CAL MC Last Minute Filing
08-31-2013, 01:03 PM
#1
Peace Love Understanding
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Nov 2012
Position: Airbus
Posts: 1,040
CAL MC Last Minute Filing
Well apparently unknown to anyone, the CAL MC has submitted THREE last minute filings of "evidence", obviously because the UAL MC doesn't have time to put together a response for it.
What an underhanded way to have the SLI finish.
They want to reopen the case and claim that ALL THE GROWTH post merger is because of CAL and should be 100% attributed to CALs side for SLI purposes.
Totally Unsatisfactory
Here is just one... Dated August 29th 2013!!!
BEFORE THE SENIORITY INTEGRATION ARBITRATION BOARD
DANA E. EISCHEN, ROGER KAPLAN AND DENNIS R. NOLAN
___________________________________
:
In the matter of the seniority :
integration between :
:
THE PILOTS OF CONTINENTAL :
AIRLINES :
:
AND :
:
THE PILOTS OF UNITED AIR LINES :
___________________________________ :
MOTION OF THE CONTINENTAL PILOTS’ MERGER COMMITTEE FOR LEAVE
TO SUBMIT PREVIOUSLY UNAVAILABLE EVIDENCE
The Continental Merger Committee hereby seeks leave to submit the attached
documentary evidence, which was unavailable until noon yesterday, and respectfully requests the
Arbitration Board to reopen the record and accept this evidence and to consider it in its ongoing
deliberations. Three pre-merger United pilots sued the Company and ALPA earlier this month
and on August 26 they moved for a temporary restraining order to prevent the Arbitration Board
from issuing its Award. Complaint, Gullaksen v. United Airlines, Inc., 1:13-cv-01235-RJL
(D.D.C. Aug 13, 2013), ECF No. 1); Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and
Expedited Hearing, ECF No. 11. On August 28, the Company and ALPA filed their oppositions
to the motion, ECF Nos. 17, 18, and the motion was denied that afternoon at the end of a hearing
in open court. The Company’s opposition papers included the attached Declaration of Chip
Benton, the Company’s Managing Director of Crew Resources. ECF No. 17-4.
Mr. Benton stated that “the Company is currently hiring on the Continental side of its
operation where it faces a shortage of pilots,” and that, “[o]n the United side, however, there is a
2
surplus of pilots.” Id. ¶ 11 (emphasis added). He further explained, “The current United pilot
surplus is the equivalent of approximately 416 pilots.” Id.
Significantly, the Benton Declaration contradicts the contention of the United Merger
Committee that this overage of pilots at United was “hypothetical,” and it undermines the United
Merger Committee’s proposal to treat its pilots’ part-time jobs as equivalent to those brought to
the merger by the Continental pilots. Contrary to the United Merger Committee’s arguments, the
United pilots have been overstaffed since the announcement of the merger in May 2010, and they
still are. See, e.g., CAL Post-Hearing Brief at 29-31, 86-87; CAL Exhs. C-24 thru C-26, C-29,
C-30, R-112 thru R-115. The United Merger Committee’s proposal rests, in part, on a status and
category ratio list premised on the assumption that the two pilot groups brought equivalent jobs
to the merger—indeed, that the United pilots’ “jumbo” and other wide-body jobs were superior
to B737 jobs even though those United pilots earned less than the Continental B737 pilots.
The United Merger Committee attempted to downplay this overstaffing by claiming that
the “min/max” numbers from Company staffing documents for the United pilots were merely
“hypothetical,” citing an email from Andy Papaleo, Director of Crew Resource Administration,
referring to the numbers as “illustrative.” UAL Post-Hearing Brief at 46-47; UAL Vol. 4 Nooger
at 9-3. However, the Benton Declaration’s admission of the enormous scope of the current
United pilot surplus matches the surplus of 519 United pilots over the desired staffing level
depicted in the April 2013 “min/max” document, CAL Exh. R-112, and demonstrates that the
United pilots’ overstaffing was not merely “hypothetical” or “illustrative,” as claimed, but real
and significant.
We anticipate that the United Merger Committee may object to the receipt of this
previously unavailable evidence on the ground, among others, that the current excess of United
3
pilots results from decisions of the management of the combined carrier—that is, that the socalled
“snapshot date” of merger closing prevents the current overstaffing from having any
importance to the issues in the case. But the overstaffed condition at United is not of recent
origin, and the Benton Declaration does not raise a “snapshot date” issue. The Continental
Merger Committee demonstrated at the hearing that, as Mr. Papaleo conceded in a December
2009 publication for the United pilots, “we still have more pilots than we need to fly the
schedule,” and there would be “continued excess staffing on the 320s through the summer [of
2010].” CAL Exh. C-24 at 1. CAL Exh. C-25 confirmed the 23-25% surplus of A-320 First
Officers prior to the merger. Tr. 427. And for the twelve months before the merger, our
evidence revealed that reserve coverage for all United aircraft types was double that at
Continental. CAL Exhs. C-29, C-30; Tr. 438-39.
This excess of United pilots, which is incontrovertible now that the Benton Declaration
has come to light, conflicts with the status and category ratio component of the United Merger
Committee’s proposal because it undermines the presumption that both pilot groups brought
equivalent jobs to the merger. The merged contract will eventually even out the differences in
staffing that prevailed at the separate carriers on the date of the merger, but the function of the
integrated seniority list is to allocate the jobs fairly as between the two pilot groups in the future.
Since each pilot group brings to the merger the same number of aircraft in its carrier’s fleet, the
same amount of block hours of flying, and an equivalent body of pilot work, an apples-to-apples
comparison would require that the Board distribute an equal number of Captain entitlements to
each side in constructing the merged list.
This view is entirely consistent with an examination of the situation at each airline as of
the date of the merger. United’s pilot employment had been declining consistently since the year
4
2000, but Continental’s was holding steady and was positioned to grow as the carrier accepted
delivery of the scores of new aircraft that it had had on firm order since as far back as 2004. If
the career expectations of the pilots are to carry any weight whatsoever in building the
consolidated list, more is needed than a static snapshot of the count of jobs held on the date of
the merger. Rather, an evaluation of the jobs brought to the merger as of that date should take
into account the projected number and quality of the jobs that the merged airline will derive from
its two constituent parts, as the Continental Merger Committee’s proposal does, conservatively,
in recognizing the equal nature of the contributions made by each side.
The United pilots’ overstaffing also creates a virtual fence that will preclude Continental
pilots from bidding into pre-merger United pilot domiciles until these overages are reduced by
attrition and voluntary bid-outs. CAL Post-Hearing Brief at 86-87. The Board should take this
reality into consideration in building the combined list and in generating the applicable
conditions and restrictions.
Arbitral precedent allows arbitrators to reopen the record where, as here, it would “afford
to each of the parties full opportunity to present such material evidence as will assist the
arbitrator[s] in ascertaining the truth of all matters in controversy.” Madison Inst., 18 LA 78, 81
(1952) (Levy, Arb.) (reopening record to allow grievant to submit letter from company official
concerning grievant’s position on seniority list). As in Madison, the Benton Declaration was
prepared by an official of the employer, with the intent that it be relied on by a government
official—in the present case, a federal district court judge. Moreover, the statements contained
in the Benton Declaration should also be deemed “accurate and true” because they were made
under the penalty of perjury.
5
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, the Continental Merger Committee requests the Arbitration Board to
reopen the record and accept the attached Benton Declaration into evidence and to consider this
evidence in its ongoing deliberations.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Daniel M. Katz
Daniel M. Katz
Gregory R. Shoemaker
Grant E. Mulkey
Katz & Ranzman, P.C.
4530 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Suite 250
Washington, D.C. 20016
(202) 659-4656
Counsel for the Continental Pilots’ Merger Committee
Dated: August 29, 2013
What an underhanded way to have the SLI finish.
They want to reopen the case and claim that ALL THE GROWTH post merger is because of CAL and should be 100% attributed to CALs side for SLI purposes.
Totally Unsatisfactory
Here is just one... Dated August 29th 2013!!!
BEFORE THE SENIORITY INTEGRATION ARBITRATION BOARD
DANA E. EISCHEN, ROGER KAPLAN AND DENNIS R. NOLAN
___________________________________
:
In the matter of the seniority :
integration between :
:
THE PILOTS OF CONTINENTAL :
AIRLINES :
:
AND :
:
THE PILOTS OF UNITED AIR LINES :
___________________________________ :
MOTION OF THE CONTINENTAL PILOTS’ MERGER COMMITTEE FOR LEAVE
TO SUBMIT PREVIOUSLY UNAVAILABLE EVIDENCE
The Continental Merger Committee hereby seeks leave to submit the attached
documentary evidence, which was unavailable until noon yesterday, and respectfully requests the
Arbitration Board to reopen the record and accept this evidence and to consider it in its ongoing
deliberations. Three pre-merger United pilots sued the Company and ALPA earlier this month
and on August 26 they moved for a temporary restraining order to prevent the Arbitration Board
from issuing its Award. Complaint, Gullaksen v. United Airlines, Inc., 1:13-cv-01235-RJL
(D.D.C. Aug 13, 2013), ECF No. 1); Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and
Expedited Hearing, ECF No. 11. On August 28, the Company and ALPA filed their oppositions
to the motion, ECF Nos. 17, 18, and the motion was denied that afternoon at the end of a hearing
in open court. The Company’s opposition papers included the attached Declaration of Chip
Benton, the Company’s Managing Director of Crew Resources. ECF No. 17-4.
Mr. Benton stated that “the Company is currently hiring on the Continental side of its
operation where it faces a shortage of pilots,” and that, “[o]n the United side, however, there is a
2
surplus of pilots.” Id. ¶ 11 (emphasis added). He further explained, “The current United pilot
surplus is the equivalent of approximately 416 pilots.” Id.
Significantly, the Benton Declaration contradicts the contention of the United Merger
Committee that this overage of pilots at United was “hypothetical,” and it undermines the United
Merger Committee’s proposal to treat its pilots’ part-time jobs as equivalent to those brought to
the merger by the Continental pilots. Contrary to the United Merger Committee’s arguments, the
United pilots have been overstaffed since the announcement of the merger in May 2010, and they
still are. See, e.g., CAL Post-Hearing Brief at 29-31, 86-87; CAL Exhs. C-24 thru C-26, C-29,
C-30, R-112 thru R-115. The United Merger Committee’s proposal rests, in part, on a status and
category ratio list premised on the assumption that the two pilot groups brought equivalent jobs
to the merger—indeed, that the United pilots’ “jumbo” and other wide-body jobs were superior
to B737 jobs even though those United pilots earned less than the Continental B737 pilots.
The United Merger Committee attempted to downplay this overstaffing by claiming that
the “min/max” numbers from Company staffing documents for the United pilots were merely
“hypothetical,” citing an email from Andy Papaleo, Director of Crew Resource Administration,
referring to the numbers as “illustrative.” UAL Post-Hearing Brief at 46-47; UAL Vol. 4 Nooger
at 9-3. However, the Benton Declaration’s admission of the enormous scope of the current
United pilot surplus matches the surplus of 519 United pilots over the desired staffing level
depicted in the April 2013 “min/max” document, CAL Exh. R-112, and demonstrates that the
United pilots’ overstaffing was not merely “hypothetical” or “illustrative,” as claimed, but real
and significant.
We anticipate that the United Merger Committee may object to the receipt of this
previously unavailable evidence on the ground, among others, that the current excess of United
3
pilots results from decisions of the management of the combined carrier—that is, that the socalled
“snapshot date” of merger closing prevents the current overstaffing from having any
importance to the issues in the case. But the overstaffed condition at United is not of recent
origin, and the Benton Declaration does not raise a “snapshot date” issue. The Continental
Merger Committee demonstrated at the hearing that, as Mr. Papaleo conceded in a December
2009 publication for the United pilots, “we still have more pilots than we need to fly the
schedule,” and there would be “continued excess staffing on the 320s through the summer [of
2010].” CAL Exh. C-24 at 1. CAL Exh. C-25 confirmed the 23-25% surplus of A-320 First
Officers prior to the merger. Tr. 427. And for the twelve months before the merger, our
evidence revealed that reserve coverage for all United aircraft types was double that at
Continental. CAL Exhs. C-29, C-30; Tr. 438-39.
This excess of United pilots, which is incontrovertible now that the Benton Declaration
has come to light, conflicts with the status and category ratio component of the United Merger
Committee’s proposal because it undermines the presumption that both pilot groups brought
equivalent jobs to the merger. The merged contract will eventually even out the differences in
staffing that prevailed at the separate carriers on the date of the merger, but the function of the
integrated seniority list is to allocate the jobs fairly as between the two pilot groups in the future.
Since each pilot group brings to the merger the same number of aircraft in its carrier’s fleet, the
same amount of block hours of flying, and an equivalent body of pilot work, an apples-to-apples
comparison would require that the Board distribute an equal number of Captain entitlements to
each side in constructing the merged list.
This view is entirely consistent with an examination of the situation at each airline as of
the date of the merger. United’s pilot employment had been declining consistently since the year
4
2000, but Continental’s was holding steady and was positioned to grow as the carrier accepted
delivery of the scores of new aircraft that it had had on firm order since as far back as 2004. If
the career expectations of the pilots are to carry any weight whatsoever in building the
consolidated list, more is needed than a static snapshot of the count of jobs held on the date of
the merger. Rather, an evaluation of the jobs brought to the merger as of that date should take
into account the projected number and quality of the jobs that the merged airline will derive from
its two constituent parts, as the Continental Merger Committee’s proposal does, conservatively,
in recognizing the equal nature of the contributions made by each side.
The United pilots’ overstaffing also creates a virtual fence that will preclude Continental
pilots from bidding into pre-merger United pilot domiciles until these overages are reduced by
attrition and voluntary bid-outs. CAL Post-Hearing Brief at 86-87. The Board should take this
reality into consideration in building the combined list and in generating the applicable
conditions and restrictions.
Arbitral precedent allows arbitrators to reopen the record where, as here, it would “afford
to each of the parties full opportunity to present such material evidence as will assist the
arbitrator[s] in ascertaining the truth of all matters in controversy.” Madison Inst., 18 LA 78, 81
(1952) (Levy, Arb.) (reopening record to allow grievant to submit letter from company official
concerning grievant’s position on seniority list). As in Madison, the Benton Declaration was
prepared by an official of the employer, with the intent that it be relied on by a government
official—in the present case, a federal district court judge. Moreover, the statements contained
in the Benton Declaration should also be deemed “accurate and true” because they were made
under the penalty of perjury.
5
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, the Continental Merger Committee requests the Arbitration Board to
reopen the record and accept the attached Benton Declaration into evidence and to consider this
evidence in its ongoing deliberations.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Daniel M. Katz
Daniel M. Katz
Gregory R. Shoemaker
Grant E. Mulkey
Katz & Ranzman, P.C.
4530 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Suite 250
Washington, D.C. 20016
(202) 659-4656
Counsel for the Continental Pilots’ Merger Committee
Dated: August 29, 2013
08-31-2013, 01:53 PM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Posts: 403
You make it sound like the L-CAL MC was holding on to this evidence all along, which is obviously not the case.
Sounds like new evidence that came to light based on the actions of a handful of L-UAL pilots. Take a look at the guys/gals who filed the lawsuit and brought this evidence to bear.
Would this new evidence exist if it weren't for this last minute lawsuit BS?
Also, the argument isn't new information. The submitted evidence merely backs up some previous contentious evidence that was refuted by the L-UAL MC. And based on that information, its some pretty important information.
It's likely too late for any of this evidence anyway...
Sounds like new evidence that came to light based on the actions of a handful of L-UAL pilots. Take a look at the guys/gals who filed the lawsuit and brought this evidence to bear.
Would this new evidence exist if it weren't for this last minute lawsuit BS?
Also, the argument isn't new information. The submitted evidence merely backs up some previous contentious evidence that was refuted by the L-UAL MC. And based on that information, its some pretty important information.
It's likely too late for any of this evidence anyway...
08-31-2013, 02:07 PM
#4
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2011
Position: EWR B737FO
Posts: 225
Originally Posted by SOTeric
What a desperate act of a scumbag MEC.
I wish them the worst.
Unity.
I wish them the worst.
Unity.
08-31-2013, 02:10 PM
#5
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 56
The timing of this is amazing, but for some reason I'm not surprised. I'm wondering if the CAL MEC is a bit afraid of the award coming down.
I'm sure the arbs will now have to reopen or face opposition and lawsuits from the LCAL side.
I applaud your MEC doing what ever it takes to slow this process down. I really do. All the better for you, more training slots and upgrades, etc. This is what your MEC and lawyers should be doing. It is not their job to protect LUAL pilots, that is our MEC's job.
Too bad that it screws us all in the long.
I'm sure the arbs will now have to reopen or face opposition and lawsuits from the LCAL side.
I applaud your MEC doing what ever it takes to slow this process down. I really do. All the better for you, more training slots and upgrades, etc. This is what your MEC and lawyers should be doing. It is not their job to protect LUAL pilots, that is our MEC's job.
Too bad that it screws us all in the long.
08-31-2013, 02:15 PM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2009
Position: Le Bus
Posts: 382
Originally Posted by Slammer
Wouldn't be an issue if your boys and girls lawsuit hadn't brought the company and ALPA response to the UA pilots lawsuit. It's pretty strong support to the CAL merger commiitee testimony about your overstaffing.....both pre and post merger. If the shoe was on the other foot...you better believe the UA merger committee would have done the same thing to strengthen your position before the arbitrators. That's there job....to support YOU, not CAL. Bottomline....the arbitrators do not have to open up the record of evidence but if they decide, the UA Merger committee will be allowed to counter the company's data.
This hardly surprises me.
08-31-2013, 02:15 PM
#7
Line Holder
Joined APC: Mar 2013
Position: 737 CA
Posts: 39
I know everyone hates JP, but don't confuse MEC with MC. If this delays or alters an sli (which I believe the ink is already drying on), then you only have the l-ual pilots filing for a tro that introduced new evidence for the arbitrators to consider to blame. I really want this to be over with, it is what it is.
08-31-2013, 02:21 PM
#9
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Position: B777 FO/IRO
Posts: 264
I can't wait until this SLI is all over. That way we can start infighting on important things. Like who's going to be a good wingman and entertain the fat FA while the captain attempts to get the hot one...
08-31-2013, 02:25 PM
#10
Peace Love Understanding
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Nov 2012
Position: Airbus
Posts: 1,040
Originally Posted by SOTeric
Bottom line is that the CAL MEC has a track record of eleventh hour BS as with LOA 25.
This hardly surprises me.
This hardly surprises me.
We will find it if it was worth it for CAL pilots, or if we all now have a worse contract than we could have had absent the CAL NC holding the process hostage to their self-interests.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
