Mesabah

You need to go further than that, you also need to read the case law, labor law, and associated court decisions. Simply reading the contract is not enough, you have to understand the history, and your rights under the law. ALPA's statements on scope have been misleading.

Flamer

This came down to a pretty big mutual agreement. Why do we not MEMRAT stuff like this? Seriously.....

Carl Spackler

It will certainly never happen with your belief that's for damn sure. What I'd like to know is how could a new guy like you come to Delta with this belief? Where did you learn that level of resignation?

The idea that an arbitrator will only allow money settlements is simply not true. The cancellation of the JV or the forced increase of EASK's by Delta was absolutely a possible remedy...but we'd have to plea for that remedy during the arbitration. We didn't even go to arbitration. We settled for money only for a clear black and white violation. Why? Because DALPA never believed in the grievance in the first place.

If you really want to see a proper grievance, let the company ignore agency shop (requirement to pay ALPA Union dues) for Delta pilots. I GUARANTEE that DALPA would not accept a monetary penalty for that...DALPA would demand the company pay strict attention to the language.

Carl

Flying Elvis

A couple observations from someone new to the fight:
1) I believe several posters stated unequivocally that this matter would be swept under the table as a concession in Sec 6 negotiations. That did not happen. This should tell us about the many conflicting rumors from trusted sources.
2) Lots of chatter as to whether this is an adequate penalty for the severity of offense. No numbers to back up either side of the argument.

What I would like to see is the following numbers, from the company, DALPA, DPA, and any others:
A) Estimated financial gain made by company through contract violation.
B) Estimated financial loss to pilot force due to contract violation, to include opportunity costs (lost upgrades, green-slips due to understaffing, ALV to reserves, etc)

As far as doling out the moolah, again I have less than a whole dog in said fight. However I will postulate that precious few will be happy about how this is paid out, except the handful of us 2010 CJO recipients who have been told we're splitting $10M in recompense for not getting on property till 2014 due to the hiring freeze.

gzsg

If you really want to see a proper grievance, let the company ignore agency shop (requirement to pay ALPA Union dues) for Delta pilots. I GUARANTEE that DALPA would not accept a monetary penalty for that...DALPA would demand the company pay strict attention to the language.

Carl[/QUOTE]

Carl

This is an outstanding point.

Just like we can plan on our concessions enforced day one and our gains as management's time allows.

Jerry

EdGrimley

Gotta go with Carl on this.

boog123

You don't know if the result was "hey we will settle for $XX or we will just roll into into the new PWA as an extra $XX." Either way, pilots get the same $XX. If this way makes you feel like it's a win, go for it.

Just like all the talk about PS converting to wages. They could get XX + PS or XY with reduced PS, but I am sure the outlay would be the same amount of money….

EdGrimley

Another question to ask, had DALPA not created such a long time frame to live in a state of imbalance (3 years?) followed by another too long period (1 year?) to come into compliance, how many upgrades, pilots required and monetary losses would have been tabulated under the older agreement? It seems DALPA gave them a sweet deal, they still failed to abide and now damages are pennies on the dollar.

As others smarter than I have said here, the penalty should be through increased percentage of flying for the same amount of time they fell out of compliance (ie the next three years we get 51.5% of the JV flying for example) rather than some chump change that sets the precedent of further scope violation sales in the future. In addition, any settlement taking place now should include stiff penalties (hundreds of millions) for not living up to an agreement signed by this management team. Is this good business ethics? What if the pilot group decided to "go out of compliance" on some part of the contract. What would be the outcome?

JungleBus

It's not resignation, it's sincere doubt that any mutually agreed-upon arbitrator would approve a drastic non-monetary remedy. This doubt was probably "learned" while working for a profitable Alaska Air Group (at QX) where a supposedly neutral arbitrator cut the AS pilots' pay 29% by throwing out the SWA 737 rates as an invalid comparison. If you can provide some valid counterexamples perhaps my doubt will be eased.

Well, that's why I asked the question, I wasn't aware of any history of a system board using such a remedy for a scope violation. If they have, that's great news. Perhaps you could point me to an example?

JungleBus

Incidentally Carl, you have a bit of a habit of shooting inside the circle. I'm a scope hawk, always have been, I consider it the most important part of the contract and want it defended. I agree that ALPA didn't seem to prosecute this one very vigorously. But I have a very hard time seeing how this one could have turned out much differently. If we want vigorous non-monetary penalties for violation of scope, I think those penalties are going to have to be written into the contract language.