Getting What
You Negotiate: An Eye-opening Work Rules Comparison (Installment 2): Duty and
Rest
Sign a card for the IAM and your layover rest could go down to 7:30
(release to report) with no behind the door guarantee. Read below for the facts
that IAM has kept from you during the last eleven months of their campaign and
find out what else their supporters think you should give up so they can find
their way to cushy, non-accountable union positions.
“In business you don’t get what you deserve
(sic) you get what you negotiate.”
In my last email,
I wrote about the two lifted taglines that the IAM has been using in their
campaign to try to organize the Delta flight attendants. One is Delta’s “strive
for five” slogan, which is being used as part of their card drive.
But the mantra
that is headlining their website; the one that is big and bold when you
navigate to their homepage . . . the one that is seemingly, by virtue of its
prominence and placement, the underlying theme of their campaign is “you don’t
get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.”
There’s something
odd and disturbing about lifting a sales pitch from a guy who’s trying to sell
books or DVDs or seminars on negotiation techniques for sales people and trying
to twist it into some sort of prophetic maxim on unionism or collective
bargaining. After all, the advertising department or the marketing team
or the PR guy that came up with this slogan wasn’t talking about unions or
flight attendants; that campaign was about selling something.
It’s about as
appropriate as saying: “We bring good things to life – vote union.” Or “Just do
it . . . sign a card.” Or “Look Ma, no cavities – vote for us!” Or
“Where’s the beef? Here’s a bag tag.” It all sounds good on the surface, but it
rings hollow to anyone who looks deeper or applies critical thinking and
objective analysis to the facts that belie the false promise of the feel-good
phrasing.
This slogan raises
two very important questions that I’m sure most Delta flight attendants have
already considered, but which deserve discussion nonetheless:
1)
If no
one has negotiated for the Delta flight attendants, how did we get what we
currently have?
2)
What
exactly has the IAM successfully negotiated for their flight attendants?
Maximum Duty,
Minimum Rest
The way that IAM
campaigners (and a few others) have been carrying on the last several months,
you would think that the aisles of the IAM Continental planes are lined with
gold and the crew bunks are fitted with satin sheets and ermine comforters
while we poor Delta flight attendants are relegated to the galley, shackled to
a bench, handed an oar and told to keep rowing.
So let’s take a
look at the working conditions that the IAM negotiated for the Continental
flight attendants in two important areas: maximum domestic duty day and minimum
rest.
IAM –
Continental Contract
The IAM
contract is pretty clear on the maximum scheduled and maximum actual duty day:
“maximum
duty limitation for trips between the forty-eight (48) contiguous United States
and Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada, Central America and Alaska or for trips
wholly within the forty-eight (48) contiguous United States will be fourteen
hours (14:00) scheduled; sixteen hours (16:00) actual.”
Sound familiar?
Here’s why:
Delta Work
Rules
“Scheduled
& Rescheduled Maximums
The
maximum you will be scheduled on duty is 14 hours.
Projected
or Actual Maximums
When
delays occur, you are not required by Delta to remain on duty over 16 hours.
If due to
delay, the next flight segment to be flown causes the projected duty time to
exceed 16 hours, you have the option to be released from that flight segment,
prior to departure, by contacting Crew Tracking. It is within the sole
discretion of each individual flight attendant to decide in any given situation
whether they will remain on duty beyond 16 hours.”
That’s odd. The
“negotiated” language is practically identical to the non-negotiated language.
How can that be? One was negotiated, the other wasn’t. What gives? Is this a
one-time aberration?
# # # # # # #
Let’s try another
section. How about minimum rest? Let’s compare that:
(Note: The IAM
contract counts rest from block-in to block-out time. I’ve standardized it to
duty release to duty report time for an accurate comparison with the Delta work
rules.)
Minimum
scheduled domicile rest (release time to report time) after a duty day of 14:00
hours or less:
IAM Continental
contract: 8:45 (line holders) or 9:45 (reserves)
Delta work rules
11:00
# # # # # # #
Minimum actual
domicile rest (release time to report time) after a duty day of 14:00 hours or
less:
IAM Continental
contract: 7:45 (line holders and reserves)
Delta work rules
9:00
# # # # # # #
Minimum
scheduled layover rest (release time to report time) after a duty day of 14:00
hours or less:
IAM Continental
contract: 9:00
Delta work rules
9:15
# # # # # # #
Minimum actual
layover rest (release time to report time) after a duty day of 14:00 hours or
less:
IAM Continental
contract: 7:30
Delta work rules
8:30
# # # # # # #
Minimum
scheduled domicile rest after a duty day of 14:01-1600:
IAM Continental
contract: 12:00 or 10:00 provided the following rest is at least 14:00
Delta work rules:
14:00
# # # # # # #
Minimum actual
domicile rest after a duty day of 14:01 – 16:00:
IAM Continental
contract: 12:00 or 10:00 provided the following rest is at least 14:00
Delta work rules
12:00 with
no reduction to 10:00
# # # # # # #
Minimum
scheduled layover rest after a duty day of 14:01-1600:
IAM Continental
contract: 12:00 or 10:00 provided the following rest is at least 14:00
Delta work rules:
14:00
# # # # # # #
Minimum actual
layover rest after a duty day of 14:01 – 16:00:
IAM Continental
contract: 12:00 or 10:00 provided the following rest is at least 14:00
Delta work rules
12:00 or 10:00 provided the following rest is at least 14:00
# # # # # # #
Behind the
door minimum rest guarantee (from the time you receive your room key until van
departure time):
IAM Continental
contract: 0:00 (yes, that’s zero guarantee)
Delta work rules
8:00
# # # # # # #
In two
categories, the Delta work rules match the IAM contract language and in six out of the eight categories above, the Delta work
rules are better than the IAM negotiated language. And not just by a little but
by significant margins. It’s not even a case of “well, we’re a little better in
this category, but you’ve got us beat in that one.” This is a slam-dunk.
Perhaps most
significant is the behind the door guarantee, which is something that IAM
Continental and AFA United have been trying to negotiate into their contracts
for years. And they have failed. Time after time.
Aberration or
are they just making stuff up?
We have to ask
ourselves – and rational, logical thinkers have already asked themselves: What gives?
Why is this very vocal group of people complaining about how bad we have it
here at Delta and why is this same group of people advocating that we lock
ourselves into an unchangeable, binding, black and white agreement with shorter
rest and longer duty days?
What could they
possibly be thinking? Or have they thought at all? Have they even looked at the
IAM track record? Or do they not care about pesky details like facts and
history and analysis? Who are these reckless people that seem to want to lead
us off a cliff and why do they refuse to deal in facts and evidentiary reality?
Why are they so afraid of the truth?
Unless you’re the
kind of person who buys a car without getting behind the wheel for a test
drive; unless you’re the type of person who buys a house without walking
through it or driving around the neighborhood; unless you’re the type of person
who considers a trip to Las Vegas your version of retirement planning, I urge
you to read the IAM Continental contract for yourself as part of your
decision-making process. This is a big decision and it shouldn’t be made from a
place of blissful ignorance. In the meantime, I’ll continue to present
objective, factual, indisputable comparisons.
In upcoming blogs:
Delta A-Days vs. IAM full-month Reserve and a history of airline pay scales.
Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra
