dalad

Carl, I wouldn't call it baiting. I voted for Tom and Chris because I want internal changes. If the DPA loses what are you going to do? We do need a "house cleaning" per se, but the DPA supporters are just sitting on the sidelines watching and hoping for change. I'm certainly not happy with how we got here, but I just can't send in a renewal card to the other "guys" because there is no substance other than anger and bitterness from them. Just look at some of the hystrionic posts on the other board. I was one of the first cards sent in back in 2010 but have lost any faith that the DPA can accomplish anything.

Carl Spackler

Everyone doesn't know that Sink. That's clearly your personal opinion, but I can't agree because I just don't know the facts of what really went on inside the MEC administration. I doubt you do either. Thus your constant trashing of Roberts (when you don't know what really happened) makes you look highly partisan and unfair.

That we know for certain.

I don't think the other group was trying to delay. The other group was appalled by the behavior of Roberts' underlings purposely trying to destroy him personally from the day Roberts was elected. The other group realized that you cannot have the process subverted this way or chaos would reign regardless of who is elected in the future. It was a concern for process over personality.

But now that the defense of process was voted down by 10-9, the retribution and character assassinations continue. Why? Because it works.

Carl

TheManager

There was change happening from within Carl. It was making slow but steady progress and that is the crux of the problem. This change is a threat to the prestige and power and the trappings that come with it (read $$) that the coup d'état circle thinks they are entitled to.

The actions of the those mentioned in The Schnitzler letter and the capt rep in 66 will do nothing but harm to DALPA. The legacies of Buzz, Harwood, and the others will be forever tarnished and they will be remembered for their destructive politics.

DPA needs to do nothing but watch the dysfunction ruin a great institution

Bucking Bar

Carl and Sink,

Frankly, I do not understand the allegation being made that our previous Chairman was a proponent of "change" and any new Chairman probably will not be. In reality there was not much difference in the positions and products (good product mind you) that our MEC has created going all the way back to Lee Moak's tenure in the job. (and nothing against previous admins ... thats just as far back as I'm going for this post)

My theory is that when you provide smart men with objective information, more often than not they are going to make the same decision.

Kingsley Roberts was honest with me, even when it would have been easier to obstruct the truth. Tim O'Malley was similarly straight forward. Either way the answer to the improvements suggested was, "NO." There was no policy difference.

In my view, that means I've failed to put the right data on the table for these men to consider, and perhaps they considered the messager instead of the message itself, who knows. The "change" I've seen is that the legal counsel the MEC relies on has verified some of the data. Changing policy in ALPA is a very slow process, as one by one, resistence is overcome. The policies many of us disagree with were set into motion back in the 1990's (and in many peoples' view, they worked ... even I could see harm if we did not carefully manage our way out of outsourcing ... the balance is a good thing)

If you boil down what has been written from all sides, there seems to be some level of concurrence on the administrative issues. Objectively there was a firing of many important Committee Chairs who combine probably have near a century of experience. That's the only real objective data here.

This wasn't Glasnost, or a velvet revolution.

Sink r8

Bar,

Change is what we need but "Change" is also a buzzword used by populists to attain power, by usurping a legitimate desire for improvement and reform.

At the MEC level, King represented a change, not Change. One set of guys got their guy in, over another group that was tone-deaf. It was not a successful choice. Was he hampered by opponents? I'm sure. But isn't any MEC leader faced with internal opponents? Of course. Some have the skills to overcome, some do not. I didn't particularly like O'Malley, but King was a poor substitute. It's not that I disagree about a direction he was leading us to, I just couldn't see that he was actually leading us anywhere.

Carl Spackler

Nobody is making that allegation. Roberts was a proponent of a change to bottom-up organizational behavior. That's an undeniable fact. The new guard LEC reps were happy to see it and were pushing him to move faster. The old guard were terrified of it because they don't do bottom-up. Nobody is saying Roberts is/was the only one that could drive change. We're just saying the will of the pilots was subverted by this coup.

Carl

Carl Spackler

It really doesn't matter that you thought Roberts was a poor substitute Sink. The will of the pilots (through a large majority of their reps) was that Roberts was the best choice. That will of the pilots and the process thereof was successfully subverted in a coordinated attack by men who are deeply loyal to Lee Moak. That's what matters right now. That's why chaos is in control. Our process was successfully subverted.

It's about process...not people.

Carl

Bucking Bar

Sink,

Got you.

I think, regardless of how active a listener a gentleman is, too much policy is driven by attorneys who act as Consigliere. Unfortunately these men are not the non political elder statesmen portrayed in movies. They can be provincial.

Those who don't spend much time at the Courthouse are like a pilot who never turns a wheel in twenty years. They get rusty. Their views become simply a reflection of the echo chamber they advise in. They lose their persective on reality. If nothing else, active trial experience opens your mind ... a very good attorney has a good seat of the pants feel for how a jury and a judge see the matter.

Much of the reason we've not seen any real change is that the pilots we elect to administer our union all fall back on the same sources for advice. I am not sure how we change that process, other than to keep asking the questions that force them to peer out of their offices and look out the window at the legal landscape that surrounds us.

Sink r8

I also think "Change" is just a slogan at the local level. On the FO side, the new FO rep seems to be doing exactly what he should be doing, and the previous FO rep left with a good reputation as well.

On the Captain side, the challenger is talking about work, and about getting more actual pilot input and direction. He is actually calling for polling, post TA poll discussions, more MEMRAT. What's wrong with that? I know he threw a big rock in Tom's puddle, and interrupted his pre-election victory tour, and maybe that's rude. But if you actually read what he's put out, he's taken a pretty innovative pro-pilot position. If he could somehow overcome the Tom machine (hard to imagine), he'd actually be the candidate that advocated Change.

Tom's election is based on communications, him being a really swell guy, answers his phone, and him being the only guy who can prevent the fascists from taking over. The only problem is that he's not actually fighting the establishment he is the establishment. The problem with the communications angle, is that a) he's taking credit for the work of others and b) he's actually actively manipulating communications for his own purposes. The problem with the idea that he's a swell guy (he is) is that it's not enough, and he based his campaign on snowing the challenger with endorsements, rather than talking about issues. And he answers his phone, and e-mails. The problem is, we have no account of what he does with the input.

[deleted] with another rep's e-mails, is just the icing on the cake.

Bucking Bar

Carl,

We can evaluate this objectively by analyzing a recent representational failure that threw half our profession into concessionary bargaining. I pruport that there is no real difference in administrations and there will be no difference until we either change counsel, manage them or learn to place their advice in proper perspective. I dare say there are few Delta pilots who have employed a legal team before ... it just isn't experience common to many in the pool of experts we have to draw from.

Tim O'Malley facilitated another pilot group negotiating with Delta pilots to contract for Delta flying. When the news on Pinnacle broke, his reps asked him to address the issue ... his answer to proposed evaluations was, "NO." He went on to belittle those Reps who had expressed concerns. Worse, his response was that other pilots negotiating Delta flying was none of our business.

Kingsley Roberts took office and inhereted the problem (problem of the Delta pilots). He listened politely (very bottom up) and his position was the same as Lee Moak's (who authorized the end run around our MEC) and Tim O'Malley (who facilitated our representational irrelevance). The end state was just as top down as ever.

All three of these men had the same answer to a critical question involving the representation of Delta pilots.

Any three of these men should have put Delta pilots first with Delta management. Any one of these men could have robbed the DPA of the central plank of their platform, all three failed to do so.

I'm a safety guy. So, if we had three accidents due to structural failure, wouldn't we concentrate on the single point of failure common to all three losses?