What was it Deep Throat said...

"Follow the Money".

If profit sharing is reduced, instead of that money going to the employees, that money gets paid out to share holders as dividends, and helps the stock price go up.

Who are some of the largest share holders of Delta Stock? (management)

Who gets PAID in Delta Stock Options? (management)

Now you know why they want to reduce the pay out to employees, through profit sharing and instead put that money in their own pockets, through dividends and stock price run up.

It's human nature, nothing personal, just business.

They all want the same thing we want, more money and more time off, oh, and Ed wants a good night's sleep... :rolleyes:

I'm fine with that, but only -after- they have repaid the PILOTS for our pay cuts and lost retirement money.

Who's money are they spending on dividends... to themselves?

YOURS!

Thanks Herk, that was exactly my point delivered with some sarcasm. I know darn well DALPA released their opening position during C2K. This despite many here saying that only the "conceptual opener" was ever released.

It still amazes me that we will never see our survey results and we will never know what our opening position is for C2015.

Carl

Of course we all are in favor of "more money and more time off." The question is how much more. I believe that the 20 to 25 year period post deregulation provided a pretty good baseline for the kind of standard of living appropriate for an airline pilot, given the realities of the post deregulation competitive world. Gone are the days of the "Cadillac a month" wages. But the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's provided a very nice standard of living for the Delta pilots. That standard was then cut in 2004/2005 by close to HALF in by far the worst financial crisis this company has ever seen.

So now, today, the question becomes how much more. How much does it take to achieve our objective? What is our objective?

With DALPA, we don't know. All we know is some nebulous desire to "improve at every opportunity." (where's the emoticon for vomiting?) And based on our track record post bankruptcy, that means small (single digit annually) improvements that barely keep ahead of inflation over time. Based on DALPA's track record, communications, and stated objective... bankruptcy established a new baseline from which we seek our improvements. And those improvements are nowhere near anything even remotely like what it would take to restore our buying power to what we had in the 1980's, 1990's, and early 2000's.

I can't imagine I'll ever succeed in hitting your point, but what the heck. Our objective is contract improvements, right? Whether the target is restoration, the best we can get, or whatever.

So, if market value is a driver and SWA is a point for which we can aim, let's do that. But we have to work from what their contract guarantees them -- not what they happen to have at that time.

Are you saying that it wasn't? Isn't there even the slightest possible that SWAPA had an agenda there and was trying to sway certain minds and could possibly spin information in such a way to achieve that goal?

I have no idea to what extent (if at all) that this occurred, mind you. I just find it fascinating that, in your mind, SWAPA cannot possibly be anything other than perfect while your own fellow Delta pilots lie, spin, and cheat to get their way, which is presumably something other than getting you (and them) the greatest amount of compensation possible.

My bad. I though we were on the same page that, as they are no longer as understaffed as they were a few years ago, SWA pilots no longer see as much premium pay as they did back then.

Did you not allude to that?

That "infomercial" as you call it was absolutely factual in every way.

But it's very interesting that you would call it that. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you have wanted to use it to the maximum possible extent as leverage? Why would you purposely demean its content, thus ruining the help it could be to us? It is this kind of behavior that is unmasking you for yet another pilot that has been completely co-opted by management/DALPA. It's certainly your right to have such total alliance with those who want to minimize our profession, but the behavior needs to be called out for what it is.

Carl

Cart before the horse Alan. Exactly what are you willing to DO in order to actually USE any leverage there might be?

Carl

An excellent point there shiznit. You were one of the more vocal cheerleaders for C2012. Your statement now is hypocritical by comparison. Care to explain?

Carl

It's important to know these things man. For example, the most vociferous defenders of all things ALPA have been: alfaromeo, slowplay, shiznit, padre2992, and acl65pilot. All of them are either current elected reps and MEC admins or prior elected reps and MEC admins. It gives proper context.

Carl

Bwaaahaaaa. You think people can't read through your well crafted answers that disguise the truth? "Cost to staff"? Who cares. We are talking about individual pilot compensation.

Crew each airplane with 64 crews each flight. I don't care. Put 86% on reserve. Not my problem. But all that skews the staffing numbers as well as our well diversified fleet. Why do you do this?

There you go again -- stating something as being fact of which you likely have zero personal knowledge. I have no knowledge of whether the facts as stated in the pamphlet were true, any more than you do. Are you serious, though, that you cannot read the spin into the way each fact was presented and others omitted?

Easy there, big fella. Let's not lose the context of my post. I was simply responding to DAL88's declaration of the MIT Form 41 data as being out of context and therefore not providing a full picture. My response was that the SWAPA pamphlet had similar issues.

How does that affect our leverage for C2015?

"Now that just scares the hell out of me, mister -- the thought that you might be annoyed." :eek:

(Name the movie.)