XRMEFLYER said:
That was 100% our ALPA reps who stipulated that silly date of hire thing.
AMF
XRMEFLYER,
You've been doing pretty good so far. There is no need to make statements that are not factual to placate General Lee.
None of your ALPA reps ever stipulated any "date of hire thing". That is not true.
The General has a noble clause in seeking to defend and help his fourloughed bretheren. But instead of doing that, he actually makes matters worse, because his posts are full of untrue statements and threats. His strategy is not unlike his MEC, which is exactly why his Chairman got no special help.
The DOH garbage is a propaganda effort mounted by the Delta MEC. They used it as a tool to incite and rally their apathetic rank and file in support of C2K.
There was no DOH demand ever by the Comair MEC. Period. Don't believe the Delta pilots' propaganda machine.
In the case of the hiring of their furloughed by Comair, the Delta MEC Chairman did not ask for help from the Comair MEC. He came to the MEC with a bogus offer of preferential hiring, on which he could not deliver, and a threat of "going public" if they did not do what he wanted.
He already knew that Delta management was not interested in supporting him by directing Comair management to hire his people, which it could have easily done. They turned him down, before he came to the Comair MEC. He announced, again before he came, his intention to go public if he didn't get what he wanted. I wasn't in that meeting either, but I am confident that is exactly why he was turned down, and he should have been.
Buergey is not stupid. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to be turned down and he did it in a way that would guarantee just that. Just like the DOH propaganda generated by his predecessor Giambusso, he wanted a tool that would incite the Delta pilots against Comair pilots. Why? Because he and ALPA don't like the litigation against ALPA and the DMEC's predatory scope clause.
As for the General's rhetoric about how much the Delta pilots "helped" us in our time of "need", that's BS too. Yes, they paid the strike assesment. As you pointed out earlier, that was not a matter of choice, it is a mandatory requirement of ALPA membership that applies to all. Yes, they didn't fly struck work, but they did not do that because they wanted to "help us". They did it because they did not want to be branded as scabs.
Some Delta pilots did contribute to our family fund. That was voluntary and we should be thankful to those who did. However, the truth is it was dam*ed few of them and dam*ed little. The American pilots, who don't even belong to ALPA, gave far, far, more than the Delta pilots. So don't let him fill you up with the BS about their largess.
Before they got their contract, some of them walked our picket lines. The day after their own contract was a done deal, all of them disappeared.
We can't paint them all with the same brush, because there are thousands of fine and good people on the Delta list, but the majority are self-serving. By that I mean that they have a history of "helping" whenever they think it serves their own interests, and a history of doing nothing whenever it does not.
Their MEC has used its influence against the interests of Comair pilots for more than a decade. Long before the "strike" began and continuously since it has ended.
They did their dam*dest to take away ALL of our 70-seaters. They did not succeed, because the Company (Delta) would not let them. They have been trying to do that since they first learned of the order, and they have not given up. While they tell you in public how much they wanted to help and how they hoped we would win, in private they do everything in their power to take whatever they can and restrict what they cannot take.
There belief that they should have "special rights" at Comair is nothing new. It did NOT start after Delta purchased Comair. They had that same belief long before. Now that their Company "owns" our company it is merely upgraded from a right to a sacred right.
Before they ran into difficult times, the truth is they wouldn't give us the time of day. As a matter of fact one of their former MEC Chairmen even had the audacity to demand an apology from our MEC Chairman, because he requested an audience that "God" wasn't disposed to grant.
If you are not familiar with what these people who say they want to "help" us have done in the past, make an effort to learn. It will curl your hair.
They have a new MEC Chairman now and things may get better. However, once more, that is because it is
in their best interest to have better relations at this time. Their current Chairman is a lot smarter than the last one, and knows that you catch more flies with honey. However, make no mistake, we are still thought of as "flies" that should be caught.
He "supported" (not approved like GL says - he has no authority to "approve" or disapprove) the proposed merger between ASA/CMR. Wow! Such a deal. A merger that is of highly questionable benefit to either ASA or Comair pilots, and of no particular danger or benefit to Delta pilots. In other words a zero-cost propaganda opportunity. Meanwhile his MEC supports the idea that we should take a pay cut (although he does not himself), because we need to "share the pain" of his pilots' excessive costs. On that, he is conveniently silent, in public.
He is also silent on the black-ball threat directed at CMR pilots that the General (and others) shout to the heavens every day. He has not retracted the threats made by his predecessor, at least not in public (and I predict that he will not)
He himself negotiated an agreement that limited our 70-seat jets and forced their distribution among all DCI carriers. He personally negotiated the limits on our 50-seat flying. His MEC is currently seeking to use our flying as a bargaining chip in his negotiations.
As long as the Delta pilots continue to "use" the future of Comair and ASA pilots as bargaining chips, you and every other CMR/ASA pilot should come to the realization that our "friends" do not reside in Atlanta.
It would indeed have been nice if furloughed Delta pilots could have found a temporary home at Comair.
The responsibility for why they have not rests soley at the hands of the Delta MEC.
The General claims and loudly resents his fellow furloughed pilots are being used as what he calls "pawns". So do I, we just have a different perspective as to who is doing the using. GL thinks it is Comair pilots, I think it is the Delta MEC.
Surplus resents with equal fervor the fact that ALL Comair pilots and their futures have been used as "pawns" to further the agenda and interests of the Delta MEC for a decade. So I guess the General and I are even. If and when the Delta MEC chooses to change its politics and agenda with respect to us, I'll be more than happy to join in the call for a cease fire. Until they do, the struggle to protect our interests will probably continue.
Don't worry too much about what the General or the others write on this board, it is relatively mild. Read what they write on the ALPA board, read what they publish in The Roar and the Widget, official publications of the Delta MEC and Council 44. Go back and read what they have been saying to each other, about us, for the last ten years. Then you will know what they really think. This dispute did not begin with the currently furloughed Delta pilots. If the General or anyone else thinks that it did, they just can't see the forest for the trees.
