acl65pilot

Fred, it does but it also means we do not need to expend negotiating capital in future negotiations for shortcomings today. It gives us leverage to work on other items like pay.

As I have said countless times, within section 1 and SJS specifically, many of my concerns will not materialize until after this agreements amendable date. The other stuff in section 1 could happen any time. Its about looking down the road and seeing what we will need to tighten or fix with the leverage we have.

I assume this deal will be redone in 18-24 months with a merger. The work rule changes will effect the SLI. The only saving grace there is if the airlines work rules that we merge with are worse. Its not much, but it may help. We are giving up seats in each jet in each base and as a result require less bodies to staff a block hr plan. That means positions on a SLI.

All of the other stuff I am concerned with is lifestyle and will impact us more as our staffing gets tighter and tighter.

I agree pay stinks, but if that was the only issue, if would probably pass by 70%, but its not. I really do not know how this will pan out. People like me that want to vote yes, and have in the past, cannot do so this time. I have read all of the documents and slide shows, and just see too many holes here.

The SJS will allow DAL to get out of bad DCI lift, but the replacements may be from jets flown on the same ticket but for someone else. The language is loosy goosey.

Ferd149

I've always said believe that all our flying should be flown by us.

If sunseting will work, I say try it. Do we know if it was tried?

As we have seen, the company isn't going to give up their DCI "lifestyle" easily Lord knows they didn't this contract, but at least we held the line at 76....for a change.

DAL73n

[QUOTE=tsquare;1209619]No.. I am growing weary of this debate. You are especially surprising to me, but.. whatever. I am still waiting for The Manager to man up and show up to take the bet, and then I will definitely leave this place. It is obvious that you and ftb and 80 have made up your minds.. and that's fine I guess.

acl65pilot

Ferd,

I was told by one of my reps that it was not possible prior to even opening negotiations.

DAL73n

T,

Actually, the reason most of us are "what iffing" and "analyzing to paralysis" is all the holes that have been shot in previous scope language and none of us wants to be caught again. While the scope is good in concept (I do like the theory) if I or ACL (as non lawyers) can find holes in the language, imagine what a lawyer can do to it. This is my job, my CA position (which I don't expect to get anyway), and the current language is much too weak. While I'm not happy with the pay, I could live with it if the other parts of this agreement were up to par, which they are not. I also believe the company is not willing to walk away from all the work done so far if we force them back to the table. And yes, I have made up my mind also (as have you), and I believe most people have already (if they're even paying attention which some are not, amazingly).

73NASLC

Dawg:
Very well said. Thank you.
M

Ferd149

I'm not surprised. The whole camel is in the tent now, getting him out will be tough.

acl65pilot

Depends. Also, we though the PWA bound DAL to negotiate within the AF JV, ALK, HAA, GOL, et al, under certain parameters, we could do the same with DCI, DPJ, etc. Duration and scope are just two more line items.

Sink r8

That's exactly what I'm concerned about. I see us having to negotiate a follow-on deal, assuming both sides agree to sit down (seems probable). I can't imagine the company caving (destroys their credibility in all future negotiations, not just with us), but I can see them trading. And I think we all know that most of us will do just about anything for payrates.

I tried to offer a couple of polls to better understand how people see the relationship between Sections 1 and 3 unfold if we turn this down. I'm curious to know what people have to say.

Bill Lumberg

From LEC 66:

PQC: How do you know this is the best we could get? We can get more if we simply go back to the table.

R: Delta management has two paths. We’ll call them paths “A” and “B.” Path A includes shifting a great deal of capacity from DCI to mainline. We have been begging them to do so for years. We prefer (but are not married to) path A. Path B is to more slowly park the 50-seat jets as soon as their contracts allow, hence a much slower drawdown of DCI capacity and, therefore, a much slower corresponding increase of mainline-capacity growth.

Plan A and plan B both represent financial implications to management. They would prefer plan A because they believe it will make Delta more profitable. The trick, and the fleeting opportunity that we had, was to extract the most value possible for the Delta pilots for plan A. The rub? That number is finite. At some point, plan A becomes more expensive than plan B, and management (because they are not stupid) will almost certainly choose the less expensive option. At that point, we believe that we will lose the opportunity to extract financial gains from something that also benefits us—the shifting of capacity (jobs) from DCI to mainline.

We were recently briefed by Linda Pachula, the head of the National Mediation Board. During her brief, she discussed common mistakes that she has seen unions make. Most common was: “They didn’t listen to their experts.” We have experts working for us. Despite allegations to the contrary, we have professional negotiators—lawyers who collectively have assisted in more aviation labor negotiations for more years than perhaps anyone else in the country. We have financial analysts, accountants, and subject-matter experts on every section of the contract. And we have our Negotiating Committee, men the entire MEC trusted enough to unanimously reelect. They studied the plans and financials extensively. They negotiated fiercely (the idea from some that they just accepted management’s first offer is simply laughable). They extracted significant value. And they firmly believe two things: 1) we got every penny of value we could at this time, and 2) if we reject this deal, the company will revert to plan B and pursue traditional (and usually lengthy) Section 6 negotiations.

This is what the experts we hired told us. They saw the books and were in the room. And we trust them. The people who assert that we could do better if we send this back are basing that opinion on a hunch or a hope. We chose not to risk hundreds of millions of dollars for the Delta pilots on a hunch. We chose to heed the lessons of other unions’ failures. We chose to listen to our experts.