I am as well Capn. The tactical mistake on the DALPA side was to offer something worse than any arbitrator would have decided. If you're on the NWA side, December 8 couldn't possibly be any worse...only better. And a 50/50 chance of it being a hell of a lot better.

Carl

Interesting. I read it as:

The tactical mistake on the NWA side was to offer something worse than any arbitrator would have decided. If you're on the DAL side, December 8 couldn't possibly be any worse...only better. And a 99.95% chance of it being a hell of a lot better.

I'll place the bet now:

1. Negotiated list December 5, or
2. Arbitrated award of a modified ratioed list, with approximately 250 NWA pilots that would hit 62.4 in the next 3 years "pulled out" when the ratio is constructed.

DOH won't be part of any construct to develop a list.

DAL pilots will complain that the aircraft categories, payrates and business plans were ignored in the ratio. NWA pilots will complain about lost years, 787 growth, and no credit for "super premium". We'll wind up moving forward together.

A divorce in reverse...

PG,

During the bankruptcy debacle Lee Moak talked very tough at the huge pilot rally in ATL. He definitely "inspired the troops". Remember the "I won't blink" comment?

DAL management played him like a fiddle. DALPA agrees to a "temporary" 14% ADDITIONAL pay cut to "allow more time to negotiate".

Well guess what? The 14% "temporary" cut now becomes the new bottom line pay rate. We also gave up our DB pension plan, and numerous other benefits/ work rules.

I believe that what Lee Moak and DALPA did should not be compared to say; UAL, but rather what the precedent is in terms of US bankruptcy law.

I don't believe there is a single case of a bankruptcy judge ordering union employees to take a 42% hourly pay cut, taking away their defined benefit retirement plan, reducing other benefits and changing work rules. Not one.

I firmly believe that Lee Moak capitulated to DAL management. I also believe that the panel of arbitrators will make their decision upon what they think is a fair list within the criteria they have been given

Lee Moak will give away too much just to get a negotiated list.

Yet, we still had BETTER work rules, and HIGHER pay at the end, than ANY OTHER similarly situated carrier. Those are the facts, Wasatch. No doubt BK sucked, but we weathered it better than UAL, NWA, or USAir.

Maybe not, but your anger is misplaced. You need to be furious with the MEC Chairman who gave up the first 32% of that 42% when we weren't even in bankruptcy. His name was John Malone.

Compare our payrates, working conditions, scheduling rules, with any of the other three and tell me where you'd rather work. Or show me a pilot group that profited up front from a merger. Ever. The facts speak for themselves. But you sound to me like this is something personal from your past. No facts can overcome that emotional bias.

PG

We didn't take a 42% pay cut in BK, we took a 14% pay cut in BK and some other contractual changes and received a $2.1B claim for the concession, which ended up having a cash value of $1.2B.

We did take a 32% pay cut in 2004, along with significant scheduling changes, and we got some ESOP, cash value $0 for the effort, but that was long before Lee Moak, or the current MEC took office and nearly a year before bankruptcy.

Reroute,

You're correct. The 32.5% pay cut was done prior to the actual bankruptcy filing. The concept was to prevent the bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy law is not specific to the airline industry. The fact that we did better than UAL or USAir doesn't give me any solace. I do not think we did better than NWA. They didn't lose their DB retirement plan.

I flew with a co-pilot several years ago. His father is a retired Federal Bankruptcy Judge. His comment to his son, that was reiterated to me, was that no bankruptcy judge would impose the cuts that DALPA negotiated on our behalf.

Think about that for a minute.

If you guys are happy with Lee Moak, fine. I'm not!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but prior to bankruptcy our scope clause limited connection carriers to 70 seats, and limited the number of 70 seaters to a fairly small number. Didn't we give that up, too? Doesn't SkyWest (and others) operate 76 seat jets?

[quote=Wasatch Phantom;498835]

Bankruptcy law is not specific to the airline industry. The fact that we did better than UAL or USAir doesn't give me any solace. I do not think we did better than NWA. They didn't lose their DB retirement plan.

We'll have to agree to disagree on part of that statement.

I flew with a co-pilot several years ago. His father is a retired Federal Bankruptcy Judge. His comment to his son, that was reiterated to me, was that no bankruptcy judge would impose the cuts that DALPA negotiated on our behalf.

The question before the judge was the rejection of our entire contract. The judge was not deciding what our future pay rate would be, the judge was deciding whether or not we would have a contract at all.

Regardless, did this retired judge hear the testimony, examine the evidence and question the witnesses and lawyers present. If not, then how can he make a judgment on what he would or would not have done as a Federal Bankruptcy Judge in NY?

Did your friends dad work in the NY District? Is he familiar with the standards for rejection of a union contract in NY? There's a reason DAL shopped for the right District to file BK.

Think about that for a minute.

O.K.

If you guys are happy with Lee Moak, fine. I'm not!

That's cool. We can all draw our own conclusions, just not our own facts.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but prior to bankruptcy our scope clause limited connection carriers to 70 seats, and limited the number of 70 seaters to a fairly small number.

If you consider 200 a small number, then you are correct, prior to BK DCI was limited to a small number of 70 seaters, 200 of them. LOA 51 allowed 15 76 seaters in 2007 and 30 76 seaters in 2008 and beyond with any additional 76 seaters dependent on mainline growth, but no greater than 200 total aircraft configured with either 70 or 76 seats.

Now THAT was funny!!!

Ok. You started on the 49 yard line. Just in a different stadium.

Two words, Status Quo.

Reroute-

"..and some other contractual changes"?!?!?!. OMFG that is the understatement of the century!

That's a nice way of skipping over the fact that LOA 51 was the one in which the Moak MEC agreed, in writing, to the hard freeze of our pensions AND to NOT oppose the complete and total termination of our pensions.

I mean, if you want to go the "which Delta MEC was worse" route as you seem to want, then we need to point that out. Pay cuts can be recovered in time, but nobody to my knowledge has ever gotten a pension back.

Most frustrating is that every time I bring this up to a current MEC member, the answer is "our pension met the minimum requirement for a distress termination, so it was terminated".

As though that was the end of it.

In truth, terminating a pension successfully requires all THREE of the following:

1) Meet the ERISA and PBGC requirements for distress termination

2) The corporation officers and board must DESIRE to terminate the pension

3) The corporation officers and board must believe that the employees whose pensions were terminated will allow the company to function thereafter.

Number 1 and number 2 were out of our control, but number 3 we gave them, plain and simple. And in writing no less!

I don't envy the Malone or Moak MECs for the battles they had to fight, but I think you were emphasizing the concessions taken under the Malone MEC and glossing over those taken under the Moak MEC.

Soup