is open and honest communication from the union I pay to represent me. Have enough respect for us to speak about it honestly and then let us decide.

You think that with MORE retirements coming, and Delta adding 2 whole new fleets (A350's and E190's) there will be the SAME amount of training as last year?

What the hell are you a "Professor" of?

Stupidity or Capitulation?

Or both?

The company doesn't just pull this crap out of their ass, they have done the math and they KNOW they are going to be doing a TON of training, THAT's WHY this is even in the TA in the first place!

^^^^^^^^^^^^What he said!!!!!!!^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The numbers posted here are a wild exaggeration of the required training and trips that would be pulled. It will be not be near 10%. If you get peopled fired up with false data and then they get the real numbers pilots will go that's not so bad and vote for the TA. There is enough bad that sticking to the facts is a far better strategy.
A simple example posted over and over on here is that 10% of the trips will be withheld for OE. The real numbers will be posted in the road shows and it's going to be around 2 to maybe 3%. We only carry about 10% of a category Captains as check airman. In a two man category you would have to pull every single trip they bid from the pot to have 10% of the trips withheld for FO's. In a 3 man category withholding every single LCA trip would only be 5 %. Then you have to figure out how much IOE is actually done by each LCA. Remember they have to do regular line ckecks, route checks, special flights and they are given some trips off to just fly. If LOE's are done on half their trips that's 5% in a 2 man category and 2.5% in a 3 man. Then the company can only withhold 75% of those amounts.
The 330 category as a example can train 24 pilots a month. On average they need about 40 hours of OE. That is higher then domestic at around 25. Call it 1000 hours of OE per month. The company can withhold 750 hours. There are over 40,000 FO block hours per month.
In a domestic category if you had a category of 100 CA and 10 check airman the numbers are easy to estimate. 100 pilots would generate about 6000 block hours. If you withheld 10% or 600 block hours you could train 24 new pilots a month or 288 pilots a year. That's a lot of training for a category with 200 pilots total!

You've just done exactly what you accuse others of doing. Those numbers above are completely pulled out of thin air as will be the numbers used at the road shows. This is the technique used by the MEC to obfuscate and confuse.

The question pilots should ask themselves is: WHY IN THE **** SHOULD THERE BE EVEN ONE FO TRIP WITHHELD? Even one trip withheld is an unnecessary concession that isn't required given the company's financial condition. Also it's something that NOBODY asked for on their survey.

Everything else is just flares and chaff. The actual language in the TA is enough. Bullsh!t numbers must be ignored.

Carl

No ALPA card needed, no ID needed. You can even bring your wife.

No reason to get nasty man. Professor of love, if you must know.

Like I said. Someone else may know better. But since we have been in a full ramp up of more 737's and standing up an entirely new fleet of 88/717's...I would guess those numbers would look similar year after year.

Again. This was a guess on my part. I said as much.

If you are predisposed to hate everything I write: block or ignore me.

Not once have I told a single person how to vote. It's a complicated and underwhelming TA for most of us.

Please educate yourselves and vote how you feel about the TA.

Lots of source material is on dal.alpa.org under the contract banner.

Also lots of questions being answered on Facebook too.

So would it be accurate to say that if I vote no I am gong to "give up" an 8% pay raise and 10 hours of pay with regard to vacation and training until a new contract is signed? This for me doesn't seem like id be giving up much at all to wait for a better deal. The productivity "concessions" alone seem to negate these very small gains. Am I on the right track here or did I miss something?

I called the 330 office to get the numbers. There are 37 total check airman in the category and the training department throughput is 24 pilots a month. Pilots need 4 or 6 legs of IOE to be qualed depending on background. The average leg is 8 hours.

Actually, neither is right. This is mainly about dividing the pilot group...which is the hallmark of a Ford & Harrison Union busting campaign. The B Scale is in there to make the E190 crews angry with the rest of the pilot group for voting YES. The pulling of FO trips is in there to make FO's angry with every other captain for voting YES. The JV scope concession is in there to make crews that fly Europe angry with everyone else as they watch their flying go to smaller and lower paying gauge.

It's a three way win to get three different groups angry with one another. Classic industrial psychological operations.

Carl