Please read your zip lines and notes from Delta's concessionary bargaining. ALPA did in fact, sell us out for bargaining credits which were then used to offset concessions in other sections of the contract. Subsequent concessionary bargaining resulted in those credits being wiped away, but the results of the scope sale continue effecting us.

We were sold out. We just sold out to someone who failed to pay. The net effect is that we gave away jobs.

While you criticize our lack of unity, today we learn that a contract negotiated by our Association's President has resulted in more than 100 ALPA member's jobs being outsourced to a non ALPA carrier. That my friend is an objective failure of unity.

Every member's job sacrificed results in the loss of a portion of ALPA's representational relevance.

Unity is Delta pilots performing Delta flying.

 

A good post, Gloopy, but about the part I quoted...

I've never heard anyone at American brag about how good their scope clause is, but if they step out of line, soon enough there will be two active Eagle pilots to give them a quick one with the back of their hand for talking smack. As far as Southwest goes, I don't think they ever, ever had a meaningful attempt by management to introduce the little beer-cans, because their management has a different concept of the product, and was too busy handing our lunch to everyone else with 737's to be saddled with a bunch of high CASM RJ's. As for CAL, I don't know if their management could find RJ pilots willing to fly for lower costs per seat-mile.

I don't know why Splash insists on saying that ours is better. Maybe he's sick of the DPA guys trying to hijack the issue in order to connect, whereas they actually have nothing to offer? The fact is that our Scope clause is awful. It's not awful because the guys that were in office during BK failed us, it's awful because the guys that were there under the threat of BK freaked out, and these were the same guys that that tried to sell a few more RJ's for payrates that are now extinct, and they came on the heels of guys that were trying to sell more for the quaint satisfaction of knowing 550 of them and their buddies made out like pedophiles left in charge of a pre-school.

The constant, of course, has been that the pilot group has been sort of asleep, and let this happen. Now, we want to take zero responsibility, and chalk this up to some other party, in this case "DALPA".

The bad news, of course, is DALPA is... us.

The only reason we're even getting stuck in this unproductive crap is that we're discussing this RJ plague in the context of another group that wants to step up to the plate, with even less accountability and transparency, and [deleted] the scope situation some more, while their attention is focused on whatever murky objectives they're actually after.

If anyone wants to clean up anything WRT scope (I'm not capitalizing, because, honestly, we don't have much in Section 1 that truly deserves the term "Scope Protection"), we actually have to show up at meetings, fill out surveys, and actually answer when Wilson calls that we are capable of overcoming our pathetic payrate bias, and build a contract that starts with us doing our flying, then has acceptable workrules and QOL, and uses payrates to tune the contract to current economics. Instead, we stupidly [oldest profession] every time, and go about every contract backwards, and cough up everything sacred in favor of the illusion of a good W2, no matter how much we have to [more oldest profession, on our knees] to get it.

Want better scope? Look in the mirror, then show up for a LEC meeting, and find like-minded people. It'll be easy, since there will only be two or three guys there. With any luck, the next time there would be four or five, and so on.

 

Tip of the hat in your direction, Sir!

 

Sink,

Tip of the hat to you as well! Good post.

 

Disregard.

 

SinkR8,

You captured my post before I edited it. I am not thinking DPA for just the reasons you mention.

 

Great post except for what I highlighted. DALPA is no more us than the federal gubbamint is us... Just to be clear... it was.. is, and will always be the vocal minority that will rule the day. Witness one of the most "important" issues year after year in federal elections... abortion... that carries who gets elected. The silent majority at DAL go to work.. go home.. and don't read these boards or much else that the union puts forth as they expect to be successfully represented. It is the rabble here that is most dissatisfied on a daily basis...

And as far as getting involved with LEC meetings and such... ASk the 85% that make up DTW and NYC if it is PRACTICAL to attend those meetings on their days off... but would those same folks attend a webcast of the same meetings? I know I certainly would, but getting on an airplane for a 2 hour flight each way to hear the same old thing is not my idea of a good way to spend a day off...

I'll hang up and listen

 

At least we understand the philosphical nature of our disagreement. We also are the federal government. That is also us. Just because the people have chosen to let the corporations handle complicated tasks like writing laws, doesn't mean they are not responsible for the failures of their government. It's still a democracy, and we're still stupid enough to put these people in office. Of course, there will be a point where we will be so lazy, so stupid, so uneducatd and un-involved that we will no longer have any say in the process, and voting will not be required or allowed, but maybe then we won't be smart enough to notice anymore.

Did you ever get concrete answers as to whether webcasts were actually possible/legal? Last I heard, there are labor laws that prevent this, and for very good reasons. The bottom line is that important matters don't get solved in ways that are practical or convenient. Then again, noone is asking people to go to the frontlines and bleed here. I'm just saying that if an issue such as scope is so critical to people, maybe they could find a way to suffer through the unbearable challenge of showing up, and could somehow summize the courage to speak up, and articulate their views.

Bottom line is, I've seen a lot of huffing and puffing, and a lot of electrons flow over scope, but seldom have I seen this translated into action. The only time I can recall something like this was when AG supported a scope report in C44, and I think he was elected as a rep in the process, and the report got done.

Bottom line: it doesn't seem that weird to expect that their would be people at LEC meetings. And just so we're clear, I'm not much better. I've had a few instances of actually showing up where I could be counted, probably more than the average pilot, but it's still fairly pathetic. The only thing I've done much more often than most is to frequently call my reps and articulate my views.

I didn't have a lot of competition, strangely enough.

 

Yeah.. fair enough. I have no idea whether webcasts would violate some sort of labor law.. I cannot imagine what it would violate personally... but stranger things are true.. Unfortunately, I guess the best (from a practical sense) for guys to get their views across is, as you say, thru contact with their reps. (I am still waiting to hear back from Omalley BTW...) I did hear from my LEC rep though, so they are batting .500.

 

I tend to focus on the total RJ ASMs vs the total mainline ASMs (flown by Delta pilots).

RJs - down 2.7%
Mainline - up 2.7%

The "mainline" trend is what matters to me. That's what I fly. I'd like to have all of that flying, but at select points in our history, management was able to wrest chunks of that away.

And as a result, their trend is....

Have you been to an LEC meeting in the last year? Seriously, the two I've attended, and the NRT base visit by Lee Moak did both of the actions you call for here.

During his, Lee used a slide of a train off the tracks when he covered the "mistakes" topic, and over half of his presentation was built around the theme (with examples) of grabbing every opportunity to improve Scope and the rest of our contract.

Have your reps indicated they are uninterested in improving Scope?

Incorrect.

You forgot the trend...

Sometimes it rings, and you aren't listening.