Originally Posted by svergin

You have insurance for STDs? Does it cover the Flight Attendant that gave it to you as well?

Originally Posted by gloopy

ALPA does not negotiate for you or your group. Management may like you (and us) to think so, because it drastically lowers expectations and pops a mental drag chute on the backs of any pilot negotiator who falls for it, as well as enlists at least some in the FA ranks to help management with their Bolshevik (and ironically anti labor) heavy lifting. But too bad.

We are different labor groups, with vastly different needs and barriers/costs to entry. Pilots getting an XX% raise has no bearing whatsoever on FA's getting a raise or not or how much it is. Pilots have significantly different medical concerns and therefore should get significantly different (at least for some things) medical and especially disability, and on and on for all the other things in our (not your) contract. We negotiate against our peers which are other pilots, and you negotiate (directly or indirectly) with the union and non union flight attendants in the industry.

I personally hope you can raise your pay and working conditions because I think it helps with recruiting, retention, morale and at the end of the day the product and experience itself. But I will not tolerate any nonsense along the lines that we can't get XYZ (especially if other large pilot groups already have it) because we would have to give it to the FA's too. DL lagged the industry with the jumpseat for years in large part due to management trying to pit FA's against us. Objection: irrelevant, motion to dismiss.

Again, I believe you when you say you want us to get a good CBA, and unlike some I welcome your opinions on this board, in crew vans or wherever. But I wholeheartedly reject the playbook of labor busting management teams industry wide when they reflexively try to link other work groups to pilot negotiations. Pilot labor is the most expensive labor for an airline, so it behoves them to try to lower expectations and this is one of the top ways they go about it.

Not to mention "me too" rhetoric goes both ways. Which labor groups are at or above pre BK pay and which aren't?

We're not owed anything because FA's got it. We seriously lag United and are falling behind each day. Its time for a very positive contract with no concessions. Thanks for your support.

Originally Posted by DALFA

At most other carriers where the FAs are unionized the pilot union does indeed just negotiate for pilots. Officially, that's also what happens at Delta. The problem you run into at Delta is that management is so worried about FAs unionizing that if they were to agree to massive increases for pilots they'd have to give something similar to FAs or fear that they unionize. That's why I said that ALPA "indirectly" negotiates for other work groups as well. You see, the old way of thinking at Delta is that the pilots would get more if the FAs stayed non-union...but we know for a fact that's not the case. Just look at the results you've achieved versus the pilots at other airlines where FAs are unionized. As I've said many times, the pilots actually would benefit from having another major work group unionized.

You can keep on trucking the old, good ole Delta & Moak line of thinking or you can adjust your position based on the information at hand and visible results.

Originally Posted by gloopy

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't care.

I don't care about the company's lame worn out labor busting playbook, and that's what this is really about.

Its not the end of the world if the FA's unionize for DL. Look around the industry. DL FA's have it pretty good over all, although I'm sure improvement are needed. There is only so much the company is willing to pay for the flexibility of having a non union FA work force. Once that threshold is crossed, I'm sure they will be happy to say fine, unionize and get in line, it'll be 3-5 years for your next COLA, just like they're trying to do with us.

What "Moak line of thinking" are you referring to anyway? We do NOT negotiate for you. You are NOT entitled to a single "ME TOO!" from anything we negotiate. If you get it anyway because the company deems that cheaper than you unionizing, then great, but that's not our concern.

I will tell you this though: your group should only unionize if they have the desire and unity to do so. And I don't mean 51%. That plays right into management's hands. Based on the last couple attempts, you're no where close to being there, even if you can somehow cross the 50.1% threshold by a few percent. If that's all you can do, you are far better off without a union and leveraging the company's desire to keep one away IMO.

Now if you have the unity one day, then great! That's going to take time though. Less time if the company isn't good enough to you, and more time if it is. But the pilots don't negotiate for you. Period. If the company wants to "me too!" something we get and give it to you because they feel doing so saves them money in the long run by keeping a union away, that's between them and you.

If you do unionize some day, you can start off by negotiating SCOPE that exceeds ours, not trying to "me too" our pay raises and other irrelevant out of context things. This debate as some want to frame it really translates into DL pilots should pay with lost value in our PWA to keep a FA union away. That's not acceptable to us nor is it our concern.

Originally Posted by jamesbond

great post.

Originally Posted by Dat jet

Buckle up that backpack boys and girls

Originally Posted by Tummy

I believe you are falling prey to the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

It would be better from a pilot pay perspective for the pilot group if FO's were either not released for OE trips or could not pick up extra time in the footprint of their original trip. Those FO's sitting on jump seats (or at home) would not be available for WS's to cover trips. A decrease in the number of WS's awarded to pilots would increase the number of GS's awarded to pilots. This would increase average pilot pay.

Pilots having to actually stay on the trip would make it harder for commuters to be in position for both normal and WS rotations. This would also increase the number of GS's, and it would increase average pilot pay.

By decreasing the number of FO's available to fly airplanes, it would force the company to hire more FO's. This would make people relatively more senior which would allow them to bid better schedules.

A change like this would change the pilot bidding dynamic. Most people would prefer not to sit on a jump seat for an entire rotation. The LCA trips would not be as lucrative if people could not WS or GS in the original trip's footprint, so LCA trips would go more junior. Instead of the top 10% of FO's being able to jump on the LCA trips, the greater GS opportunities produced by this change would be more evenly distributed among the FO's. This would create less incentive to camp out at the top of a FO category. This would lead to more FO's bidding higher paying positions which would create a greater training churn leading to even more GS opportunities and increased average pilot pay.

Releasing an FO for an IOE trip is less beneficial to the pilot group than forcing that FO to stay on the airplane during the trip, but in order to see that, one must look at secondary and tertiary consequences.

Originally Posted by Elmer Fudd

I immediately threw that away after seeing POS TA15.

Originally Posted by Scoop

Yes the company is making good coin and firing on all cylinders.... for now.
But the last TA was looking forward for productivity gains. Yes we have been hiring and training a lot but mostly all at the bottom end. How efficient do you think the company will run when 500+ guys are going out on the top every year and we are taking in 1000+ at the bottom?

First off - the market for Pilots is heating up. Compensation is increasing everywhere. Simple supply and demand here. DAL is no longer the airline of choice for many but basically an just equal among the Majors. How long before we start becoming a lot of folks second choice?

Second as mentioned above the training burden has not even really kicked in yet. We have had a lot of training lately, but mostly all on the bottom end of the FO side. In a few years every category from 777A to 717B will have massive turnover every year. I have no idea how to even calculate the required training evolutions.

And don't forget many Pilots are still going above and beyond to keep the operation running smoothly. If this thing drags out and management is seen as stalling morale will plummet. Any good leader in the military or business knows the value of high unit morale and the deleterious affect of low morale. This is especially true for a service industry like an airline.

Additionally the company has many things in our PWA they would like to modify. This industry is continuously changing and our PWA will limit the ability of the company to change and evolve.

Finally one of the companies highest priorities is keeping the other employee groups non-union. DALPA has always remained neutral on this issue but that could very well change. The FAs have come very, very close to voting in a union - it would not take much of an effort from DALPA to push them over 50%. I have personally discussed this issue twice with John Malone and DALPA is looking at it.

Keep in mind I am not even discussing the informational picketing and running the traditional course through section 6.

This is not going to be easy but we have a lot more leverage than many think.

Scoop