Very well stated.

management has/does cultivate the pilot groups self deception our participation is essential to the strategic management of the corporation......

thats how we end up with pilots calling other pilots rocket surgeons for not getting onboard with managements program......and heartily voting yes to a 40% pay cut.

So the last "legacy" airline pilots to actually go on strike was almost 20 years ago.... I'm not saying it's impossible, but hardly likely. Equating DL to Comair or Spirit is nowhere near a valid comparison.

And that's been going on for quite awhile. Hoping we turn the tide.

Yup....get furloughed for a few years and you quickly realize just what a "cost item" you are.

How do you figure that the 14.5% is a huge pay increase?

Along with a 14.5% increase to my base hourly pay (not my total salary) my profit sharing check will be in the neighborhood of 9-12% smaller than yours (you will get 28-30% whereas I will get 16-19%), F/A staffing has been reduced on the 777 by 1-2 positions, our monthly shared rewards are now harder to get, we lost our $500 referral bonus, our STD insurance premium went up over 20%, our medical insurance rates have gone up in some cases by double digit percentages, AND our workspace has been eroded (think A319-320-321-757).

So tell me again how that 14.5% increase to my base hourly pay is a "huge pay increase"?

I have been told personally by the International President of a union (now former President) that the NMB at the time Linda Puchala was confirmed as a member that they weren't going to release ANY of the labor groups of the big 3 airlines under their watch. This isn't hearsay, this is from a person that was the International President of one of the large airline unions at the time (2009-2010). Take it for what it's worth...

I haven't met a single pilot in my 16 years here that truly believes we would ever be released to strike. The power of an actual strike has been taken away, probably for good, from an airline of our size.

BUT, the publicity from the media, can affect future bookings. Labor risk, can affect the stock price. The public can be fickle, and might avoid buying tickets for the family vacation on us if the news media is talking about Delta pilots possibly striking. It's not nearly as powerful and effective as actually shutting the place down, but Management still feels it in their wallets when the share price drops $2-3 a share.

The NMB is a government entity and as such, has a mission statement, not a goal.
The pertinent part of the NMB’s mission statement is:

“The prompt and orderly resolution of disputes arising out of the negotiation of new or revised collective bargaining agreements.”

The NMB has morphed over the years to believe it has a goal. In this regard they believe their underlying goal is a successful dispute resolution, not to mention the underlying pressure they are under to facilitate it based on an internal supposed 97% success rate of late.
Just as valid as facilitating a resolution however they are tasked with the obligation to define and recognize an impasse.
They have just as much responsibility to declare an impasse when it in fact exists, as they do to help find resolution.
They do not allow strikes, they do not allow work stoppages, and they do not allow lockouts. They do not allow anything.
They are supposed to declare an impasse when one exists within “some” reasonable time frame (see the word prompt in their mission) although lately (the last 30 yrs or so) they’ve been able to stretch it out to “denial of binding arbitration” as an excuse for not having “done their job”, as they see it.
If they see a release to self help as a failure, they have a personal problem. At that point the process has been undermined. It’s supposed to be a valid part of the process.
Over the years "we" have let politics sneak in to what was intended to be only a gate. But it's crucial to understand the gate can be greased again.
The only tactic older and more conclusive than divide and conquer is to have the enemy believe they have lost the war before the battle has begun.
GOT WILL.

Graybeard.

All very good points.

The reality is that the way we get more leverage back is with statuatory changes to the RLA.

1. We must enact a process for employees covered by the RLA to file an unfair labor practice with the NLRB. Yes, the NLRB. Why? Because they already have administrative law judges and have quasi-judiciary powers. All things the NMB does not have. This would protect more employees from management retaliation AND union member from unions who choose not to represent their members fairly.

2. The addition of "concerted activity" to the list of protected activities by employees covered by the RLA just as the NLRA has. This would decrease fear among employees for retaliation for speaking out on social media for example.

3. Automatic impasse declared 18 months after the amendable date of a contract and mandatory arbitration 18 months after the first day of negotiations for 1st contract. If you can't figure out a contract after 18 months then you're at an impasse.

I agree. Changing the monthly shared rewards was bad managing. They set the goals, we started making them consistently. They then change the rules because they decided it was too easy. If I was managing, I would have just added harder shared rewards goals to the ones we already had. The new goals would have paid on top of the old goals. Changing the rules wasn't right and is one of many things this company has done to show how little the employees mean to our management.

If only we had a political action committee to fight for governments to not intervene in the free market. :rolleyes:

https://www.thestreet.com/story/1122...-to-judge.html

Anyone remember this? This is why you don't try and slow down the operation. Everything is monitored and reported out of the airplane.

Received the duty officer log today.

It said.

The court standards make it extremely difficult to obtain court jurisdiction of alleged changes to a collective bargaining agreement. Only in the very rare circumstance where management lacks even an “arguable basis” to justify such a change in the language of the existing agreement or past practice, can a court determine it to be a “major” dispute and a status quo violation over which it has the power to enjoin.

This must be the standard applied to both sides, right?

Oh my!!! The sky is falling, I'm soooo afraid of the big bad judge! Unionists need to grow a set of balls and restack the deck in our favor. We could learn a thing or two from the French farmers & NYC sanitation workers. At what point are we going to take back our profession???

The gross amount of Corperate greed and lack of integrity is astounding and they have us collectively cowering in a corner.

You have STD insurance?? I could have used that last year on those Manila layovers.
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Unless there is a significant change in how Presidential Administrations do business, no pilot who are part of UAL, AMR, DAL, or SWA will ever be released for self help. It would have an incredibly negative impact on our economy and global economies. Too much money is funneled through our airlines.

Don't be a Debbie Downer, there is an election coming. Anything is possible.

There's an alternate thought that with the now mature industry an expedited release leads to a quicker resolution. The theory is to let us have it out and either an overwhelming successful strike or a feeble one will create an environment to get a deal done sooner. Kinda like any other "normal" industry.

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

I saw the this after I posted. Great (or perverted) minds think alike, I suppose.

Well to some extent, Hawaiian Airlines may be somewhat of an indicator how the NMB process is going to work. I personally think this will resolve itself. If Hawaiian is released to self help, it could send shockwaves through the industry. For you more seasoned APC guys, thoughts on this logic?

A few months before a Presidential election? I can see either the NMB saying there's no impasse or a PEB jumping in and not allowing it to happen. For some reason everyone and their mother can strike...except airline employees. Management has the upper hand...and will continue having the upper hand until something major changes.

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.

Gloopy,


Two points. We do lag UAL and their FAs are organized. DAL FAs organizing would not be bad for us.

If the company and our negotiators both feel that we are also negotiating for the FAs then we are pretty much negotiating for them.

Scoop

A release for self-help does not automatically mean strike. The union membership first has to vote to authorize a strike then union leadership needs to call for one. Self-help can include lots of other union actions (no more than x hrs of pay/credit/flying, temporary work stoppages (shut down for say 30 minutes per day), etc. lots of things that probably won't trigger a PEB.

That said, I'll believe we have a chance for release if SWA gets one. They've been without a contract for 4 years.

The company has crossed my personal threshold of demotivation. I personally feel very de-motivated to:
1) GS (unless it's GSWC)
2) Fly more than my awarded monthly hours
3) Use my outstanding leadership abilities to step out of my FOM or otherwise prescribed duties to lead this operation.
4) Use my lifetime of flying skill/knowledge to deviate from company provided plans to put an operation back on schedule.
5) Apply any discretion to when a write up should go in the book

I will certainly not take any steps to hurt the operation, I just don't feel motivated to proactively solve company problems...at least not until they value my contributions to the company success. A decent contract in the next few weeks will likely re-motivate me.

"Summer Is Here!"

The thing is, the company can also engage in "self help." No more Westins. See you at the NoTell Motel. And a thousand other things to stick a salty thumb in our eye.

With all those games in play, I don't see how it's safe to fly after being released. The strike vote will happen prior to that anyway.

Uh yeah, I know this. You missed the point. No realease is coming...at least not soon, and I'm very de-motivated right now.

[QUOTE=Purple Drank;2140259]The thing is, the company can also engage in "self help." No more Westins. See you at the NoTell Motel. And a thousand other things to stick a salty thumb in our eye.

You mean like not being able to get Econ-comfort seats for deadheads?

Me too.
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That's a on the job injury.

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.

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.

Great post.

+1
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Plus one from the crankiest most contrarian poster here!!!

I immediately threw that away after seeing POS TA15. :D

However, right now these trips go senior which makes it very desirable for guys who finally have enough seniority to get this "benefit". So, even if it benefits the company if those guys happen to WS then so be it. Now that I can finally take advantage of it (and remember the benefit for the company only occurs if guys WS - GS means the system works for the most senior guys. Personally, I rarely fly extra, only WS as part of a Drop and Swap and have had only one Premium pay trip - EVER.

Just curious. What are you doing differently?

Also, all that P/U time catches up to you. If guys are flying extra eventually they need some time off - be it sick leave because they're exhausted or vacation.