hoserpilot

There may be 3400 cards turned in but how many of those are active supporters? If most are like me they just turned in the card to show interest and send a message to Alpa. I have done nothing but read the DPA website, emails and Carls posts. Between soccer, boy scouts, riding bikes, mowing the lawn, work, wife's chore list and drinking beer, there is not much time left for DPA or ALPA. I thank those who commit their time to DPA and ALPA and are trying to better our profession. Now its time to drink beer again.

Hoser

forgot to bid

I hear ya, I don't have any problem being union and honestly I don't know why anyone would be in this industry without one. Just some I don't want to be a part of.

forgot to bid

Best post yet.

gloopy

It just doesn't seem realistic that nothing can be done outside of Ch.11. They easily could have reduced future accrual rates early on into C2K with a side letter when they knew it was out of whack. What if the company stayed healthy and never went into BK, but the pilots all wanted to freeze the pension and go to a B fund system instead. Would that be "outlawed"? I don't think so. Its not a matter of why didn't they retroactively eliminate the pensions outside of Ch.11, which of course would not have been possible, but rather why wasn't something done to at least attempt to increase the sustainability of it.

There was most certainly in the interest of a very powerful lobby of a couple thousand guys who were about to punch out at the absolute apex of C2K grandeur who made sure nothing was changed, frozen or reduced in any capacity so they could get theirs. Some even aggressively green slipped with guys on the street. I really doubt they were lamenting that there was nothing that could be done legally. There were options, but they would have none of it. Bonus: some even got to come back and double dip after skating off with a retirement that no one else would ever get throwing the already retired guys to the PBGC wolves because of the insanely negligent terms of retirement (effectively zero notice, give me my millions based off my C2K high water marks, let me double dip, screw everyone else).

The point remains, a very powerful lobby of a few thousand guys can accomplish a lot. Let's just hope that if such a motivated demography ever rises up again to apply pressure to the nerves of the union (ALPA, DPA or the United Sand Volleyball Aviators Guild) that the outcome is this time favorable to everyone rather than a massive windfall for a few at the direct expense of everyone else.

BigGuns

Didn't the Teamsters & SEIU (the 2 LARGEST unions in the USA) leave the ALF-CIO in 2005?

Jabberwock

I was so depressed last night thinking about the DPA / ALPA fight, the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Hotline. I was transferred to a call center in Pakistan, and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

crewdawg52

I'm a lurker (on this site), and yes, a proud DPA member! A question to the ALPA supporters: If ALPA is so great and wonderful, looking after "our" interests... (age 65 when over 60% of members didnt want it as an example) and they have nothing to worry about, why are they playing the "thug" role? Are they afraid?

Why cant I vote for the PRESIDENT of my union (let alone my MEC) One who is supposed to look after the members? What did ALPA do when companies started to get rid of pensions? We know that one. Do ALPA executives still get theirs? Why should they?

Appears to be just like Congress. One big over sized, bureaucratic monstrosity! Something that is very entrenched in its' ways, and nothing we can do about it due to its' "bylaws". The laws that keep them separated from the mass, because "they know whats better for us".

My thoughts only.

zoomiezombie

Okay real carl? I am a pastlife south guy and wasn't going to look at the first link until you reposted it. I assume as a north guy who started posting about the SLI that you might have some bias. In spite of that I clicked and read both sites and they both appear to have been around at least a year. Joslin reads as on the fence himself and I don't see his name on the DPA site so maybe I'm dense but what does he have to do with it?

The link you posted has more links on it to other sites. that seem to have even more info on them and all those videos! I don't have time. I don't know that any of the pages discredits Seeham at all. It seems to share other info but I don't know if it has a point. I don't really understand how they ended up working for El Al or what the AMFA stuff means. NY law firm defends Israeli airline. That sounds normal to me.

The other sites including the USAPA ones have some interesting posts and it does make one think that chaos could ensue here as well upon decertification. USAPA just dumped ALPA but kept their structure. The DPA is starting from the ground up. It's not just flipping the switch it's beating egg whites into a peak. Yum!

I don't see your subterfuge as much as information and opinions that seem to be backed by internet stories that may also look like they support the viewpoint. Are you saying all these sites are untrue? They seem to have responses to quite a few DPA claims. I don't know how many are true anymore. The donut pilots page has a great line at the end that I just can't reconcile.

One should ask who benefits from a divided Delta pilot group at this juncture?

A bit fancy with the language but I'd love to hear the answer to this from someone in charge as I'm signed up for emails but haven't sent the card back yet. It screams management ploy, but I'm also a hyper-cynic who doesn't think a blog makes you a thug as it seems like you'd just call them flat out lies if they weren't true?

sailingfun

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All in all you have a very poor understanding of most of what you mention.
Lets go back to the pension. You can not take a earned and accrued benefit away. You can reduce what might be earned in the future as you mention. In fact they not only did they do that in a attempt to save the pension but the froze it entirely and stopped all future earnings on the DB plan. You can't reduce it more then nothing. This happened in LOA46.
A new pension was constructed with a DC plan under a matrix. Guys with over around 21 years of service were awarded nothing in the matrix. Essentially all the senior guys had all pension funding stopped. Again you advocate reducing future accruals for those pilots when in fact they did not reduce future accruals but stopped them completely.
As far as the frozen pension you say they walked away with millions. Not quite the case. The average pilot went out with 800 to 900K. Remember they had to take both age and length of service penalties if they left early. Nothing was waived. There were a few who has a million dollar plus lumps but that was not the norm. In addition most had about 100k in the MPP plan. The MPP plan was saved although the PBGC made a grab at it and failed. All pilots not just those who retired kept the MPP money. Remember that the lump some option was for 50 percent of the value of the retirement not the entire value. After the age and service cuts and then getting 50 percent rumors of multi millionaires were just that. Rumors. I had a friend with very high final average earning. He left at 55. His lump was 860,000 dollars. That was pretty much the average. His PBGC payout is zero.

So lets go back to your statement about this very powerful lobby.

"There was most certainly in the interest of a very powerful lobby of a couple thousand guys who were about to punch out at the absolute apex of C2K grandeur who made sure nothing was changed, frozen or reduced in any capacity so they could get theirs."

The DC plan was frozen in LOA 46. This very powerful lobby somehow managed to allow the new follow on DC plan not to award them 1 penny. Not quite your statement that nothing was frozen, reduced in any capacity. The company proposal on the new DC plan was a flat 9 percent to all pilots. The union redirected that money via a matrix to award nothing to the lobby you speak of and target junior pilots with more money.

Your last statement about the pilots allowed to fly after retirement as a bonus is also not quite right. Only about half the pilots got to work past retirement. The average PRP worked for 6 weeks. Most were one month extra a few were up to 3 months. A very limited number of Line Check Airman got to stay for up to 9 months. This was because the 767 FAA POA at Delta refused to qual more then 2 new 767 LC pilots per month.

Overall there is nothing but urban legend in your post with little actual fact.

Pineapple Guy

Bingo. Your post is spot on, unfortunately. The only thing I'll add to this (not specifically addressed by you) is that those who retired prior to the termination, also suffered substantially when the plan was terminated. So, even though they jumped off the sinking ship, they still paid dearly.