User talk:DMeir

Possible conflict of interest?

Hello DMeir. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Best alternative to a negotiated agreement, you may have a conflict of interest or close connection to the subject.

All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about following the reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.

If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:

• Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
• Be cautious about deletion discussions. Everyone is welcome to provide information about independent sources in deletion discussions, but avoid advocating for deletion of articles about your competitors.
• Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
• Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. --Macrakis (talk) 21:44, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Best alternative to a negotiated agreement

There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Best alternative to a negotiated agreement about the SW union negotiation section which you may want to participate in. --Macrakis (talk) 16:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Disruption

Please stop your disruptive editing, as you did at Best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Your edits have been reverted or removed.

• If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page. Alternatively you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant notice boards.
• If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

Do not continue to make edits that appear disruptive until the dispute is resolved through consensus. Continuing to edit disruptively may result in you being blocked from editing. --Macrakis (talk) 19:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Editing BATNA

You ask:

Why are you editing and deleting someone else's contributions? What is the point of wiki if you can just capriciously vandalize someone else's contributions?

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia. Editing other people's contributions is integral to the way it works, and is not considered vandalism. As Wikipedia policy states: "All Wikipedia content is open to being edited collaboratively." There has been discussion on the BATNA Talk page on the section you keep adding back, and the consensus was that it is WP:Original research and violates WP:Verifiability. It also appears to violate WP:Coatrack and WP:COI. You did not participate in the discussion, even though I invited you to (see above), but just keep adding the same content back. By the way, the most recent removal of your addition was not by me, but by another editor. --Macrakis (talk) 22:20, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Frankly I am struggling with the interface. I am not sure you will even get this. That is why I am not participating in the discussion.

I have edited this several times, an every time you delete it. This page is lacking and way oversimplified. I have real world experience to add and it is being continuously deleted, with political motive. I don't have the energy to keep adding the same content. Your continuously deleting doesn't change the facts: these events happened. This is what BATNA means to real people with real lives and real careers. Whitewashing it with the "buying a car" BS renders wiki useless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DMeir (talk • contribs) 06:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

DMeir, your comments came through both here and on the Talk page, thanks. I think you need to read up a bit more on the way Wikipedia works, not just edit one article where you have strong opinions. You also need to assume good faith. As I said on the BATNA talk page, I have nothing to do with the airline industry and I have nothing against labor unions or any of the actors in this case. As an uninvolved editor, I simply observe that the content you've added doesn't fit our policies (which I enumerated) in a variety of ways. But more informally, the main problem with the section you keep adding is that it simply doesn't contribute effectively to understanding the concept of BATNA. Almost all of it is about details that have everything to do with a particular series of negotiations, and nothing to do with clarifying the concept of BATNA. --Macrakis (talk) 13:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Macrakis

Thanks for that. I disagree. Providing a real world example of misapplied BATNA shows its practical application. The examples provided as the article currently reads are too academic and notional to be helpful. Someone reading this section will come away with little more than what the acronym stands for.

Can you help me edit my contribution to be wiki compliant? Here is my original text:

More complex example

It is easy to overestimate BATNA and invest too little time to research real options. This can lead to poor or faulty decision making and negotiating outcomes. 1987 saw the conclusion of a complex series of negotiations between Southwest Airlines and two different pilot groups: Southwest pilots and Muse/Transtar pilots. The Muse/Transtar pilots failed to properly analyze their BATNA: their missteps and misfortune offer valuable lessons for anyone exposed to the risks of negotiating in a volatile industry.

TranStar began as Muse Air amid the 1982 air traffic controllers’ strike. By the end of 1984 the company was still struggling, and actively looking for a merger to keep it afloat. At the end of the year, Harold Simmons, president of the Amalgamated Sugar Company offered the airline the money to continue, on the condition that Lamar Muse return as CEO. Despite the new influx of cash and new leadership, the company was not able to generate a consistent profit despite its use of non-union labor and competitive fares.

In 1985, Southwest Airlines acquired Muse Air. The Muse pilots were initially unrepresented so negotiations ensued between Southwest Airlines and the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA). Complicating the always-contentious issue of seniority list integration was the large disparity in pay at the two companies. The difference was so large that the Muse Air operation was unable to support the Southwest Airlines pay scale.

SWAPA pursued a strategy of integrating the Muse pilots to the bottom of the list, with pay parity in five years combined with a card campaign to represent the Muse pilots. This strategy was rejected by the company on the basis of Duty to Fairly Represent and SWAPA agreed to a one time, temporary waiver of their scope clause. This allowed Muse to be run as a separate operation with numerous caveats and protections including a 1:4 growth ratio.

Muse became TranStar and chose independent representation through the TranStar Pilots Association (TPA). Perceiving the dangers inherent in a wholly owned subsidiary the pilot groups attempted to negotiate a combined master seniority list. In November 1986 an agreement was reached.

This agreement placed a pilot hired in Jun of 1982 by Southwest senior to a TranStar pilot hired in January 1981 and improved the relative seniority of all Southwest Airlines pilots. The agreement included fences, Captain seat protections and brought the TranStar pilots to pay parity no later than December 1990.

The TPA Board of Directors rejected the proposed Integrated Seniority List(ISL), apparently believing that such rejection would create more leverage for their Merger Committee to obtain a more favorable ISL.

What followed was a breakdown in negotiations and an angry exchange between union presidents.

"I can only conclude that your inner circle objects to the seniority settlement and engaged in a last minute search for reasons to sabotage the agreement and rationalize the action within your organization. This indicates a lack of good faith, which precludes any further dealings between our two unions." SWAPA President Gerald Bradley to TPA President Captain Golich

"I have waited a few days to respond to your recent letter addressing our unsuccessful negotiations. As you can imagine, it was difficult not to be angered by your groundless accusations, blatant threats and misleading statements." Captain Golich to Captain Bradley.

Negotiations were never resumed and TranStar was operated as a wholly owned subsidiary until the 9th of August 1987 when it closed its doors forever. 146 pilots who had seniority numbers at Southwest Airlines, seat protection, and (eventually) substantial raises now had no jobs. Excerpts from a letter Captain Golich wrote to Herb Kelleher on August 2:

"As you know, the TranStar pilots are in their darkest hour … I therefore request first right of hire, subject to Southwest’s normal screening, in seniority order, for the TranStar Pilots … … request some form of assistance be provided relative to the requirement for a 737 type rating … … the TranStar pilots will provide their own ground school."

The TPA BOD assessed their BATNA as superior to the agreement their merger committee was able to negotiate. Unfortunately for the pilots they represented this was a gross overestimation, and the actual BATNA turned out to be inferior not only to the negotiated agreement, but even to SWAPA’s opening position of staple.

Unfortunately the mistakes made by the TPA Board of Directors are not unique. The Airline industry is littered with examples of misapplied or overestimated BATNA. BATNA isn’t a walk away position or an assessment of the lowest acceptable offer. It is a tool to assess the certain gains presented in a negotiated agreement against the uncertain risks of the alternative. The uncertainty of those risks can lead to outcomes that are surprising and devastating.

---

Well, the first thing you need to do is find a reliable source that connects the SWAPA/TPA negotiation to the concept of BATNA. Assuming you find that, you'll need to stick closely to what it actually says, especially since you seem to be close to the issue (cf. WP:COI). You should avoid sententious editorializing like "It is easy to overestimate BATNA and invest too little time to research real options. This can lead to poor or faulty decision making and negotiating outcomes", even if it is in your source. You should only include the parts of the story that relate to the concept of BATNA. For example, the Muse Air background seems facially irrelevant to BATNA (if it is relevant somehow, that needs to be clarified). The quotations from the various union reps seem unnecessary.

But in the end, the basic problem here (besides the lack of reliable, third-party sources) is that the section focuses on the SWAPA/TPA issue in particular rather than the concept of BATNA. This leads to the section becoming a so-called "coatrack", where the article about BATNA becomes an article about SWAPA/TPA. Wikipedia may not be the right place to publish this content. --Macrakis (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

PS Please sign your comments with --~~~~, which will add your name and the time to your comments, like this: --Macrakis (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

The strangest thing about this section is that it doesn't even use the concept of BATNA. If it were about BATNA, the sentence "The TPA Board of Directors rejected the proposed Integrated Seniority List" would be followed by something like "because they considered the status quo arrangements to be better". Instead, it says "apparently believing that such rejection would create more leverage for their Merger Committee to obtain a more favorable ISL". That is not a BATNA argument, that is a negotiation tactics argument (though it's not clear how exactly that would create leverage). --Macrakis (talk) 20:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Well congratulations. You have rendered this section useless. (unsigned comment by DMeir 2011-11-13T20:16:00)