At least paid professionals would address us as Mister Rocket Surgeons.

 

The notion we just turn professional negotiators lose with no criteria is silly. I do think we should hire professional negotiators (to the level of Ford & Harrison) and have sameness negotiating against sameness (not High School debate team vs guys who actually know how to sit down and stake their position). Guided by the MEC as directed by the pilot membership.

Guys like Sailing will brush this off but we haven't really done anything besides say no so far. No labor unrest. No public message sent. In fact labor peace is a big deal to Delta, analysts and investors. This ship might start getting rocked pretty soon if management doesn't come to the table with something more reasonable.

Sailing and like minded sheep try to scare us into not sticking up for ourselves. Before he jumps in and accuses of something illegal, that's not what I'm talking about. I think each pilot will just get fed up and quit giving and that will make a huge difference in many metrics. It will have an effect.

 

The next guy to get elected as chairman needs to commit to pulling informational picketing permits. He'll take office Sep 15th. Permit applications must be submitted on the 16th. We must also picket the next shareholder function. We cannot continue to be steamrolled in the public arena.

About the same time, I'd expect to see some leaks to the media regarding Delta executives' massive compensation gains in the last few years, compared to line employees' gains. A little class warfare never hurt union labor. We need to leverage everything we can. Play dirty. Ruthless. Management sure does. This is our bread and butter. We don't want to kill the golden goose. But we can make it sh!t itself.

We see DALPA operatives on this board to manage our expectations and spew the party line. The new guy better get a comm team in place that informs Delta pilots, but doesn't attempt to manipulate us.

FPL guys have been paid to post here. The new guy better employ those resources externally. Send the operatives to the frequent flyer web boards and spread the message to HVCs. The company is far more likely to listen to the HVCs' inputs than to ours.

I expect the new chairman and his administration (especially the comm guy) to think "outside the box" and come up with some new material. Hell, I'll be happy to stir it up on our behalf.

The current tired, inept and impotent waste of our dues dollars must stop. It's absolutely embarrassing how incompetent our comm folks are, and how toothless "labor risk" has become with Moak, O'Malley, Roberts, and Donatelli. Look what the company thought they could get away with on NA15. ENOUGH.

 

Bob, I think DALPA has achieved far more then any other Union since the disaster of the early and mid 2000's. I fully understand you will disagree. I think we are the one union who pulled the rest of the industry back up. Again you will disagree. As a small example at the Merger in 07 a NWA 757 CA made 142 dollars an hour with little or no DC money. 30 months from now that seat would have paid 276 plus a conservative 20% in profit sharing and 16% in DC for a new total compensation of 384 dollars an hour. A improvement of an astounding 242 dollars an hour. For a delta guy on the same equipment his baseline would have been about 177 an hour pay plus DC so his improvement would only be 207 an hour.
As I have mentioned many times I work off results. It's what counts.

 

Well said Purp!

 

Wall Street views costs as far more important then labor peace. The Day the contract was voted down Delta stock had one of its biggest 1 day gains in history.

 

1) Eeeeeeasy Killlllllller, cool your jets bro. C2012 was a BIG POS. Not as BIG as the one C2015 would have been but IMHO, C2012 was the time to make the biggest gains, yet somehow we screwed the pooch and allowed Management to insult us on TA1 in 2015.

2) We have pilots on property that have the credentials, experience and the education to be excellent negotiators. The problem is that none of them want to work with DALPA. The current policy of proactive engagement at DALPA makes it really tedious and tough to properly negotiate. Before the process even starts, DALPA is already knee deep in kool-aid and has a case of Stockholm Syndrome.

To negotiate properly and to have an effective UNION, there needs to be a nice thick line between Management and Labor (no commingling, no "I have Richard's Cell number on speed dial"). No more Proactive Engagement, period!!! Management always takes advantage of us with PE.

TEN

 

Sailing......I will gladly recognize things have improved since 2005.... if you will also recognize the ineptness of dalpa played a key role in the both the events and the level of economic damage this pilot group experienced.

 

If I recall the stock increase that day had nothing to do with the vote. I would say it depends on how badly the labor peace goes off the rails and effects metrics. You've never been one to promote leverage though. Always take the first offer and when management says jump you say "how high"!

We get it, you're part of the I've got my captain/check airman gig, screw everything/everybody else no matter the concession...just give a little pay bump and you're good. You're an outlier here and not going to sway anybody with your lame duck arguments.

 

Some might argue, accepting C2012 set us up for the failure we now know as POS15. You are correct, C2012 was not good...just better than C2015.