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Old 01-19-2012, 07:22 AM
  #48  
gloopy
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Joined APC: Jul 2010
Position: window seat
Posts: 12,522
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Originally Posted by Probe View Post
Please all you AMR pilots, please do your homework on the bankruptcy process. I was at UAL during ours, and watched us repeat the same mistakes, EXACTLY, as USAir. Then I watched Delta pilots do the same. I actually heard 2 Delta pilots arguing on an LAX crew bus that "They wouldn't take our pensions, we are Delta. We are different". Do you know how many times I heard that at UAL?

I highly recommend educating yourselves on the section 1113 of the bankruptcy code. Our company "threatened" us with it, and the Union backed them up and said we would be better off with a consensual agreement. 3 consensual agreements later, with a loss of half our pay, all of our A plan, and all of our workrules, we would have been far better off with 1113.

Here is a secret, and please look it up on the internet. Section 1113 was put in the bankruptcy code in, I believe, 1983. It was created to stop companies from filing bankruptcy soley for the purpose of gutting union contracts. It does allow for contract changes, but puts the burden of proof on the company to PROVE that all creditors in bankruptcy are taking a haircut. They cannot simply cut employee pay. And the term limit of these imposed changes is......bankruptcy exit.

Please don't follow our mistakes. Unfortunately, we were not smart enough to take the advice of the USair pilots before us.

Sometimes a job is not worth saving. If USair or UAL would have "burned the house down", right now I would be an 8 year FO at another major airline, making 170 bucks an hour. Instead, we all caved to company and ALPA demands, and now the job is not worth having, at least for me. We brought the whole industry down.

I left over 3 years ago for far greener pastures (Asia contract flying).
That is exactly right. Each bottom scraping PWA caused the next one. Sadly, if the APA caves to the fear tactics and lies from the company and gives them whatever they demand (massive scope relief, B scales, etc. in addition to pay cuts and work rules) and emerges as the industry dominant widebody regional airline, that will result in instant pressure on all the other carriers to reduce costs due to the very same fears. At some point (and we are beyond that point) lower than the current bottom just isn't worth it anymore. Call their bluff because they will demand more than they can otherwise get by far. If the other airlines hadn't fallen so far for management lies in BK this past decade, it wouldn't have likely required or resulted in liquidation in the first place either. The pensions are at the very least going to be frozen and despite the thogh talk from the PBGC, dumped. If they are not dumped, the pilots will "pay" to keep them a far greater cost than if they were dumped. PBS will happen if it hasn't already and little featherbedding micro empires like "touch drop" and "buddy bid with LCA's to drop with pay then pick up double time over and above" will be long gone as well.

The company will threaten to gut scope in 1113 but they are powerless to do so and their only hope the pilots swallow the hook on that one is pure fear. They will use the myth of scope gutting to get real scope gutting and we're not just talking "RJ's" either. They will demand massive, earth shattering scope relief at all levels, both directly branded and through code shares, as well as the poorest B scale in the industry by far.

The company's only fear is that someone finally challenges them in their 1113 exageration. They can't gut scope and the other things they demand are either going to happen anyway or they are beyond what the courts would give them in the first place.
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