Delta TA on SCOPE

[RT8VA]

I am hesitant to post on this thread but here goes. I have to disagree with the assertion that the UniCal negotiations have been no help to Delta or that should some how affect the vote on this TA. Our negotiations have taken on a ridiculous pace but to imply that this is the fault of the two MEC's is completely false and every one knows that. While we have not reached a deal we have also not agreed to any substandard offer just to say that we have a contract done. Maybe there will be a TA here before the Delta pilots get to vote on theirs and maybe not but I wouldn't as a Delta pilot change my vote if I didn't like the deal. I also wouldn't tell a Delta pilot how I think they should vote that is up to them, my brother in law included since he is a Delta pilot. Good luck but stop blaming others and make a decision on your own deal if it is good enough for you or if it isn't that is all that matters. Good Luck.

 

[flyboyike]

No. Next question!



No, I didn't say that. Go back and read again. I think it's hypocritical for you to attack DALPA while absolutely refusing to criticize SWAPA or SWA under any circumstances for things that are also harmful for the profession. If you would openly criticize those things (737 type, substandard CBA until 2004, no DC plan still, etc.), then I wouldn't find it hypocritical for you to criticize DALPA at all. I would still disagree with your analysis on the scope issue, but at least it wouldn't be hypocrisy.



I haven't gotten personal, wave. You've gotten defensive on the 737 type thing all on your own. Go back and read my posts again. I never once criticized you for buying a 737 type. I have no idea how you got your 737 type. My criticism was all related to the fact that you don't criticize SWA's policy to require the type, not that you had one to get a job there. I just want you to be intellectually honest and not attack DALPA without also looking internally at SWA and admitting that a lot of the fall of this profession over the past decade can be attributed to legacy pilots having to compete with pilots making far less at the LCCs.

And this is the Group VP for the group that includes my airline. Sigh....

 

[waveflyer]

PCL-
Start a thread about anything Swa you want- that's not the subject here- just calculated distraction- no airline is perfect and I'm smart enough to know you're trying to get this thread to drift to the always popular Swa bashing instead of DALPA's TA -
I'm just not going there.

I was a pilot with a lot of varied experience before I went to Swa- I'm more than qualified to talk about this subject-
Maybe if legacies hadn't outsourced so crazily, I'd still be a legacy pilot giving you a +10 on how "damaging" Swa has been-

 

[Turtle21]

The problem I've got with the Steve Mayer letter is this.
As a rep you are part of a team, you should, by all means argue vigorously any point you want to make. You should take a strong stand in making that and than the MEC should vote. It's all done behind closed doors for a very good reason. The correct position is what the MAJORITY agree on. Not any one individual's position. That's how it's supposed to work, and when the MEC put's out a position, I think it's quite wrong for an individual to try and undermine what the majority have agreed on with his own personal take.
It's a committee, what they agree on should be the only thing that comes out, individuals trying to promote their own agenda against the will of the majority simply undermines the whole process.
Just a thought.

They are an ALPA serving body. Being self-serving individuals is normal. :lol: but you are correct, they should at least attempt a facade.

 

[Turtle21]

This silly argument about pattern bargaining is nothing but an ALPA accusation to blame pilots for ALPA's failure to arrest the rapid decline to the profession..

And it's used as a distraction to hide how greatly ALPA has profited while pilots have been experiencing pattern bankruptcy and pension loss while ALPA clerks drive a Lexus to the Herndon parking lot.

But other than that ALPA is a pretty cool club, even if it is overpriced.

 

[igneousy2]

The problem I've got with the Steve Mayer letter is this.
As a rep you are part of a team, you should, by all means argue vigorously any point you want to make. You should take a strong stand in making that and than the MEC should vote. It's all done behind closed doors for a very good reason. The correct position is what the MAJORITY agree on. Not any one individual's position. That's how it's supposed to work, and when the MEC put's out a position, I think it's quite wrong for an individual to try and undermine what the majority have agreed on with his own personal take.
It's a committee, what they agree on should be the only thing that comes out, individuals trying to promote their own agenda against the will of the majority simply undermines the whole process.
Just a thought.

I could not disagree with you more in this situation. I think if this was a strike vote, or the vote turned out to be no, then perhaps I might agree with you...at least a little more, but that is not the situation here.

In fact, I think it is the duty of the key players to put out well articulated papers/letters as to why they voted the way they did. Negotiating contracts is about compromise. The MEC and the NC members are the people that have seen all the confidential information, these are the people that sat across from the table with the company looked them in the eye and have a better sense of what might be possible if the TA is voted down then any line pilot.

Pilots are not children, we do not need nor want a unified front from our parents (MEC). Put ALL the information and opinions out there and let the pilots decide.

Once a TA is put out for a vote, I fail to see how individual members of the MEC and NC stating their opinions somehow makes the Delta pilots as a whole worse off. In what way does it have a negative effect on the process? I only see positives for the pilot group.

 

[SWA Bubba]

Point taken Bubba.....but why is your example a BAD thing? Until you lived it...it's easy to throw rocks at it. Next thing you are going to tell me is that the next startup or SWA will start taking the public bus because you think "it's stupid" to have a crew transport?

Seriously....no dig here....where does the toilet stop flushing?

I actually was not trying to throw rocks at anyone. When it happened, I was new to the industry and astonished, because I didn't know how much of this worked. I was trying to point out that although SWA started with a relatively poor contract when it was brand new and on tenuous survival status (as does every new airline) that our pilot group has always made steady progress on increasing our pay and bettering our contact, and more importantly for the industry (and of course, ourselves), we've never sacrificed our juniors for a quick buck. Nor have we sold out flying. That's actually a good example for the entire industry. Getting a large payraise at the expense of junior pilots may immediately look good on paper, but ultimately is a very bad thing for every other airline in the country, when the inevitable downward stroke comes.

As far as that specific Delta example of the van, I'm guessing it's probably easy to ask for a lot of that stuff when your company is flush (along with attractive pay increases, of course), but I think that presupposes the cyclic nature of the profession, and I think that on some level, these guys must have in the back of their minds that "we'll get the money now, but some of us will be furloughed later."

When I was looking to get out of the military in late 2000, all the majors were hiring bigtime. After doing MY research, I only applied to Southwest. At the time, I knew I would make somewhat less money, and work a little harder (not that anything we do is actually hard), but the positives outweighed that. At least for me. More fun at the job, slow but steady pay increases, and most importantly, none of that cyclic crap where I'd have to plan on a furlough or two in my career. My personal plan was to never have to look for another job in my life. Obviously no one could have forseen 9/11 & the meteoric rise in gas prices, and then the speed of the resultant downward spiral of the industry, but I suspect everyone knew that a downward movement was the next cycle for the industry regardless.

Not saying that Southwest was the right choice for everyone, but it was for me, not wanting to deal with the downs in addition to the ups. I was simply pointing out to PCL that Southwest pilots' steady progress has been a good example for the industry overall.

Bubba

 

[igneousy2]

Nor have we sold out flying. That's actually a good example for the entire industry. Getting a large payraise at the expense of junior pilots may immediately look good on paper, but ultimately is a very bad thing for every other airline in the country, when the inevitable downward stroke comes.

At the time, I knew I would make somewhat less money, and work a little harder (not that anything we do is actually hard),
Bubba

...and you STILL don't get it....you still don't see the contradiction. Everybody wants your hourly rate, right now, but that won't last long, the legacies got whacked pretty good, but it'll come back one step at a time.

I would guess that most of us on here wouldn't want your retirement "plan", work rules, work with guys that taxi-around at VR and then run out onto the ramp and start off-loading bags either.

Let's be clear, what little you have done at SWA to help this profession is far off-set by the damage that was done all those years agreeing to work harder for a fraction of what everybody else was getting.

You have only now reached, where the rest of legacies were back in 2001. They have all been knocked down and you have been left standing. That's great, and I don't wish any harm onto your pilot group, But don't come on here like your group are a bunch of trail-blazers at the edge of the envelope in improving conditions for pilots. That they are not.

 

[Turtle21]

...and you STILL don't get it....you still don't see the contradiction. Everybody wants your hourly rate, right now, but that won't last long, the legacies got whacked pretty good, but it'll come back one step at a time.

I would guess that most of us on here wouldn't want your retirement "plan", work rules, work with guys that taxi-around at VR and then run out onto the ramp and start off-loading bags either.

Let's be clear, what little you have done at SWA to help this profession is far off-set by the damage that was done all those years agreeing to work harder for a fraction of what everybody else was getting.

You have only now reached, where the rest of legacies were back in 2001. They have all been knocked down and you have been left standing. That's great, and I don't wish any harm onto your pilot group, But don't come on here like your group are a bunch of trail-blazers at the edge of the envelope in improving conditions for pilots. That they are not.

Yeah, ALPA's pattern destruction will eventually overtake SouthWest too.

 

[Dan Roman]

...and you STILL don't get it....you still don't see the contradiction. Everybody wants your hourly rate, right now, but that won't last long, the legacies got whacked pretty good, but it'll come back one step at a time.

I would guess that most of us on here wouldn't want your retirement "plan", work rules, work with guys that taxi-around at VR and then run out onto the ramp and start off-loading bags either.

Let's be clear, what little you have done at SWA to help this profession is far off-set by the damage that was done all those years agreeing to work harder for a fraction of what everybody else was getting.

You have only now reached, where the rest of legacies were back in 2001. They have all been knocked down and you have been left standing. That's great, and I don't wish any harm onto your pilot group, But don't come on here like your group are a bunch of trail-blazers at the edge of the envelope in improving conditions for pilots. That they are not.

Well you may disagree with me above, but I have to say you hit the head on the nail here. This isn't SWA bashing at all, it's simply reality. SWA is doing well now and good for them. I don't hold anything against them at all and frankly, you have to give SWA credit for raising the bar regarding the importance of treating the employee's well and how that positively effects the profits (although it appears their little warrior spirit mantra is pretty clearly a ruse to get them to be more co-operative come contract time!) But a SWA pilot bashing the legacies is classless, lacking in perspective and just plan hypocritical.
When we look back 10 years from now, it will be the ALPA legacies that will raise the bar for our industry, not SWAPA.