Carl Spackler

I'm noticing that you ALPA guys are using letters from union chairman who do not have control of their unions as evidence to back up your points. I don't know what the Seham firm says about how their relationship with APA ended, but I'd like to find out.

I'm so intrigued about how the ALPA guys are in total jihad over the Seham firm. I know they hate him because they successfully decertified ALPA at USAir, but that doesn't explain the holy war they've declared here on Seham. I'm intrigued because ALPA clearly wants DPA to fail. With that in mind, why wouldn't ALPA encourage the DPA to stay with a law firm that ALPA is characterizing as the worst on Earth?

Carl

gloopy

We can talk strategies all day long, but not one mainline seniority number will be put at risk and that has to be agreed upon upfront. If not, we will meet and confer and then go our separate ways and work on bringing back our flying ourselves.

And yes, its our flying. If a regional goes IndyAir, especially if they are successful do you think they will let us in on it, especially with greater than a staple? Please.

As for longevity, never going to happen. It is a tall order to bring large portions of outsourced flying back. Getting the company to basically agree to pay top scale for all new hires would cost us way over and above whatever bargaining leverage it took to get the flying back in the first place. I don't think you will find anywhere close to a majority of mainline pilots willing to pay for that kind of a raise for all future new hires just so they can have such a new hire windfall. Never going to happen. And that's just pay. Then there's vacation, sick time, all at top scale. Right.

Meet and confer was the RJDC's equivalent of the 3 dollar USFL settlement. BFD. To any extent anyone is going to meet with anyone and come up with real solutions, it won't be from court ordered busy work. If we want to try and get creative, first we get the necessary prenups and then we get together and talk.

As for "flying Delta passengers" so does Alaska. So do several United Express and USAir carriers. That may have been relevant in 1999/2000 when Delta/DCI was almost completely comprised of mainline, ASA and Comair, all three in section 6, wholly owned and not flying for anyone else. But those days are long, long over and times have changed dramatically.

I'm all for some sort of balanced preferential hiring for our connection pilots but we are to far along different paths at this point to try and create a brand based SLI.

To any extent meet and confer is going to be useful in and of itself, its potentially to allow us to verify if scope restoration is indeed on the table or not. Even then I suppose its possible that DALPA could confer with the DCI carriers and/or Alaska (if they are covered too, and I don't see why they wouldn't be) and yet keep that hidden from its own pilots. But short of that, meet and confer may be the only real way to get a straight answer out of the politicos other than vague empty statements like "we don't intend on anticipating further scope relief at this particular time", etc.

We have so much on our plate to negotiate for and scope leads the list. But forcing the company into top scale new hires is capital we need to be spending elsewhere, like getting our flying back in the first place. A DCI NSL is one of the most difficult and expensive ways to do something that is already difficult and expensive.

alfaromeo

The reason that people are pointing out the failures of Seham is that he seems to have one talent: putting out divisive propaganda to divide pilots and decertify unions. After that, he seems incapable of delivering any results that actually benefit the pilots. USAPA has almost 4 years of Seham-inspired strategy and they have gotten nothing for pilots except large legal bills. Meanwhile, the impotent ALPA folks at Delta have delivered an average 25% pay rate increase along with hundreds of millions of merger stock. Let's see Billions in contractual increases versus huge legal bills and no contractual benefits. What would I pick?

I see Seham as a charmer that can convince uncertain pilots to follow him down a path where he makes a ton of money and the pilots get bupkus. Kind of like Bernie Madoff convincing people he could guarantee 25% returns per year and instead he stole their money.

If you give ALPA an F for the last four years, Seham and USAPA get a Z--------------. However you want to score it, Seham fails labor group after labor group. And now DPA is the next victim to fall for his charm offensive. No thanks. I don't want to be like USAPA and end up 4 years from now looking for a new attorney and some way to pay up our massive legal bills. Oh and not a penny of benefit for pilots.

Whidbey

There's a lot of criticism of the Seham law firm on here that is just not relevant to the ALPA/DPA issue.

A lawyer is a hired gun and that is it. They don't have any allegiance to one side or another outside of a professional relationship and they're not supposed to. It is a lawyer's job to lay out possible legal courses of action and give an honest appraisal in general terms of their chances of success. They then take marching orders from their client as they should. Clients often have unrealistic expectations. Provided their attorney has given them his best appraisal of their chances, that attorney is not acting inappropriately by pursuing the course of action they desire.

Seham has clients who complain about the bill. Show me a lawyer who doesn't.

A lot of this talk seems to be informed by what I think is a misunderstanding of how lawyers use the legal system. USAPA may be in pursuit of one course of action in the legal system with another (possibly more important) ulterior motive. Isn't USAPA's primary objective to prevent the Nic award from being implemented? In fairness you have to recognize the status quo of the USAPA situation as a success of sorts. I'm sure they realize they have an uphill battle against unfavorable odds. If they were so informed prior to beginning their current undertaking, Seham was not acting inappropriately by following their marching orders.

A lot of straw men getting attacked on both sides of this issue.

Pineapple Guy

So have I, so has Bucking. Multiple times, a simple question was asked. It is now obvious, by their refusal to answer, that at least we know their stated number includes expired cards.

TANSTAAFL

Excellent points, however in all fairness what is the base line for that 25% pay raise? Recovery from a 50% paycut means we are only -25% from salaries of 10 years ago. Wu-hu. Confetti and a ticker tape parade for us.

How about career progression? How many jobs have been added at DAL/NWA in the last ten years versus the carriers we outsource our flying to?

Don't get me wrong - I think an independent union would have been even less effective, and would be far worse going forward, but waxing poetic about ALPA's accomplishments? Puleeze.....

On the same note, I think some of USAPA's failure is as much driven by circumstances beyond their reasonable control as were our failures of the last decade. I imagine had we had an arbitrators seniority decision similar to the USAirways one we'd be every it as dysfunctional as they are.

Glass houses and all that........

I think many are pragmatic about the external realities surrounding both, the difference is many are sick of ALPA's arrogance and dogma when the realities are far more blurred.

Pilots are way smarter than to bite at the us/them, black/white, good/evil spin, and insulting their intelligence with those tactics is backfiring.

alfaromeo

You are right, we took a lot of hits and everyone else, save SWA, did the same. So then you have to figure out how to dig out of the hole you are in. The APA is still stuck in the hole. USAPA is stuck in a hole twice as deep as we ever were in. Show me anyone who is climbing out of that hole faster than we are right now and I will be like them. Right now I don't see a model different than ours that is actually producing better results. What bigger contrast do you have over two wildly different strategies and two wildly different results. What shocks me is how people look at the USAPA crowd and say "let's adopt their tactics."

The Airways pilots do have control of how they react, you always have control. Poor leadership has simply fed the populist sentiment instead of trying to break the logjam. People talk about expectation management like it's a dirty word, but good leaders would have tried to refocus these pilots on the realities of the world rather than follow this charming lawyer down a dead end.

So I will not wax poetic, but I will continue to point out differences in results. In bankruptcy, the Delta pilots saw that we were not going to get what we needed in traditional compensation, so we went non-traditional with the claim and note. $2 billion later we were able to get through the worst time in Delta's history with the least amount of pain possible. The Airways pilots are stuck with moronic ads in the USA Today and calling their CEO a poopy head in public. Now if they were producing results, I would study what they are doing and copy them. When their Captains make less than our First Officers on the same equipment, then maybe they should take a look at what we are doing.

The industry has changed and it is still changing. DCI is down about 150 airframes since the merger and there are more to go. Delta mainline has essentially stayed the same even though the industry got shocked with massive fuel price increases. We can either grow and lose money right now or we can wade through this economic mess and still make solid profits. Both Delta and Northwest were hiring like crazy right up until the time they started furloughing after 9/11. Maybe we would like them to follow a different course this time.

To me, it's not the hand you were dealt, it's how you react to it. We have continuously added into our contract from the month we exited bankruptcy. We continue to try to add every month forward. For me, I am now making about $22,000 more a year than a few years ago, on the same equipment. Maybe some are independently rich but that's a lot of money for my family. So the question I have to ask myself is, "Do I want the money, or do I want to look at an ad in the USA Today calling Richard Anderson a punk?" I will take the cash thank you very much.

DAL 88 Driver

No. What you are doing is settling for that amount of cash. And with your $22,000 partial pay restoration, you need at least an additional 50% pay increase to put your career earnings back on track. But you're happy with a strategy that continuously touts COLA type increases to bankruptcy/emergency pay as "success."

alfaromeo

Nope you are wrong, I am not settling for anything. I am putting that money in my pocket and then going back for more. Been doing that for 5 years now out of bankruptcy. You call it COLA, I call it cash in my pocket. Cash that is not going to American pilots, Airways pilots, United pilots, Continental pilots,............... What is the strategy that produces more and I will listen to you. Whining is not a strategy.

NWA320pilot

Glad somebody is making more cash than a few years ago......