And now you see one of the issues. They did ask the Compass pilots, their reps are the Delta reps. The Compass pilots want to have their opinion considered separately from the Delta pilots. You can't have that with one set of representatives.

 

Seems like it could be a representational nightmare depending on the issues which come before the combined MEC.

Comair, a wholly-owned, does not sit on the DAL MEC. And if I recall, XJT was split from CAL's MEC as well.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but seems to be appropriate to me that CPS have its own MEC to conduct its own business. Nothing says their still can't be coordination with the branded MECs.

 

Are you saying that the Compass pilots literally were asked, or rather that the Delta reps made the decision...which was split right down former company lines, with the NW side voting to retain Compass.

 

The vote revealed a split in our MEC right along former Company lines.

The vote itself was a mistake. As others have written, we could have deferred the vote, or made no recommendation to National. Instead we revealed our weakness and our divisions to the rest of the World to see.

The outcome of the vote was also a mistake that we will regret. We created a conflict where there was an opportunity to create unity. We decided not to represent Delta pilots who may flow down to Compass. We decided to create orphans in the next merger or corporate acquisition. We decided NOT to fly a new generation of aircraft which may very well be an interim solution to the 100 seat jet. We ujndermined our own negotiating power by outsourcing more of it.

The inclusion of the Continental Express pilots was working well until internal power struggles within the mainline Continental MEC pushed the split. We have Delta pilots who were Continental MEC members who were experienced in the issues and the solutions who stepped up and volunteered to help consider and restructure the Compass / Delta MEC ... those pilots were never even called. We had pilots who have worked in senior management at Fortune 100 Companies much larger than Delta who volunteered to provide economic analysis and look for the benefits of unity, sadly those pilots were also politely locked out of the process.

This Compass issue follows the long established pattern at ALPA. A pattern were pilots are divided and union members believe that it is appropriate to use our union to split the piloting profession into "haves" and "have nots" so that one pilot's work can help subsidize another pilot's pay. Once we accept ALPA-APARTHIED then all that's left is deciding where the line is drawn which divides us. Fighting over that "line in the sand" is where we spend far too much effort.

The next threat is scope by type rating. Management and the FAA see the E170 to E195 as one airplane type. Management is not likely to operate a E175 at Compass and a E190 at mainline. Already we see discussion here of letting the 100 seat flying go (and they say we'll get it back). When (if) that happens, remember the decision we made with Compass. We could have captured that flying.

It does not matter to Delta pilots who have their left seat on larger equipment. As long as they get theirs they don't care what happens to the Compass pilots, or even their First Officers out getting the walk arounds and garbage bags for them.

The direction our union is heading is absolute poison to the association. Divided we are weak. As we perform less and less of our flying we become irrelevant.

Very frankly, we need Reps in office who would have responded to a higher calling and not simply cast their vote with the Chairman. Pilots in every single Council except New York passed resolutions either asking for, or asking for the study of, UNITY. Those votes were ignored. Further, the Reps in C44 are in my opinion, the leaders of ALPA by virtue of the Atlanta base's size. They should have been looking further down the road than the negotiation of Compass's next contract.

I understand why they voted with Chairman Moak. He's done a great job, has a great reputation, he's smart and he's powerful. But there are times when you have to look at the Boss and say, "are you sure? I'm uncomfortable with that... and this is why..." and there are a set of brake pedals on the right side of the jet for a reason - use them if you have to.

There were answers to keeping Compass and restoring flying. The answers may have been ugly in the short term. But the alternative was to move the line and leave our own guys in hostile fire down on the beach. We left guys on the field - who cares they aren't jobs we want - right?

 

Great post bucking bar. The selfishness of some at Delta has damaged (for the time being) opportunity for all of us- Compass and Delta alike. I know the vote was not what everyone wanted, and I know there are many at Delta upset with the outcome. I hope with whatever the future brings for us both does not make us look back at how serious of a mistake this was for everyone. Unfortunately it appears (for the time being) that is where we are heading.

 

I'm hoping it will be a generational change. Our C44 Rep just wrote a pretty good article for our ROAR publication about the history of scope and he had a front row seat for most of it.

He left out the fact that we sold jobs for other things we wanted during concessionary negotiations, but the old negotiators notepads and ziplines fill in that part of the history.

Anyway - back to generational change ... my Dad's generation made nearly a million a year flying a 747, if you correct for inflation. Delta pilots made nearly the same. Inflation ate about half of that earning power and post deregulation concessionary bargaining ate another half. The guys in power now barely witnessed the big money (they only thought they did in 2001) but they've certainly seen a lot of loss. They now realize they will not retire anywhere near what their previous generation did. They are trying to balance making as much as they can during the years they have left with other concepts, like unity.

... and I'm not completely against their thought process. After all if they make more and retire better, so do I.

But the next generation of pilots will be mostly guys from the regional ranks who have seen their career progression decimated by outsourcing. They know first hand what the effects of whipsaw are on pay and job security. The major job that many pilots started in their 20's is now pushed all the way back to our late 30's and early 40's. I mean, who ever heard of a Delta hiring pool with an average age of 37, a Master's degree or better, a couple of major airlines, 5 Type ratings and 6,000+ hours of flight time, most int he left seat? But those were the numbers back in 2007.

One of my favorite quotes from XXXX was his asking "why are you former regional guys always such scope hawks?" ACL65 answered the question beautifully by saying - "because all this outsourcing stuck us at a regional for nearly a decade."

I'm hopeful that as the battle weary veterans of deregulation retire their seize mentality retires with them. We can do this without burning our furniture to stay warm... and truthfully, the next generation has different expectations and understandings.

There will be little skirmishes, like this Compass vote which the young bucks lost. But, the trend is fairly obvious. Things are changing.

 

Excellent couple of posts Bucking Bar

TC

 

Bar,

+10 from an old guy

 

So how long until I get my million a year? I really hope we get this new group elected. Then the battle weary veterans can sit back and watch them pound away at reality and throw darts at their efforts. Since it is all so easy, I figure I will give them a couple of months before I declare them failures.

 

The CPZ decision to go to vote was terribly short sighted, and I see it coming back to bite us in some, as usual, unforeseen fashion. Then we can write another article in the roar about how we didn't see it coming...


A vote was proposed to be put out to the CPZ pilot group by the CPZ coordinator, but the MEC nipped that in the bud. What does that tell you???