I don't think anyone is defending outsourcing. At least I know I'm not.

WRT the Pinnacle contract, that is a contract for the Pinnacle pilots to negotiate. ALPA's structure gives individual MEC's a great deal of autonomy to determine their own negotiating goals and strategies. They were in bankruptcy; not making billions and they were facing significant downsizing and possibly a CMR scenario. They did what they had to to keep their jobs as best they could. Some might have wanted them to "take one for the team," they concluded that they wouldn't.

 

Then the path forward is clear and consistent with current Constitution and Admin Manual guidance.

Why argue the propriety of Pinnacle's bargaining? The only reason this is, and will continue to grow, as an issue is because ALPA (quasi officially) continues to defend bad behavior.

The DPA, if chosen, is a very permanent solution for a very short term problem. No one is calling for Moak's recall, or even a letter. Why do some people put short term politics ahead of our association as a whole?

Officially, we should seek the changes in recognition (that I think I properly give you credit for thinking of). Unofficially we can all hold our own personal opinions as to whether Pinnacle's Bridge Agreement was a class A **** up. At least it will be removed as an existential threat to ALPA on the Delta property, when we ensure the proper recognition of the Representatives of Delta pilots.

We should be together on this. When we are; the DPA will have no reason to exist.

 

IMO, your hearts in the right place, but your aim is off. We don't have outsourcing because of anything the Pinnacle pilots did with regards to the Bridge Agreement. We don't have outsourcing because of our Admin Manual or C&BLs. We don't have outsourcing because of our ALPA President. We have outsourcing because it's allowed in our contract, which was negotiated and ratified by Delta pilots. It's just easier to cast the responsibility elsewhere.

 

No that's the way they wrote it link but you had better look quick because they changed the constitution last night and it might change again.

 

That is justifying inaction. Isn't the topic here the DPA and if we should replace ALPA as our bargaining agent? For those of us who think the best answer is to keep ALPA, then why not address the DPA's foundational concern and resolve it?

We can, and should, get the Delta MEC into recognition. That's a straight forward consensus step without stepping on anyones' toes.

I jumped into this debate because you nearly convinced me we need to replace ALPA. Is that your goal?

I appreciate your time here on this board. No disrespect is intended. My apologies if my passion gets the best of me. BTW - you are wrong, we do have outsourcing as a result of the C&BL and Admin Manual. Refer to the next post.

 

76Driver,

Actually, the reason we have outsourcing is the decision in 1998 to gut ALPA's alter ego policy which created union sanctioned alter ego entities. The rest was the predictable result of the policy change.

If we ever wanted to stop outsourcing for real, that is where we would start. Of course, some of our current higher ups thought up the change. They'll retire in about 5 more years.

Genuine restoration hinges on reversing that policy change, if ALPA lasts that long. We can't do it without ALPA.

 

Exactly.

It's been my observation over the many years I've volunteered to help out at DALPA, there is not a "Leadership" problem, there is a "Folowership" problem.

That problem is, the membership at large, i.e. the Silent Majority, isn't ever going to put down their golf clubs and pick up a "Delta Pilots Are ON STRIKE" sign. Heck, we can't even get most of them to vote for their own LEC reps, never mind show up at a Union Meeting.

Back in about 1996, when I was on the BOS base SPC, I was told at a meeting "There are 20% who will always vote NO, and 20% who will always vote Yes, it's the apathetic 60% in the middle we need to work on."

The problem with changing from ALPA leadership to DPA leadership is, you'll still have that same apathetic 60% in the middle. Good luck motivating them to do...anything.

 

Yes, but when the problem is as basic as another pilot group walking in and doing a deal with your management?

I mean, the Delta MEC should have been outraged they were kept in the dark, marginalized, then left to read about it in the papers.

Should it really take a line pilot to point out the fact that something is wrong with what occurred?

 

But that's not what happens at SWA. Hourly pay rates are not an apples to apples comparison because life as an airline pilot is about pay based on the number of working days required to achieve that pay. It's also important to understand pay hours versus working hours, AKA work rules.

SWAPA has much better work rules than us allowing for much greater pay hours in a day than Delta. If its easy to make 7 or 8 hours of pay per day for only flying 4 or 5 hours per day at SWA, while there's almost no way to do that at Delta, you begin to see that pay rates are only part of the equation.

A far more important fact however is one you've continually ignored despite my discussing it in a number posts. Specifically, even though pay rates do not tell the whole story, even looking at rates alone shows us that the SWAPA pay rate applies to every aircraft in their fleet. That SWAPA pay rate alone is higher than every aircraft in the Delta fleet except for 87 aircraft. The other 635 aircraft at Delta have lower pay rates than SWAPA. That's not counting SWAPA's much greater pay per day capability than Delta pilots, it's just comparing the pay rates only. This makes the lower pay rates on the 635 aircraft at Delta feel even worse to those Delta pilots who fly those lower paying 635 aircraft.

SWAPA leads our industry in pay, work rules and scope. SWAPA is an independent union. That's a fact. The only way you can possibly twist it any other way is to crow about the higher pay rate on 87 out of 722 Delta aircraft.

Carl

 

C2K was a decade ago Pineapple Guy. And even this C2K pay rate (that only applied to a dozen aircraft out of the entire Delta fleet) was quickly negotiated away after Sep 11. The top pay rates at SWAPA and IPA apply to every aircraft in their fleet. Those are facts. You may not like seeing them and prefer to ignore them, but they are facts.

Carl