Blue Notes: Volume 5

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United pilots are set to ratify a newly negotiated contract. If they do, their new pay rates will match Delta’s industry leading pay for pilots. However, Delta has a snap up clause promising the best pay in the industry. Since United’s contract matches Delta’s pilot pay, Delta pilots will immediately get a 1% raise, and then United pilots will also immediately get a 1% raise, due to a similar clause.

How do the icy pops and pizza taste now? Seriously. It’s time for all hands on deck to negotiate a union contract like the adults we are. Request an A-card, or better yet, get your coworkers to sign cards as well. Let’s get this to an election sooner than later.

Think about it… Delta pilots are industry leading. THEN they get profit sharing. We get industry average THEN profit sharing as a “catch-up”. Know your worth, get involved, act like our quality of life depends on it – because it does.

“The above new pay rates match Delta’s new pay rates, so they’ll immediately increase by 1%. That’s because Delta has a snap up clause promising the best pay in the industry. Since this contract matches Delta’s pilot pay, Delta pilots will immediately get a 1% raise, and then United pilots will also immediately get a 1% raise, due to a similar clause.”

Let’s simplify things on profit sharing…

Management continuously uses profit sharing as a carrot to keep us feeling caught up in compensation with the rest of the industry. This year, we are helping create enormous profits. In fact, we just turned the best quarterly profit EVER.

Delta settles contract negotiations with our pilots. Our pilots get enormous industry leading pay raises. They also get huge additional retro checks for multiple years during negotiations. The retro pay, in addition to the enormous pay increase significantly reduces the rest of our profit sharing. It’s being reduced to the point we’re already being told not to expect much more than last year even though our profits will significantly increase!

And let’s be clear, we’re not mad at the pilots for negotiating themselves a lucrative contract. We understand, that’s what unions do! What we ARE upset with is that Delta is using the rest of us as an ATM to pay the pilots wages.

Delta, we will not be your ATM!

Bump Caps

The hottest temperatures in the history of the planet. Phoenix hit 119 degrees last week and Las Vegas had the hottest 10 day stretch in its history. And while ATL didn’t hit records, 95 and high humidity is no joke. All that heat has now moved north.

Which brings us to bump caps. Delta rampers across the system have been wearing small thermometers under their bump caps for the last few weeks. They report that after being outside working, the thermometers average between 20 and 30 degrees above the air temperature. That means in a station like ATL the temp on top of your head could be 125 degrees. That’s dangerous. 

We are encouraging all agents to call the Delta Complaint line at 1-800-253-7879 and OSHA at 1-800-321-6742. Maybe we can get Delta to understand that bump caps are dangerous before someone suffers dire consequences. Let’s see how the “open door/direct relationship” works on this.

Lightning Strikes

It’s thunderstorm season. That means ground to cloud lightning. Protect yourself. We know that Delta does not always put safety first. We just got a report of a ramp crew being forced outside to park a plane even though there had been a strike within two miles. They tried to call a “safety time out” but were simply overruled by their OSM. Management later apologized, but being thrown into a dangerous situation had already occurred. A union safety committee could have intervened in the situation.

Musical Chairs With Equipment?

Many times we turn in equipment to GSE only to have it put back into service without repairs being made. Make sure your equipment is working properly. If a safety incident occurs with bad equipment, you know who will be blamed and disciplined.   

Definitely not true

Delta says free parking could go away with a union. No way. Other things that won’t go away if we have a union? Profit sharing and flight benefits.

CONTACT US

If you would like to start receiving text updates from us, if you need a union card sent to your home, or if you want to share something going on in your station, contact us at iam4.me/deltastories.