acl65pilot

You are right Carl it is about my goal, and that is to get a awesome contract this time!

DAL 88 Driver

What has DALPA done to make you think they're even shooting for an "awesome contract" this time?

If you looked solely at all the "education" we've received, what kind of contract would you think DALPA is trying to achieve? Would you get the impression they're talking scope reversal and a 50% partial pay restoration? Or would you get the impression that they're aiming for something much lower than that? Since many of our pilots are not as keyed in and connected as you, what kind of effect do you think this has had/will have on the survey results?

From everything I've seen, it sure doesn't sound to me like "your goal" is DALPA's goal.

Jack Bauer

Another related benefit some seem to be missing (especially ALPA cheerleaders)- The company is obviously happy with having ALPA as the pilot representative. They like the "constructive engagement", etc (I will let each individual here guess why that is). Given that a dismal proposal negotiated and brought back to the membership will likely push the majority quickly to send in DPA cards and vote DPA in, the company is more likely to step up to the plate and offer more than they would have otherwise. That's called leverage folks, something we seem to have less and less of these days and when we do it doesn't seem to be used to its maximum potential. Even if you don't like DPA as an organization you should like DPA as a leverage producing entity.

So we have two benefits here. ALPA has a gun to their head to get something decent or else and the the company realizes they will lose their "partners in crime" with ALPA if they give ALPA a crappy proposal to carry back to the members.

Logically thinking persons will see the advantages of having DPA chewing at the heals of this contract. Others simply focus on their bigger agenda....fighting anything that threatens their beloved ALPA.

Carl Spackler

As long as it's not done by DPA...because with you, it's all about it being ALPA. And it always will be.

Carl

acl65pilot

It has to do with getting the best product for our money, and with that getting the best contract in Section 6.

Carl Spackler

And fighting anything that threatens their beloved high hour guarantee plus stipend while on flight pay loss and seeing their families every day. The fear of that changing is what has literally caused some of these MEC bureaucrats to become unhinged.

Carl

Carl Spackler

As long as it's done within the ALPA framework because anything else is just an impossibility and doomed to failure. So we shouldn't even think about exercising our democratic rights under the law.

I'm going to start charging you if I have to keep completing your sentences acl.

Carl

acl65pilot

Just for your personal consumption, ALPA is the correct answer right now. That may change, but for this contract we would be fools to try and change representation this close to Section 6.

Carl Spackler

That will never change for you acl. You will always advocate for changing ALPA from within, never ridding ourselves of ALPA.

To stick with the conflicted, bloated and immoral union that we have now for such a critical Section 6 is career suicide.

Carl

acl65pilot

Carl, every orginization is conflicted on any given issue from time to time. I also have no issue with the democratic process that DPA has decided to partake in. It is totally within the rights of every Delta pilots to advocate and vote for alternate representation. I have not had any issue with that for the last year and a half. What I do have an issue with is, doing it in the middle of our first full section six in a decade. It would be like engaging in a domestic conflict while fighting a war with a foreign enemy. How well do you think that would work out?

Everything I have seen from my friends and coworkers that are for DPA revolves around an issue of people and what decisions they are making in their positions. Some do tout a conflict at national, but again when in a discussion, it immediately goes to this person or that person's decisions in a given position. As I have said repeatedly, ALPA does have the framework in place to fix each and every one of its ills. What is lacking is the advocacy framework from line pilots rising up and making vast changes at the local then MEC level. Those changes would then be brought forward to National.

Given CALALPA and UALALPA's positions and issues I highly suspect that if it happened here and there, FDX would follow suit. The RJ vote would not matter as these three would have well over 50% of the vote and could mandate any change they wanted.

As Teddy Roosevelt said, "Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big."

He also said: "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official..."

We disagree here, but ALPA like our country has the framework to usher the changes desired in, it is the people that make the decisions who, in my opinion DPA and its supporters have an issue with. I say, stop the rhetoric, and work within the system to facilitate that change that a group of DPA's size can make. It they choose not to, then one must just accept the results as they arrive.

We are entering a very important contract negotiation, and DPA has about five months before the opener is exchanged, less time if the company comes to us for a extension so that they can keep labor peace with us during their next acquisition. Point is time is fleeting and as a result, the time that DPA has to affect either one of these events could be measured in terms of days, weeks or months.

Plenty of pilots would like to see the traditional check and balance return to the governing of DALPA and ALPA. Conflict within the system is part of the process, and that sort of conflict I have fully support, because at the end of the day, it makes the decision and results of those decision much more acceptable to the pilots as a whole. I call it transparency in the process.