To Captainv Part 1 of 3
Originally posted by captainv
Actually, beyond the issue of furloughees, Gen. Lee and I rarely agree.
Thanks for your reply; nice post. First, I'll apologize for yanking your chain a bit hard. It's just that it gets very frustrating when a Comair pilot appears to trust the words of a pilot from another airline more than he does the words of his own people. I'm happy to hear that you don't agree with everything he says, because most of what he says is nothing more than political rhetoric and hyperbole. You asked a lot of questions so this is going to be long. It is unfortunately too complex for a couple of paragraphs. Bear with me if you can.
I appreciate your concern for your furloughed friend. That is a good thing, but it is also a personal thing. I also appreciate the General's concern for his fellow furloughed pilots. That is a good thing and his zeal is admirable. We should all be concerned for every furloughed pilot, not just the pilots from a particular airline and our airline
is hiring furloughed pilots from many airlines, in significant numbers.
The fact is that the Comair MEC is NOT preventing Comair from hiring Delta pilots. They are not being hired by Comair because
they choose of their own free will not to comply with Comair's requirements. The Delta pilots have a right to make that choice and Comair management also has a right to establish and maintain its own hiring requirements. Those requirements were not put in place to prevent the hiring of furloughed Delta pilots. They have been in place much before the current rounds of furloughs. What exactly makes a Delta pilot so different from a United pilot, a USAirways pilot, a Midway pilot, an Eagle pilot, a NWA pilot, an American/TWA pilot or any other airline pilot that's furloughed? Why should Comair have a different policy for furloughed Delta pilots than it does for furloughed pilots from those other airlines?
At this point I'll venture a guess that you're thinking --- well, Delta owns Comair. Yes, Delta does own Comair but the Delta pilots do not. The Delta pilots also do not own or control Comair pilots or the Comair MEC, they just think they do. Maybe they would like to, but at some point in life even a Delta pilot has to understand that you can't have every thing you would like.
This is as old as the hills, so I'm sure you've heard it before. There's a long line of pilots at the pearly gates waiting for St. Pete to check their ID and grant admission. Suddenly a guy in a Delta uniform walks up, bypasses the line, ignores St. Pete and walks right in. A UAL pilot in the line turns to the guy behind him, a NWA pilot, and says, "Look at that dam*ed Delta pilot, who's he think he is anyway, God?" "Shhhh," says the NWA pilot, "that
IS God, he just thinks he's a Delta pilot."
Delta management can tell Comair management what to do and when to do it at any time. If the Delta MEC really wants to help furloughed Delta pilots, a political campaign against the Comair MEC (and that is exactly what this is) isn't going to do it. Why is the Delta MEC asking the Comair MEC to secure the hiring of furloughed Delta pilots? Why doesn't the Delta MEC ask Delta management to direct Comair management to do so?
It's pretty simple, the Delta MEC saw an opportunity to attempt to discredit the Comair MEC and cause Comair pilots to fight among ourselves. They know that Comair has a large number of new pilots (25% of the total) that were not even at Comair during the strike. Most of those new pilots have dreams of one day flying for Delta. That provides a perfect opportunity for the Delta MEC to try to turn those pilots against their own MEC and divide Comair pilots against each other. Why does the Delta MEC want to do that? Because the Delta MEC is actively engaged in attempting to take aircraft assigned to Comair for itself (the 70-seaters) and has been trying to do so since 1994, with the help of the ALPA. The Delta MEC and ALPA together have a goal of doing that and further, of restricting Delta's use of the 50-seat CRJ. Both of those acts injure all Comair pilots and some of them are fighting it in the courts. That annoys the Delta MEC and prevents/delays it from directly screwing Comair pilots even more than it already has. This preferential hiring BS is nothing more than a political maneuver that is designed to do two things, 1) help to cover the Delta MEC's ineffective efforts to help the furloughed pilots, and 2) facilitate the Delta MEC's ability to take from Comair pilots while diluting our will to resist.
They would like to do to Comair (and to ASA) exactly what the APA is trying to do to American Eagle or what ALPA and the AAA MEC have done to six different regional airlines, and this whole preferential hiring scheme is nothing more that a part of the political effort to accomplish that. If they can succeed in dividing Comair pilots, it will make it easier for them. It really has nothing to do with their furloughed pilots.
This is politics plain and simple and you ought to recognize that.
The Delta pilots, not all but most, don't think Comair pilots should be on their seniority list and have said so repeatedly. They even hired "outside counsel" to prevent any possibility of that happening. Why is it wrong, for us to feel the same way? The General feels that the Comair MEC is doing an injustice to furloughed Delta pilots because it has not made a statement urging Comair to waive its hiring policy with respect to his furloughed friends. That's his opinion and he has a right to it, but that doesn't make it so. Because he doesn't
like the CMR MEC's decision to decline trying to make a special exemption for Delta pilots, he and many of his associates, have repeatedly threatened to black-ball every Comair pilot from any possibility of ever being hired at Delta in the future. When his MEC made the proposal, it couched it together with the threats that it would "go public" and do exactly what the General is trying to do if the Comair MEC did not roll over and do their bidding. They kept their "promise".
Apparently the objective of the threats is to intimidate Comair pilots. Since that hasn't worked, he is now saying that he doesn't hate Comair pilots (anymore), he just hates the MEC Chairman and "his cronies." Can't intimidate the pilot group at large, attempt to intimidate the MEC and turn Comair pilots against their own. They have further recommended that Comair pilots should recall their MEC, because it has chosen not to discriminate in favor of furloughed Delta pilots, as opposed to furloughed pilots from other airlines. Well, we all have a right to our opinions and
my opinion is that the Comair MEC was chosen by Comair pilots to represent the interests of Comair pilots, and to protect the job security of Comair pilots, not the interests of Delta pilots and that is exactly what it is doing.
The General and his associates then remind us all, again repeatedly, that the Delta pilots "helped us during our strike" and therefore (I guess) we "owe" them. Well guess what, the ASA pilots and the UAL pilots helped us too and so did the USAirways pilots, the UPS pilots, the Eagle pilots, the ACA pilots and every other pilot group that's out there. Those that have furloughed pilots as well as those that do not. Even the American pilots helped us and they belong to a different union. In just about every post on the subject, the Delta pilots remind us of the fact that they paid strike benefits. Well, bully for them. That happens to be a requirement of membership in the ALPA and it is mandatory, not optional. Every ALPA pilot paid strike benefits and none of them paid any less or any more than the Delta pilots. All ALPA pilots paid the very same assessment. Why then do Comair pilots "owe" the Delta pilots more than we owe anyone else?
The Delta pilots further remind us that they contributed to our family fund and again, we "owe" them for doing that. Yes, some of them did give to our family fund;
most of them did not. Well guess what, a lot of other airline pilots also gave to our family fund and yes, we are all grateful for that. However,
we do not "owe" the Delta pilots any more than we owe anybody else. If you or anyone else really wants to know exactly how much the Delta pilots "gave" to our family fund, why don't you ask our MEC? Maybe they'll tell you. Maybe they will also tell you that the check we got from the American pilots
alone, was the biggest and was nearly as much as the donations we received from ALL ALPA carriers combined. Maybe they will tell you how much the United pilots gave and compare it to what the Delta pilots gave. Then you'll have an idea of just who the BS spin-doctors really are and who we really "owe".
Continued in Part 2
