Let me begin by saying that I don’t think there is anything particularly frightening or sinister that will happen if the TA is not ratified. There will be some level of pain felt at both subsidiaries for some unknown length of time. As an airline pilot I’m used to pain so this is status quo for me.
What are the possible outcomes if the TA is voted down?
- We get a new TA that is worth more than the one before us
- We get a new TA that is worth more than the one before us but it takes so long that we have paid for our own “gains.”
- We get a new TA that is the same as the TA before us
- We get a new TA that is worse than the one before us
There is of course the slim possibility that we get no TA at all and we operate like US Air for the foreseeable future but I think that is a very remote possibility so that we can safely discard it altogether.
So if each of the above outcomes were equally likely, then a YES vote would be the most profitable vote since 3 out of the 4 outcomes are less valuable. Of course they are not all equally weighted and various groups of individuals have their own views on why one outcome is more likely than the others. Let’s examine the path to the only outcome that is better than the other three; the path to a new, more valuable TA than we have today, that is achieved and ratified before it ends up costing us more in lost value than it is worth.
First off, we would only vote against this TA if we thought we had both the leverage to improve it and the opportunity to apply our leverage. So what leverage do we have? There are many variables that go into the leverage equation but I will argue that our leverage is declining and will continue to decline the further we go into the future.
Our greatest leverage was when the lawyers, the money, and the merger deal documents were on the conference table waiting to be signed. It always is. That is when we had the chance to demand a truly industry leading contract and perhaps even a meaningful equity stake in the “world’s leading airline.” However, because of what can only be called political infighting within each ALPA chapter and between the two MEC’s, we squandered that opportunity, and the leverage and the money potential that went with it evaporated into thin air the moment the deal was inked.
We regained some leverage over the past summer. Our performance was reliably unreliable. The “on time” numbers were in the 50% range and sometimes even as low as the mid 40’s. We took a strike vote that came back 99% - 99%. We were loosing our big customers, Wall Street was starting to whisper in the hallways and Jeffery was really starting to squirm in his chair. Then in August, we announced an AIP even though a few major provisions were yet to be agreed upon. Why we did this I’ll never understand but it happened and the “on time” numbers shot back up into the 80’s overnight. Even while we waited, they never dipped.
Now we have a TA in front of us. No matter what you think of this TA, is anyone under the illusion that if we took a strike vote again today that it would come back 99-99 again? This time, ALPA would be forced to actually keep the results to themselves.
The TP&A agreement; what a horribly misguided document this has turned out to be. There are pilots that are terrified of this document and in some circumstances they probably have some valid concerns. Yes, they can close SEA, or shrink UAL block hours down to the minimum in the current UAL CBA but they can’t make UAL go away completely. Conversely, how will it feel to the CAL pilots to see the new 737-900’s go to the UAL side to replace the 757’s? What about some new 787’s if some other wide body’s get parked at UAL? The point is that there are countless permutations that management will have at their disposal to minimize our leverage and exert leverage over us. Those provisions become available to them three months from now in March 2013.
The one area of leverage we have left is that fact that it is hard to run an airline without airline pilots. More specifically, airline pilots who are happy, content, and compliant. But even this has been minimized by the fact that we now have a TA in front of us. A TA that, rightly or wrongly has been evaluated both internally and externally, to be “in line” with industry standards; in fact industry leading according to some. Jeffery will be under pressure from Wall Street and others to hold the line and we will be painted in the press as spoiled brats that are never happy and always want more.
What is our ability to apply any leverage, however small it is, at the negotiating table? Again we turn to the TP&A. In order to approach the company under Section 6 the TP&A requires that the two MEC’s present a Unified Bargaining Position, a defined term in the TP&A. This would require that both pilot groups and both MEC’s agree on the reason the TA was rejected. That will take balloting, collating and analyzing the data, deliberations at the MEC, deliberations BETWEEN the MEC’s and then finally direction to the JNC.
It is the part where the two MEC’s have to agree on the way forward before we even are allowed to go back to the negotiating table that has me troubled. With history as our guide, it generally takes months for the two MEC’s to agree on a complex position. If it were as simple as “get full Delta pay rates now” then maybe it would be a quick process. Unfortunately, history proves that would probably be the last item on the list that was quickly agreed to.
We have neither the leverage nor the ability to apply that leverage in a timely fashion that gives a reasonable chance to achieve a TA that is more valuable than the one before us. Both pilot groups have effectively handcuffed the other. In every negotiation, after countless offers and counter offers, there comes a time when the last card from the hand you were dealt is played. This negotiation is completely played out.
It’s time to vote.