I've met the enemy,

[Timebuilder]

If so many pilots see that we are our own worst enemy when will we sieze the day and change course?

That day will require leadership, and where that leadership will come from is a good question. Perhaps the outcome of the court case will point in that direction, perhaps not.

In any event, pilots would have to work together, and not as a two tiered system of wages and representation.

 

[AAflyer]

Timebuilder,
I like your posts, but with all due respect that sounds like an answer to let the "status quo" run it's course. WE can all take part in this now, leadership comes from within, as an FO or a captain, if you fly a 1900 or a 777.

It can start here with ideas that foster communication and ideas that can be spread to other line pilots or given to our elected officials. Believe it or not "one" person can make a difference, it is up to that individual to do it.

AAflyer

 

[Timebuilder]

Maybe I tried to sum up too many ideas using too few words.

Certainly, this is a good beginning, but let's take a realistic view of what is involved. We have a lot of entrenched ideas, a national union who has done little if anything to advance the cause, and shows little interest in doing so.

When I talk about leadership, I mean a person or group who is capable of providing a unifying force in our industry, somewhere on the order of the unions of the 1940's or 50's. While this is definitely worth working towards, I don't see where the unifyng leadership would come from.

I'm more than open to ideas.

 

[surplus1]

AAflyer,

I like your posts too and I also like Timebuilders. You both have valid points

It can start here with ideas that foster communication and ideas that can be spread to other line pilots or given to our elected officials. Believe it or not "one" person can make a difference, it is up to that individual to do it.
AAflyer

You are correct. It could start here and some are trying to start it. Unfortunately, we (self included) spend far too much time arguing the history of the problem and defending against attacks from the opposition and, virtually no time discussing possible solutions. Why is that? I have an opinion.

In any divisive situation there are those who want a peacful solution and those who don't want any solution. On the mainline side of the fence, you are one of very few that has advocated a solution. Most argue that the "problem" is imagined or due to the intransigence of the other side which need only succumb to their desires to resolve the conflict.

The "major" pilot groups don't really believe that there is a conflict per se and see the "problem" as being the other side itself, not the issues. The same applies on the "regional" side of the fence, though I think to a far lesser extent. As in other walks of life, the poor tend to view their lot with a perspective quite different from that of the rich.

As an example, I offered a suggestion in response to a query. Several posters, all from my side of the issues, responded favorably. Not one poster from the other side made any response at all. They didn't shoot it down, they didn't modify it, they didn't accept it. Their only response was silence.

I suppose I could be super altruistic and take the view that "silence gives consent", but I honestly think that would be very naive. Instead, the message I received (though left unsaid) was: we don't care what you propose, the only acceptable methody is our way. Do as we say or we'll squash you.

It almost reminds me of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. There are people on both sides of that who would like to end the conflict. But, there are others, on both sides, married to the concept of eliminating the oponent. As soon as peace appears to get close, one side or the other does something to intentionally derail it.

There is no progress there and regrettably there is no progress here either.

Timebuilder writes

That day will require leadership, and where that leadership will come from is a good question.

In any event, pilots would have to work together, and not as a two tiered system of wages and representation.

Certainly, this is a good beginning, but let's take a realistic view of what is involved. We have a lot of entrenched ideas, a national union who has done little if anything to advance the cause, and shows little interest in doing so.

When I talk about leadership, I mean a person or group who is capable of providing a unifying force in our industry, .......... While this is definitely worth working towards, I don't see where the unifyng leadership would come from.

He's right on target. The national leaders of our union are not "leading". They are following the dictates of the major airline pressure groups. They themselves appear to share the views of the major MEC's (since that is where they all come from) and so far their "leadership" has been that of fostering the divisive status quo. In short, bankrupt.

One ALPA president leaned a bit in favor of the second tier and lost the presidency because of it. The current president and each of his officers, were all miraculously "elected" without opposition, one each from each of the Big Four. They march to but one drum. I don't forsee any real leadership that would support change as coming from that quarter.

As Timebuilder asks, where will it come from?

The Delta, Comair and ASA pilot groups could provide it if they chose to do so. While we spar vigorously on these message boards, an underlying commonality of interest does exist behind the scenes. The opportunity for viable solution also exists. It's not a perfect world, but if those leaders were to take the bull by the horns and work together, they could end the current mess. The potential does exist, notwithstanding the thorny rhetoric.

Because of its size and power withing the union, the Delta MEC would have to take the big step in leading the search for an equitable solution. To date, it has made no effort to do so and only one of its leaders, over the last 13 years, ever did anything other than try to impose his will. That fellow has retired.

Over at USAir Group ALPA, guided by the UMEC Chairman has just negotiated an agreement that includes the infamous "Jets for Jobs" protocol. Interestingly, the situation at that carrier did require unusual and onerous concessions. However, that same situation also provided a unique opportunity for a break through in the solution of internal ALPA conflict. Not only was that opportunity not seized, instead an even greater schism was perpetrated. The leader of the UMEC now seeks national political office. He won't get any votes from "regional pilots" but guess what, he doesn't need any.

What do you suppose will happen to the chances for equitable solution if that gentleman becomes one of our "national leaders"?

Political capital will have to be expended to resolve this conflict of interest. To date, not one mainline leader, has been willing to put any of his own political interests at risk. That's all that's really required, the mechanics of the actual solution are easy and not damaging to either group. Political power is really the only element of risk. IMO, that is why we have no serious effort to change anything. Sadly, I see none in the offing.

I'd like to hear both your thoughts on what I've said.

 

[Timebuilder]

First, I'm curious as to who this guy is, and what office he is seeking. Send a PM if you like.

I agree that the members of the Delta family, including the ones who are treated like they resemble the milkman, are the best opportunity for real change. That's why I hope that things can be worked out rather than shattered.

If politics are the real fly in this ointment, it may take further attrition at the majors to bring the member numbers into a range where positive change will be possible. The old guard may have to see their ranks thinning further before having the motivation to accept their jet flying, name sharing, passenger feeding brothers as equals.

 

[csmith]

part 1

From Surplus1:
"Interesting, but I fear more inaccurate than you accuse me of being. I've seen some heated exchanges and participated in many but I know of only one mainline pilot having a post removed (Clownpilot) and I don't know of anyone being banned."

I beg to differ, and I have spoken to a few who have had posts removed and one who is not allowed to post. It’s neither here nor there, but this individual is no more or less scathing than other posts I’ve seen here. In fact, our trustworthy moderator himself has dipped into such levels, yet still remains. That is neither here nor there for this thread, however.


"Here we have an example of what you earlier called and inaccuracy. In my opinion your idea that Scope at Delta restricts none of these things could not be more erroneous. I'm sure you would call that statement accurate, I would not. The portion of your Scope that is in dispute does attempt to restrict market forces. It artificially limits one aircraft type, severely restricts the utilization of other types and attempts to force the Company to operated types that you prefer to fly. If those things are not all market restrictions, pray tell what is?"


While this may be you opinion, this is an inaccuracy. It artificially limits nothing. As I said, management may put any aircraft anywhere. This is INDISPUTABLE. The fact that they do not is not the fault, nor, the problem of the Delta pilots. I would be more than happy to fly a 70 seat jet out of MCO to prevent having to commute. You are correct, the trickle down effect prevents this from happening, but I cannot stress enough that this is a management decision. We do not tell Delta which aircraft to fly, we simply negotiate who may fly them as a separate entity and how much. Don’t spin it, it is what it is.



"Fortunately for the Company your Scope is currently disabled or the Company would not be able to address its current needs."


I would beg to differ, sir. The portions of our scope/contract which are disabled are those which have to do with FM. As an example, “permitted aircraft types” is not subject to FM. Any affiliate(s) may operate 57 70 seat jets without combining companies. Delta may NOT place a code on NWA or CAL at this time, nor may they on us. There are many more examples, but I’ll save the bandwidth.



"I don't tout where I've been or what I've done, but you folks have a propensity when unable to debate, to challenge the background of your opponent. Your peer did so twice, before I responded. As it turned out, his assumptions were inaccurate and his own background comparatively deficient. That's not my fault. If you don't want answers don't ask the question."


I have no doubt that you have been there and done more. From your quote above, I say touché. It is human nature to become emotional about such things. I run into it daily on the ALPA boards. The boards are filled with it here. The DCI pilots here just love to take their shots at those nasty mainline guys talking down to them, or those snobby guys who have priced themselves out of the market, or the giant egos of those mainline guys. None of these things have to do with the debate at hand. Lowering yourself to such standards is beneath you and self-defeating AND probably a primary reason why mainline pilots scatter like quail away from the boards.


"I don't think my comment in this thread shoots any holes in the RJDC case and your comments most certainly do not. I understand the merger provisions of your PWA and find them to be intentionally discriminatory and based only on aircraft seating. That doesn't hurt the RJDC case, it helps it."


I agree that the merger provisions are outdated. What do you suggest we use as a trigger for a merger? What wouldn’t be arbitrary? I know what you’ll say, any subsidiary of Delta must use pilots from the Delta seniority list. I hear this a lot from you guys on this and the ALPA forum. Surely you can see that all flying by Delta pilots is just not possible. Can’t you? Laws in foreign lands, logistics, and the necessary hardware just do not make it possible. How much money, in airplanes alone, do you think Delta would have to invest in to take our passengers from anywhere to everywhere?!? Wouldn’t it just be a more true statement to say you want the domestic flying done by Delta pilots only. IOW, you guys come with the airplanes. While “all flying done by Delta pilots” makes for pretty speeches, the impracticality of it is just astonishing.



"Who's flying you say you're not restricting depends on agreement with your concept of ownership of all the flying. That concept is flawed from the get go. You own nothing. The flying belongs to Delta, Inc. Some of it is allocated to Delta Air Lines (where you work). The rest is allocated elsewhere, including where I work and has been for extended periods. The fact that you want to change that because you now want it all, doesn't make it so. You just think it does."


I guess I didn’t type clearly enough. If you really want to hear it, fine, Delta owns all of the flying. I trust this makes you happy that I concede this point. However, the working agreement between the pilots of Delta and Delta stipulates that ALL flying must be done by pilots on the Delta seniority list. It is a blanket statement which speaks volumes. Kinda like laws not specified by the national government are reserved for the states, flying which is not specifically allocated to the subs is reserved for the Delta pilots. As I said, this one line statement precludes another pilots group, be it Comair UAL, or Air France, from coming in and bargaining with Delta for flying. As such, the Comair pilots could have negotiated with Comair that all flying not done by Delta has to be done by pilots on the Comair seniority list. You didn’t achieve that nor the subsequent filing of a PID to include the ASA pilots—as they probably would have sued you. Hopefully this clears this up. I guess I should have said that the Delta pilots hold the sole bargaining chip with Delta proper.

 

[csmith]

part2

"Your statement that Delta can put RJs of any size into Delta Air Lines, thereby giving you control of all the flying, is technically accurate but otherwise ludicrous. Delta can do that. However, Delta, Inc. never has done that. Each time you negotiate, the portion that Delta, Inc. chooses to allocate to you can change. So can the portion allocated to us. Your efforts to gain total control of everything, at our expense, is the crux of the dispute. You not only want what you have, you also want what we have and actually have convinced yourself that is your sacred right. Yes, you can have whatever you negotiate, but the fact is you don't negotiate anything. The Air Line Pilots Association does the negotiating and is responsible for its actions. When the negotiations are conducted in violation of the ALPA constitution and further, in violation of ALPA's Duty of Fair Representation, the product of those illegal negotiations is rendered void."


#1 I think you are jumping the gun here a little bit. It is your opinion that DFR has been violated. I just got done explaining how section 1 works. You have no “ownership”, sorry, exclusive bargaining rights, over ANY of your flying. You are correct that the portion doled out may change, but that is between the pilots of Delta and the Delta MEC negotiators. Again, we differ on how things really work in the negotiating process. If I remember correctly, the Comair negotiators actually asked some members of ALPA to leave negotiations, as they were hindering the process in the opinion of the Comair negotiators. If ALPA truly negotiated the contracts, do you think the ALPA team COULD be asked to leave? Give me a break!!! You can’t have it both ways. Again, you opinion is that there has been a violation of DFR. My opinion based on hard evidence, not that I needed to convince myself. It boils down to this, we violated nothing in your PWA. Now the USAir wholly owneds, they have a beef.



"Further, the placement of the RJs and the mainline is essentially precluded by the content of your PWA that would render them unprofitable. Neither you or ALPA are unaware of this. The conditions you seek to impose on the airline through your PWA would make the RJ product unmarketable. Not only have you effectively priced yourselves out of the RJ market, you may well have done the same with the other aircraft assigned to you. The more that you do this, the less chance there is that Delta, Inc. will agree to give you the RJ flying. You know that, so don't pretend otherwise."


Well isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black. How do you know that we would price ourselves out of the RJs? How do you know that we priced ourselves out of the other aircraft. Do you have some PHd in economics, and are you privy to Delta’s books? So what you are saying is that RJs will work on a B scale, but not the mainline A scale? As a follow up question, is it any wonder why some of the mainline pilots look down on you? Are you sure that you don’t want to rephrase the above? Is this the same company who struck demanding a “mainline contract”? I guess they didn’t talk to you or you would have told them that such a contract on Rjs would not have been profitable. Did you know that Delta has been operationally profitable since march? Obviously this does not make the bottom line a profit all by itself, but it IS turning in the right direction. You really blew it in this paragraph. Of course, your cheering section loved the post, but c’mon, you’re shooting your own foot with this one.





"ALPA did not seek that consent and does not have it. I'm not a lawyer, but it does not take rocket science to know that an illegally negotiated component of a contract is rendered void. Whether you take money, jobs, flying or all of the above from another illegally, you will ultimately by forced by the courts to return what you took. It is ill-gotten spoils and you aren't entitled to keep it."


Most of the rest of your post rehashes the same things over again so I’ll skip to here. If you see something important I missed, feel free to call me on it. I know I won’t change your mind on this issue, and I’m not trying to. Legality is what will be decided. I think nothing illegal has been negotiated. What jobs have you lost? Show them to me. You can’t do it. Simple as that.



"What you call the "little pond" that we have on this board is far more diverse than the big pond you have on the ALPA boards, where you outnumber us more than 10 to 1. Is it any wonder that you prefer to discuss the issues in an environment that you dominate? I think not. That's exactly how you do everything else. You dominate the union with your money and force it to do what YOU want, regardless of how adversely it may affect other members. You evidently believe that you are "more equal", by virtue of your size and wealth than the rest of us. That may be so, but it does not excuse the union from compliance with the law."


You’re kidding, right? I take issue with your 10:1 ratio. Do you want to go over there and count hands with the participators? I lay you odds that it is close enough to be considered equal. Then again, you come back with the emotional, non-relevant dominating/inferior deal again. My mentioning of it stems from the bias on this board, compounded with the fact that there are many here without a dog in the fight, while everyone on the ALPA board has a dog in the fight. How can we “dominate” and issue where you are right?



"As for your reference to the alleged Delta MEC "proffer" of a flow-through, I won't argue that here for it is not relevant. However, I will say this much. The Delta MEC cannot "proffer" anything that it does not have the sole power to grant. The Delta MEC has no power to "grant a flow-through", did not in the past and does not now. Additionally, your statement is misinformed, but that's for another time."


I think it was quite relevant. There were ideas offered, which included a flow through type arrangement Comair and ASA, thereby addressing issues related to the issues at hand. You refuse to believe that this addresses the issues. It does, it just doesn’t address them the way the Comair and ASA MECs had already made up their mind about. While the Delta MEC cannot arbitrarily grant such a request, nor did I imply they could, as the sole bargaining agent with Delta they are the only ones who could negotiate such language with Delta.




"The idea that I offered in another thread is not a "miracle idea" by any means. It was no more than one suggestion for a more palatable and honest solution to the dilemma at US Air Group."


My bad, I had remembered it as a proposal to “cure” the ASA/Comair/Delta issue.
Is this a way to solve our little spat as well? For it is nothing more than a 1:1 flow through. As you said, this thread does not cover that, and I would be happy to explain why in another. Suffice to say that it will not work either.



"Legitimate Scope that protects the flying of Delta pilots in Delta Air Lines, is not only appropriate but essential. Predatory Scope that attempts to usurp the work of others and transfer it to your control has been illegally negotiated and needs to be thrown out."


“The work of others” is a flawed notion. I have said it elsewhere and I will say it again: In my non-arrogant tone, non-condescending conjecture, your job is a by-product of Delta scope. Without the exception to the scope, your company is Great Lakes Airlines—same with ASA. Delta chose your airlines as they could have chosen any other. They owned enough stock to be the puppet master for both airlines. Delta said jump, Comair said how high. Like it or not, that’s the way it was. Without the code, Comair was a third world airline. Believe it or not, I’m sure you’ll choose not. It really doesn’t matter. Hard work never got anybody a fair shake in this business. That’s all I am trying to say. It is irrelevant. Ask the pilots of Eastern, Braniff, TWA, etc. The work is/was never yours. You are living on borrowed time, and this whole deal is a strong arm attempt to gain a better foothold.


My solution for the mess? The DCI pilots need to eat a big ‘ole slice of humble pie and try to see if that flow through offer is still good. Speaking of shallow, there are ways a flow through can work, just not any which will gain some pilots that retirement/pay/ lawsuit money they may be able to obtain elsewhere. It’s going to be that or the lawsuit. The Delta pilots have a lot on their plate right now. NW/CAL, FM, and other things are taking up the time.



CSmith

 

[surplus1]

TO: CSmith

That's one of your better posts. Lots of good points and, as I'm sure you can guess, I could generate an equal number of counterpoints. I'm drafting a reply, but I'm not sure that I'll ever post it.

There is no question that we dissagree on most of the issues. That probably won't change, but it doesn't have too.

What I would really like to know is pretty simple.

1. Do you believe that there is a conflict of interest between us?

2. Do you want that conflict to be resolved?

3. Do you believe that it can be resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties?

If your answers are yes, then I propose that we start talking about potential solutions, instead of arguing about the problems and how big or small they may be and who's right and who's wrong.

If your answer is no, then I will post my rebuttal to your points and we can continue the dispute.

There's an old saying that my mother used to tell me about: "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still." I don't know the source but I think it is quite true.

I don't need to convince you of anything and you don't need to convince me. I really don't think either one of us can do that no matter how much we write about it. Therefore, I think it would be far more productive if we spent the time searching for a solution to our dispute that we both could accept, even if not love. That is what I propose. Over....

Surplus1