This was posted on a Facebook page by RH and sparked a great deal of conversation. Unfortunately the conversation devolved to juvenile insults and taunts, giving the moderators the excuse they needed to silence free speech. My concern is that Bartels may undermine the MEC Chairman's efforts to get us a contract for Bill's own political purposes.


"The MEC Chairman recently put out a letter saying that if there is going to be a path to a deal, it will include items the company desires or concessions by the pilots. Shortly after that, the Bartels clan starts sending out letters to the pilots completely contradicting that assertion, in brief, stating that the company has gobs of money and they are going to give it all to us simply because we are so great.


So what gives? Why the mixed message? Well if you think this is anything other than pure power politics, then you are wrong. Bartels and his group were upset that they didn’t win the election for MEC Chairman. Despite his fake message of unity and support for Malone, everyone who has dealt with Bartels in his continuous ALPA career of 15+ years knew this was coming as soon as Malone got the final vote that made him MEC Chairman. Bartels is a one trick pony, he invites someone out on a limb and then he saws it off behind him. Some might want to call it a knife in the back, but in reality it’s more like an A-Bomb in the back.


As I said, Bartels is a one trick pony and that trick is political maneuvering. He knows how to get elected (claim that everyone is out to get you and he is the only one who will protect you), he knows how to grab power, and he knows how to conduct a thorough character assassination. The one thing he doesn’t know how to do is to actually represent his pilots by winning at the negotiating table. I challenge everyone to go back and read his resume that he sent out while running for MEC Chairman; he can list out the multitudes of elections he has won during his ALPA lifer career but he can’t list one accomplishment he has ever had that actually was some type of industry standard or industry leading agreement. In fact, his record of failure is quite long and ignominious.


The standard pattern of Bartels failures include:

• Micromanagement of negotiations including frequent escalations of positions whenever a compromise is made by the other side
• Complete ignorance of the true nature of his leverage and consistent overestimation of his position
• A false belief that winning the battle of social media and webboards equates to winning at the negotiating table
• Holding onto extreme negotiating positions until a cram down occurs
• Reliance on misinformation and deception to try to convince his negotiating opponents to accept untenable positions

This pattern first occurred during the Northwest bankruptcy. Bartels tried to micromanage the negotiations by keeping the MEC in session continuously for weeks on end. He tied the hands of the Negotiators and nothing was accomplished until they came up against the deadline for the judge to reject the contract. Then the adults in the room, faced with a sure rejection, negotiated a deal that was basically a cram down. By refusing to negotiate reasonably, Bartels forced his MEC into accepting what was the worst bankruptcy contract in the industry.


I had a front row seat for his next set of failures. When we started merger negotiations in January 2008, Bartels sent his merger committee into the fray with a list of demands that took 3 and a half pages of legal paper to delineate. We were able to negotiate the JCBA fairly quickly, but the discussions on the seniority list broke down. The Northwest Merger Committee, forced to try to defend an untenable position, resorted to phony data and making future assumptions that lacked any credibility. Bartels overestimated his leverage by believing that because the Delta MEC initiated the deal, they would agree to any crappy offer they made.


In the end, the Delta committee offered a seniority list that was essentially identical to the arbitrated outcome, while the Northwest committee demanded a list grossly slanted in their favor. The failure of Bartels to negotiate reasonably cost the pilot group $250 million, $200 million of which came from the Northwest pilots.


His next failure occurred when the management teams decided to complete the merger with or without an agreement with the pilots. Once again, he overestimated his leverage, thinking management wouldn’t move forward without them, and he 'balked at negotiations. By failing to show up, he forced the Delta MEC to negotiate a deal by themselves in order to pick up the large amount of money that was available to us, especially the merger stock grant. Because the Northwest scope clause was decimated in Bartel's disastrous bankruptcy contract, the Northwest pilots were left with no protections in the merger. Most other pilot groups would have just let the Northwest pilots hang out to dry (see Southwest or American), but the principled leadership of Lee Moak and the Delta MEC prevented that from happening.


Bartels final flop occurred during the Delta/Northwest seniority list arbitration. Once again, he forced his committee to try to defend an untenable and extreme negotiating position. They fell back on dubious statistics and inflated claims which destroyed his committee’s credibility in front of the arbitration panel. The ultimate failure came during the mediation phase. As the mediation proceeded, the mediator pushed each side off of their arbitration positions. Locked into a corner by the micromanagement of Bartels, the NWA committee actually made their positions more and more extreme, to the point that they literally walked out of the mediation. That left the Delta Merger Committee alone with the mediator to work out the seniority list. It should be no surprise to anyone that the final seniority list was essentially identical to the last mediation proposal of the Delta committee. Abandoned by their MEC, the Northwest pilots were left unrepresented in figuring out the final list.


Let’s face it, the narrative being pedaled on Facebook, ChitChat, and APC is that Bad-Ass Bartelies have taken over from the Meek Moakies and are now going to show us how it’s done. Yet when those Bartelies met the Moakies face to face in the SLI they walked away empty handed and the seniority list was created on my computer, hooked to a projector with only the mediator and Delta pilots in the room and the Northwest pilots on a flight home to Minneapolis. Of course that was the origin of the Detroit Pilot’s Association, rising from the ashes of the failures of Bartels to even minimally represent his pilots in the most critical negotiation he ever will face.


Bartels is just following his pattern here. Malone knows that a deal is achievable in the near future, but it is a deal that is much closer to the valuation of the rejected TA than it is to the outrageous and unachievable position that the Delta MEC has on the table right now. Malone, the only person leading the union who has actually successfully closed a deal, knows that we will have to make some concessions on items that are priorities for management. He also knows that the final summation of the deal will be stacked heavily in our favor, just like the rejected TA. Bartels, once again overestimating his leverage, is trying to up the ante from even our current unachievable position. He also is trying to hang Malone out to dry because there are MEC officer elections coming up in the fall. Guess who is getting the knife in the back right now?


In case you were wondering what is going on here, it’s just Bartels blowing yet another negotiation while he does the only thing he is good at; cutting other people off at the knees to consolidate more power for his unending career in union politics. I challenge anyone who attacks me for this post to list one accomplishment that Bartels has that resulted in some type of industry leading outcome. Given his long history of failure, it’s comical how much support he still retains. In this era of social media imaging, appearing to be tough is more important than actually accomplishing anything. The fact is that the Northwest pilot group would have been much better off in the merger if they had paid for him to go on vacation in Tahiti, cut off from all communications. As it is, the same people that are so ****ed off by his sad performance in the merger are the ones leading his charge. It really is funny and deeply ironic."

 

 

Falcon 7. You, Harwood, and the rest of the Moakists have done far more to damage this pilot group than we will ever know. Bartels is doing everything he can to unwind your assclownery.

I bet you wear your black polo shirt while you post here.

 

 

This is a pathetic hit piece written by guy who is upset that he is not in power. He should spend more time focused on his lawsuit.

 

F7, anyway you cut it you are only talking about 1 person, don't think 1 person or 1 base would topple the negotiation....are you saying he is so persuasive everyone else is unable to move the argument in a different direction or is their position unreasonable? Let the process play out.

 

distractions.

get a ta or not....the 'process' has to play out. if/when a ta is put in front of the group each will then decide on its merits.

 

Man crush.

 

Post #1 was pretty good. Seems John Malone has some fair weather "friends".

When I see people stabbing him in the back it makes me support him.

 

Personal attack piece. So who's driving the wedge hoping to retake power?

The author seems the more likely suspect.

No voters already deciding their personal minimums?, how about yes voters artificially capping the rational ask?

I'll just wait and judge the product on its merits. Malone first spoke the word restoration when he came into office and now says: "Let there be no doubt—the next agreement must be a clear and decisive win for the pilot group." I'm patiently waiting to see exactly what that means. Malone has our support, the negotiating team has our support. If the negotiations are not progressing to this end, all they have to do is inform us of the situation. That's all we ask. Unlike bankruptcy, record profits don't allow for the same leverage. This may take time, but that's entirely up to management. If there is no deal, that is not a failure of our team.