Any "Latest & Greatest" about Delta?
04-09-2012, 06:00 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2009
Posts: 5,113
The Delta MEC and Delta pilots saw nothing to gain and much to lose by pursuing unity with pilots who performed their outsourced flying. Delta management had always been benevolent and the concepts of "unity" which were a religion to some within our union were considered something of a quaint notion at Delta, if the concept of "unity" as a way to fight management like EL Cord's was understood at all.
Today we are at a crossroads. The experienced hands say "trust us, Delta management has our best interests at heart." The junior pilots see nearly half the airline outsourced in a decade and are fearful of just the sort of alter ego replacement EL Cord (and early airline managers) did as a matter of routine.
We need a return to our roots...
Last edited by Sink r8; 04-09-2012 at 06:15 AM.
04-09-2012, 06:07 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,503
No.
The history of this dates back to the beginning of aviation. E L Cord, the founder of American Airlines was first and foremost the owner of competing conglomerates.
Errett Lobban Cord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He, and other airline progenitors would commonly replace their pilots, getting rid of those who demanded more pay to compensate for greater risks, or experience (IE seniority). When pilots refused to fly in hazardous conditions and risk others' lives, those pilots would be fired and replaced with new, junior pilots.
Eventually the pilots followed the labor movement and unionized. In some cases they saw pay raises of 500% over time.
After deregulation there was a massive and permanent decline in revenues that airlines receive for their product. Today we are only beginning to see the stabilization of a decline which has been ongoing since 1978. Airlines have floundered in a vicious economic cycle (which appears to have always been the case to folks in our generation, but it wasn't). Pay was wildly out of step with revenues and concessionary contracts are always a hard sell.
The easy solution was a "B scale." Most everyone knows what that is, but for the uninitiated, "B Scale" was much lower pay for new hires who performed the same work, on the same airplanes. It was unfair, since those hired earlier got paid much more.
As more and more pilots who had experienced "B Scale" rose in the ranks of the airlines, they gained political power within ALPA and demanded that the unfair "B Scale" be ended. Our current generation of ALPA leadership well remembers "B Scale" and how it negatively effected their careers.
I think the first move to outsource B Scale flying was at Eastern Airlines under Babbit (but I'm not sure). Babbit is about the only former ALPA leader who has talked openly about what he considers to have been a mistake to move B Scale (small aircraft) flying off the seniority list.
By the time Charles Giambusso (former Delta MEC Chair) came along, every major airline had engaged in outsourcing small aircraft flying. US Air probably had the most, on a percentage basis, when the question of Comair came along. Small aircraft flying was seen as a problem, a stepping stone, a pariah, to mainline lists. Worse, having used outsourcing as a method to eliminate hated B Scale, small aircraft flying on the list was perceived as a threat. Just as the B Scale pilots had wrestled control away from their oppressors, the B Scale guys feared the next generation would take control from them and lavish negotiating capital on increasing pay on smaller aircraft AT THE SENIOR PILOTS EXPENSE!
While this happened at every major airline, the effect was particularly acute at Delta, where you had excellent labor relations with management and a lot of military pilots who had done pretty well working for Delta. For the most part, the Delta pilots saw less need for the sort of "unity" used to fight management compared to pilots who had come to age in EL Cord's time. The Delta MEC and Delta pilots saw nothing to gain and much to lose by pursuing unity with pilots who performed their outsourced flying. Delta management had always been benevolent and the concepts of "unity" which were a religion to some within our union were considered something of a quaint notion at Delta, if the concept of "unity" as a way to fight management like EL Cord's was understood at all.
Today we are at a crossroads. The experienced hands say "trust us, Delta management has our best interests at heart." The junior pilots see nearly half the airline outsourced in a decade and are fearful of just the sort of alter ego replacement EL Cord (and early airline managers) did as a matter of routine.
It is my opinion airline management has not changed. Delta at one time was a very unique Company that has adapted and changed becoming like its competitors and now leading them. There is no doubt Richard Anderson has been a good steward of the corporate entity. However, any quaint notion that Delta network management approaches their job with warm and fuzzy feeling about Delta employees is ridiculous. These are numbers men and they approach your career with the certainty and coldness that are the result of purely mathematical calculation. In other words, EL Cord's sensibilities tied to a lightning fast computer and only filtered by a sense of political correctness and legal restraint.
We need a return to our roots, unity. Nothing has changed in aviation. Just as in Cord's day without unity we will be replaced by junior pilots willing to perform our work for less, willing to sacrifice working conditions and willing to sacrifice safety.
I don't see this as a matter of economics. It is a matter of survival. Logically it follows that if ALPA fails to unify their pilots, ALPA itself will be the first to fail. By the time the DPA supporters figure out their plan is ineffective all will already be lost. The answer to preserve our union, our careers, our pay and "Delta Air Lines" as we know it is unity ... we have to get to Delta pilots performing Delta flying.
The history of this dates back to the beginning of aviation. E L Cord, the founder of American Airlines was first and foremost the owner of competing conglomerates.
Errett Lobban Cord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He, and other airline progenitors would commonly replace their pilots, getting rid of those who demanded more pay to compensate for greater risks, or experience (IE seniority). When pilots refused to fly in hazardous conditions and risk others' lives, those pilots would be fired and replaced with new, junior pilots.
Eventually the pilots followed the labor movement and unionized. In some cases they saw pay raises of 500% over time.
After deregulation there was a massive and permanent decline in revenues that airlines receive for their product. Today we are only beginning to see the stabilization of a decline which has been ongoing since 1978. Airlines have floundered in a vicious economic cycle (which appears to have always been the case to folks in our generation, but it wasn't). Pay was wildly out of step with revenues and concessionary contracts are always a hard sell.
The easy solution was a "B scale." Most everyone knows what that is, but for the uninitiated, "B Scale" was much lower pay for new hires who performed the same work, on the same airplanes. It was unfair, since those hired earlier got paid much more.
As more and more pilots who had experienced "B Scale" rose in the ranks of the airlines, they gained political power within ALPA and demanded that the unfair "B Scale" be ended. Our current generation of ALPA leadership well remembers "B Scale" and how it negatively effected their careers.
I think the first move to outsource B Scale flying was at Eastern Airlines under Babbit (but I'm not sure). Babbit is about the only former ALPA leader who has talked openly about what he considers to have been a mistake to move B Scale (small aircraft) flying off the seniority list.
By the time Charles Giambusso (former Delta MEC Chair) came along, every major airline had engaged in outsourcing small aircraft flying. US Air probably had the most, on a percentage basis, when the question of Comair came along. Small aircraft flying was seen as a problem, a stepping stone, a pariah, to mainline lists. Worse, having used outsourcing as a method to eliminate hated B Scale, small aircraft flying on the list was perceived as a threat. Just as the B Scale pilots had wrestled control away from their oppressors, the B Scale guys feared the next generation would take control from them and lavish negotiating capital on increasing pay on smaller aircraft AT THE SENIOR PILOTS EXPENSE!
While this happened at every major airline, the effect was particularly acute at Delta, where you had excellent labor relations with management and a lot of military pilots who had done pretty well working for Delta. For the most part, the Delta pilots saw less need for the sort of "unity" used to fight management compared to pilots who had come to age in EL Cord's time. The Delta MEC and Delta pilots saw nothing to gain and much to lose by pursuing unity with pilots who performed their outsourced flying. Delta management had always been benevolent and the concepts of "unity" which were a religion to some within our union were considered something of a quaint notion at Delta, if the concept of "unity" as a way to fight management like EL Cord's was understood at all.
Today we are at a crossroads. The experienced hands say "trust us, Delta management has our best interests at heart." The junior pilots see nearly half the airline outsourced in a decade and are fearful of just the sort of alter ego replacement EL Cord (and early airline managers) did as a matter of routine.
It is my opinion airline management has not changed. Delta at one time was a very unique Company that has adapted and changed becoming like its competitors and now leading them. There is no doubt Richard Anderson has been a good steward of the corporate entity. However, any quaint notion that Delta network management approaches their job with warm and fuzzy feeling about Delta employees is ridiculous. These are numbers men and they approach your career with the certainty and coldness that are the result of purely mathematical calculation. In other words, EL Cord's sensibilities tied to a lightning fast computer and only filtered by a sense of political correctness and legal restraint.
We need a return to our roots, unity. Nothing has changed in aviation. Just as in Cord's day without unity we will be replaced by junior pilots willing to perform our work for less, willing to sacrifice working conditions and willing to sacrifice safety.
I don't see this as a matter of economics. It is a matter of survival. Logically it follows that if ALPA fails to unify their pilots, ALPA itself will be the first to fail. By the time the DPA supporters figure out their plan is ineffective all will already be lost. The answer to preserve our union, our careers, our pay and "Delta Air Lines" as we know it is unity ... we have to get to Delta pilots performing Delta flying.
Great. Actually, outstanding!
04-09-2012, 06:13 AM
Can't abide NAI
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler
Posts: 12,014
I think the Delta pilots made some critical mistakes along the way, but you're probably drifting into some serious revisionism here. My impression is that we tried to reach out to the regional groups, mostly CMR/ASA at the time, and got the finger. This was just before my time... so I can't completely comment on the Delta pilots at the time, anymore than you can, but I don't think you can look at this without factoring in the RJDC and people like Lawson.
Amen to that.
Amen to that.
Actually, I am fighting revisionism by telling it as it was.
The RJDC and Lawson's missives were reactions to the 2000 ALPA Board of Directors meeting where the ASA / Comair PID was denied. The reaction came after the action. Obviously, if the ASA & Comair guys had been merged all of that would be Delta's flying and they would be Delta pilots. There would have been no RJDC, or Lawson.
None the less, pilots today don't understand why our MEC is against recapture. My post is intended to explain why and explain that there is a logical basis for their actions. They wanted to get rid of B Scale, which is laudable.
04-09-2012, 06:20 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2009
Posts: 5,113
Sink,
Actually, I am fighting revisionism by telling it as it was.
The RJDC and Lawson's missives were reactions to the 2000 ALPA Board of Directors meeting where the ASA / Comair PID was denied. The reaction came after the action. Obviously, if the ASA & Comair guys had been merged all of that would be Delta's flying and they would be Delta pilots. There would have been no RJDC, or Lawson.
Actually, I am fighting revisionism by telling it as it was.
The RJDC and Lawson's missives were reactions to the 2000 ALPA Board of Directors meeting where the ASA / Comair PID was denied. The reaction came after the action. Obviously, if the ASA & Comair guys had been merged all of that would be Delta's flying and they would be Delta pilots. There would have been no RJDC, or Lawson.
Sorry, I was editing as you were answering.
My understanding of that situation is that we met, and offered to work an arrangement, along the lines of a staple, but ASA/CMR wanted to force a ...PID (not sure what that stands for, but to force a declaration of a merger), to trigger the merger policy.
Is this not correct?
There is of course no way that would have been acceptable to the Delta pilots, just as we couldn't agree today, to any combination without a pre-negotiated list. Which would have to be essentially a staple.
None the less, pilots today don't understand why our MEC is against recapture. My post is intended to explain why and explain that there is a logical basis for their actions. They wanted to get rid of B Scale, which is laudable.
Be my guest for the last word, I have to wrap-up.
Regards,
Sink r8
Last edited by Sink r8; 04-09-2012 at 06:31 AM.
04-09-2012, 06:22 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2010
Posts: 432
04-09-2012, 06:43 AM
Can't abide NAI
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler
Posts: 12,014
Bar,
My understanding of that situation is that we met, and offered to work an arrangement, along the lines of a staple, but ASA/CMR wanted to force a ...PID (not sure what that stands for, but to force a declaration of a merger), to trigger the merger policy.
Is this not correct?
Regards,
Sink r8
My understanding of that situation is that we met, and offered to work an arrangement, along the lines of a staple, but ASA/CMR wanted to force a ...PID (not sure what that stands for, but to force a declaration of a merger), to trigger the merger policy.
Is this not correct?
Regards,
Sink r8
Contract this to the NWA merger. How did those first meetings go? Was an agreement reached on seniority? Were those meetings reported? Was a merger eventually completed, despite our differences on seniority?
Having experienced the NWA merger, I will leave it to you to decide whether that merger could have been derailed on the basis of a failure to reach an instant agreement on seniority. I submit (with no proof other than the results) that the Delta MEC looked at NWA and saw an airline they wanted to merge with. It was inconceivable that an airline with similar (and bigger) equipment would not be merged with.
In contrast, ASA and Comair had nothing the Delta MEC wanted. Small jets that paid less and would be flown below their seniority ... why fight for that?
04-09-2012, 06:56 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 19,423
Ask those who told you that to show you an Agenda, or meeting notes. I believe you will find they do not exist.
Contract this to the NWA merger. How did those first meetings go? Was an agreement reached on seniority? Were those meetings reported? Was a merger eventually completed, despite our differences on seniority?
Having experienced the NWA merger, I will leave it to you to decide whether that merger could have been derailed on the basis of a failure to reach an instant agreement on seniority. I submit (with no proof other than the results) that the Delta MEC looked at NWA and saw an airline they wanted to merge with. It was inconceivable that an airline with similar (and bigger) equipment would not be merged with.
In contrast, ASA and Comair had nothing the Delta MEC wanted. Small jets that paid less and would be flown below their seniority ... why fight for that?
Contract this to the NWA merger. How did those first meetings go? Was an agreement reached on seniority? Were those meetings reported? Was a merger eventually completed, despite our differences on seniority?
Having experienced the NWA merger, I will leave it to you to decide whether that merger could have been derailed on the basis of a failure to reach an instant agreement on seniority. I submit (with no proof other than the results) that the Delta MEC looked at NWA and saw an airline they wanted to merge with. It was inconceivable that an airline with similar (and bigger) equipment would not be merged with.
In contrast, ASA and Comair had nothing the Delta MEC wanted. Small jets that paid less and would be flown below their seniority ... why fight for that?
You guys just keep forgetting that DALPA does not make business decisions for management. we don't decide mergers. In the case of the NWA merger RA gave DALPA veto authority if we could not reach a prenuptial agreement on seniority. It was a throwaway item. He never intended to honor that promise. When we told him we could not reach a agreement he waited a few weeks and did the merger anyway.
When Delta not DALPA purchased ASA and Comair there was no intent ever on the part of Delta to merge the airlines. You can rest assured the Comair group looked at every available legal option for force a merger and could not find a attorney to even give them a remote hope of succeeding. That is why they went the route they did.
The giant mistake made by Comair was that they were so intent on trying to force there way onto the Delta seniority list that they skipped the logical first step. They should have filed for a single carrier determination with the NMB between themselves and ASA. There was legal precedent that virtually assured them of winning that issue that came from the AE filing. The failure to do so by the Comair group was huge in where they have ended up today.
04-09-2012, 07:04 AM
Can't abide NAI
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler
Posts: 12,014
Sailing,
So, what you are saying is ALPA left the fate of another thousand or so ASA pilots and the fates of more than a thousand soon to be furloughed Delta pilots in the hands of the Comair MEC Chairman? Because he is alleged to have made an impolitic demand 50% of Delta's flying got outsourced?
The problem with our MEC's revisionist history is that it makes no logical sense. Worse, it makes our MEC and our Chairmen in particular look like impotent fools (when I know they are not ... they are smart, very smart, men).
Better to simply state the truth, "hell no, nobody wanted it then and we don't want it now." Better to be honest and admit "we got what we wanted" is a whole lot more confidence inspiring than alleging "we tried and failed."
Without naming names, it is time to retire this gentleman's work from 2000. It does not serve the purpose of the Delta MEC, or the Delta pilots in our current time. Continuing these fabrications only causes cognitive dissonance that the DPA rationalizes by blaming a fabricated conflict of interest within ALPA. You do get that this blaming the Comair pilots for everything is what gives rise to the DPA, right?
----
I still like my statement to my yard guy: " I can not pay you $75 to mow my yard because Comair pilots might get Date of Hire." I tell my two year old "No more Ice Cream, if I gave you ice cream the Comair pilots might get Date of Hire" My wife tells me "No more sex tonight because ... ." If the NWA pilots couldn't get DOH, I don't think we had a whole hell of a lot to fear from Comair.
So, what you are saying is ALPA left the fate of another thousand or so ASA pilots and the fates of more than a thousand soon to be furloughed Delta pilots in the hands of the Comair MEC Chairman? Because he is alleged to have made an impolitic demand 50% of Delta's flying got outsourced?
The problem with our MEC's revisionist history is that it makes no logical sense. Worse, it makes our MEC and our Chairmen in particular look like impotent fools (when I know they are not ... they are smart, very smart, men).
Better to simply state the truth, "hell no, nobody wanted it then and we don't want it now." Better to be honest and admit "we got what we wanted" is a whole lot more confidence inspiring than alleging "we tried and failed."
Without naming names, it is time to retire this gentleman's work from 2000. It does not serve the purpose of the Delta MEC, or the Delta pilots in our current time. Continuing these fabrications only causes cognitive dissonance that the DPA rationalizes by blaming a fabricated conflict of interest within ALPA. You do get that this blaming the Comair pilots for everything is what gives rise to the DPA, right?
----
I still like my statement to my yard guy: " I can not pay you $75 to mow my yard because Comair pilots might get Date of Hire." I tell my two year old "No more Ice Cream, if I gave you ice cream the Comair pilots might get Date of Hire" My wife tells me "No more sex tonight because ... ." If the NWA pilots couldn't get DOH, I don't think we had a whole hell of a lot to fear from Comair.
Last edited by Bucking Bar; 04-09-2012 at 07:16 AM.
04-09-2012, 07:14 AM
Can't abide NAI
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Position: Douglas Aerospace post production Flight Test & Work Around Engineering bulletin dissembler
Posts: 12,014
04-09-2012, 07:17 AM
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 19,423
Ok, One more time. DALPA could not merge ASA or Comair into our seniority list. They had no legal method or contractual method to force that issue. Only management could make that decision. Had management decided to merge the lists it would have been a done deal and would have been in accordance with ALPA merger policy.
If you think there were not discussions with management by DALPA on the issue you are mistaken. I can also tell you that management had zero intention of ever merging the airlines and would have fought to the death to avoid it. They would have been very aware of the power that would have given DALPA.
DALPA does not merge airlines. DALPA does not merge seniority lists. Both are controlled by management.
If you think there were not discussions with management by DALPA on the issue you are mistaken. I can also tell you that management had zero intention of ever merging the airlines and would have fought to the death to avoid it. They would have been very aware of the power that would have given DALPA.
DALPA does not merge airlines. DALPA does not merge seniority lists. Both are controlled by management.
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