Thanks for the question forever. I'd assumed that most AA pilots skipped this thread since cacti and I were safely sequestered here!
I will give you my examples and then cacti will come back and tell you how I am wrong, but first a little background.
I was hired by PI in May '86. Merged with US by DOH with fences that US pretty easily got around. Merged with Trump in the late 90's with George Nicolau handing down a slotted list. Then the whole AWA/US disaster. On the Trump SLI I thought we should have given them their EA DOH because there was only about 150 of them and around 5000 of us, but most guys didn't agree because they resigned from EA and I don't think they even asked for it. Anyway, the guy from Trump slotted just ahead of me was hired when I was in the 3rd grade. I wondered how he felt, after Nic 2, I knew.
Although I disagreed with Nicolau on how he slotted us, I didn't have a problem with a slotted list and felt confident that our LOS proposal(many guys incorrectly state that we pushed for DOH and that is incorrect-the proposal going into arbitration was LOS) would not fly. Our merger committee made a lot of mistakes. When the Nicolau came out I was as angry as anyone, but knew we had an ace in the hole. Our transition agreement called for separate ops until we had a JCBA. Parker had been dragging his heels to get that, so we ended up with a SLI and no contract-stalemate. The theory of forming a new union came out and I carefully looked at both sides before I cast my vote and decided that the USAPA plan would not work, would tie us up in the courts and voted, reluctantly, for ALPA. The rest is history.
The Nicolau award was interesting in a lot of ways. First was the method or protecting widebody flying. US had a little, with a decent sized trans-Atlantic operation, the west had none. I think we had around 18 767s and A330s. Nicolau decided to protect that by giving all the slots associated with those aircraft to the east, and putting them on the top of the list. So, we had around 517 pilots flying capt, F/O and IROs and he gave that number to the east and put the top 517 east CAPTAINS ahead of all AWA guys. So a guy that could not hold widebody captain was given super seniority over the top west guys. He also put a few conditions and restriction on that flying, put the age 60 rule was in flux andhe put in that if the retirement age was changed, the C&Rs went away. So, we ended up with NO fences, and the only people that were protected for widebody flying were the top 517 east pilots. F/Os and guys in line for that widebody flying got no protection. If the Nic was in place today, some west pilots would be in line for A330 capt, many for 767I captain and every single west pilot could fly F/O on either.
After Nicolau put the east 517 on top, he stapled the pilots listed as furloughed on May 19, 2005(date the merger was announced) to the bottom. He did this despite the fact that he used the early 2007 seniority list to construct his list. He said he did this to "more properly reflect the realities of the merged airline." Thing is, that 2007 list had over 300 pilots listed as furloughed in 2005 returned to the line, the "reality of the merged airline", yet he still stapled them. Stapled a guy with 17 years LOS behind a guy that had a month or two with the airline when the merger was announced.
Between the 517 east on top and "furloughed" pilots on the bottom, the rest of us were slotted, on average about 1 for 1.
That resulted in a lot of us ending up at the about the same relative position on the Nic as what we had on our respective lists. I think I gained a couple of points, the guy beside me on the Nic lost a couple. The thing is, that would rapidly change over time. Because the east pilot group was, on average, much older a lot of the attrition would now come from the bottom of the seniority list, and the attrition at the top of the east list would now gain the west more than east. Over time this would have led to an acceleration of relative seniority for west pilots and a slowing for east. The majority of east pilots are in a tight group of DOHs from about 81-89. There is a vast difference in seniority between those DOH. The guys hired in the late 80s have been junior for years, waiting for the attrition to kick in, and Nicolau gave that attrition to the west pilots.
I will use my best friend as an example. He was hired in 1987. He first checked out as captain in around 1994 on the F-28 and then in 2000 on the 737. With the post 9/11 shrinkage, at the time of the merger he was a 737 F/O, around 70% of the active US list(we had about 1600 pilots on furlough). He had all but about 380 of the west pilots slotted above him. He would have retired at #4 on an east standalone list, on the Nic the best he could reach would be #454, out of the widebody captain range for the airplanes we had at the time. For a guy hired later it was even worse, one guy going from #10 to around #750 at retirement.
With separate ops, my friend is now an A320 capt. in CLT, the guy sitting beside him on the Nic is a very junior F/O on the west. If the Nic was put into place tomorrow my friend would lose 7% points in relative seniority and it gets worse every year. The guy in front of him on the Nic would gain 9% pts and gain more every year.
I first checked out in 1992, then 1999, then 2008. The guys beside me on the Nic have never been a captain and cannot hold it now by about 200-300 numbers. I am nearing a secondary block as a captain in CLT.
I know that was a windy post on what you wanted, but without the background I wasn't sure it would be clear. If you have time I recommend going to cactuspilot.com and there you can download the Nicolau Opinion and award. After reading it, I'd read the US Airways MEC Presentation to ALPA Executive Council, available here
http://www.planebusiness.com/planebu...cusairways.pdf. I think it does a good job of explaining the east pilots POV. Of course ALPA couldn't/wouldn't do anything about it.
When I first read the Nicolau opinion I though he made some good points. Then I got to the award and thought "Is this the same guy?" To me it didn't resemble the arguments he made in his opinion. Also at the bottom of the award is the dissenting opinion from Brucia. I agree with him and think that had Nicolau listened to him this whole mess could have been avoided. Of course then Nicolau was the only one with a vote. That why the 3 man panel came about.