I've been doing some thinking. In the grand scheme of things everything involved in the negotiations boils down to money. That is where the focus should be. Two of the most items that have people fighting mad are the sick leave and LCA concessions. How much money do those two items really cost the company. After all, using the info we are getting from DALPA, sick leave is only abused by a few and the LCA change will only affect 2-3% of FOs. If these items only apply to such a small group then how much money could they actually cost the company?

The real money is the PS change which will reportedly save the company enough to cover our raise plus some. Which of the items does the company really care about? We need to make sure that we don't let the opposition control our focus.

Someone brought this up here a few days ago. What do we think would happen if the company announced, on say the 23rd, that the proposed changes to sick leave and LCA trips would be scrapped? I wager the TA would pass.

I may be wrong about this but it would be a masterful bit of negotiating by the other side. Tell us the number one priority is sick leave and throw the LCA trip grenade into the room to fragment the pilot group and keep the focus off the real issue (PS) . Did someone just pull the Jedi mind trick on us?

Any contract in the era of record profits should have a lot more money in it!

 

Was at the SLC LEC meeting yesterday. Pretty disgusted by the presentation given. Reps raced through slides and wanted all questions held until the end, even though they had blocked 6 hours for the meeting. Seemed like a tactic was in play - race through the slides and don't let anybody question anything until the end - and by that time people either forgot about questions they had, or had moved on to other issues, or were in a food coma from lunch, or had left already. Everything was about the rates, the rates, the rates.

The P2P fellas were moving about the room talking to folks during the presentation. I didn't think much about it then. Figured it was buddies talking (Its a pretty tight knit group of pilots here). But a part of me thinks they were moving about to try to "correct" dissenters. Pure speculation on my part here but it does speak to the point that I've lost faith in DALPA to the point that I suspect them of doing stuff like this.

It was stated that there was no other path to getting a better TA. How about this path? TA is worth $1.1B over 3 years. Stock buy back was $6B, DURING NEGOTIATIONS! Seems like there was a path there. The fear of RA was palpable in the presentation. 'Look what he did to Alaska, and Korean.' This MEC seems deathly afraid of RA and will avoid confronting management on truly significant matters. But what do I know? No fact there but that is what I suspect is going on here.

I don't understand this group out here. I hope there is a quiet majority that is as disgusted with this TA as I am. My fear is that isn't the case, at least in SLC.

I am extremely disappointed in our reps. They should not have passed this TA on to the membership. They completely abdigated their responsibility to us. There is no way this TA rose to the level of MEMRAT.

p.s. Shouldn't the FO rep actually be an FO? Especially with this TA, I want an FO rep that has to actually live with the reprucussions of voting yes to LCA trips being removed.

 

I thought the same thing initially until I saw Donatelli lose control of himself at the ATL road show. That's not somebody trying to pull off a Jedi mind trick on pilots. That was somebody doing a Frank Lorenzo impression that not even Richard or Ed would have done in front of pilots. Donatelli and the administration is selling this as if their futures depend on it. I'm quite certain, it does.

Your question about why the LCA trip pulls from FO's would be sought given their relatively low savings of money is important, and you really already answered it yourself. It's NOT about money. It's one of three concessions that are really about DIVIDING the pilot group into three tribes. LCA trip pulls makes all FO's angry at all captains for voting YES. The E190 B scale makes E190 pilots angry at every other pilot for voting YES. The Atlantic JV concessions will make pilots who fly Europe angry at everyone else for voting YES.

The Ford & Harrison game of union busting isn't just about saving money. It's about destroying a union from within by pitting groups against themselves. Their premise is that we're totally self-interested and greedy, which makes us incapable of looking out for the group as a whole. It's an easy premise for them to assume because that's the way they behave. The question for us is, are they right about their opinion of us?

Carl

 

Good points. Hopefully they will be surprised by our response.

 

I guess it's the "natural business cycle" that has mainline domestic block hours up 30% since 2012 and DCI down a bunch...or was it the contract?

UAL and AMR didn't seem to have that natural business cycle...

You were wrong in your analysis of 2012. The results prove it.

 

The negotiators said an average of $370 million per year ($1.1B over the life).

 

has anyone bothered to look at how few votes it takes to become a rep?

most of the people involved in dalpa are elected with no more than the population of their personal fan club.

 

There's one other way to put it. Giving up rj scope because the company needs to replace jets is like us giving up some pay so the airline will continue to pay it's monthly bills when they're due.

 

Very natural for DCI to shrink given the amount of 50 seaters they operated.

The results actually prove I was spot on about c2012, and you and Alfa were wrong about what I was saying.

Fwiw my rj annual operating numbers I used were around 2750 range and that was when they had a gluttony of cr2s. Turns out 3081 is the number now.

 

I agree, it is about money.

Now, where did a lot of the Money Delta has been calling Profit come from since our pay was cut 42% and our DB funding stopped?

We are still being paid 18% below 2004 rates, and we still have very little retirement funding compared to our old DB plan funding. DALPA should have been keeping track of OUR SACRIFICES for the past 11 years, and they should have a number to throw at the company, and at the NMB if it comes to that, regarding exactly how much of Delta's Billions were paid for by our concessions.

But DALPA failed us. And now while the company is returning our pay cuts to the shareholders, DALPA wants to finance pittance raises with still more concessions, in profit sharing, in scope, in sick leave, and in quality of trips for F/O's.

Yeah, it's about money, OUR MONEY, being used to buy back stock and double the dividends. Meanwhile we are self funding our pay raises.

Brilliant strategy there DALPA.