We need not go any farther. The US/AW transition agreement preceded the Nicolau award. It did call for binding arbitration, yet it proclaimed that that SLI could not be used prior to the negotiation of a joint collect bargaining agreement. We don't have one and never had one. Thus your holier than thou proclamations fall flat.
Not holier than thou, just a reaffirmation of an idea that allows human beings to interact with each other on a meaningful and predictable basis...Ok, so there hasn't been a JCBA since announcement of the Nic many years ago. Why? Simply because there hasn't been an offer good enough to allow the East to swallow the Nic? Do I remember correctly that there is some kind of permanent impasse declared by the NMB? So...there is nothing illegal in the East holding up a JCBA in the interests of getting something they need....I agree you are well within your legal rights.
Perhaps you should have gathered all the information before taking a side. You think?
Absolutely, I am far from having full detailed knowledge of this whole fiasco. I would love to have my "eyes opened" by some cathartic revelation on your part. What is there other than your opinion of Mr. Nicolau's faulty judgement that paints the West in greed...and gives the East the moral high ground of being misunderstood victims...at the hands of nearly every entity they come in contact with?
Now, if you answer my simple question, I will answer anything you want. What inferior contract should I accept to allow the west pilots to receive their windfall? If you can't answer that, don't bother responding. There is an answer, but if you don't know Doug Parker, you probably don't know the answer, thus you don't don't have enough information to make an informed judgement.
Well, I probably don't have enough info to make an informed judgement...or at least a judgement that you would agree with. I'm certainly not trying to dodge the question, I take it at face-value...perhaps that is my mistake. You make it sound as if there is some mysterious underlying, self-exonerating principle or implication involved in knowing the answer. I'll take a last stab at it...Parker has not/will not make an acceptable offer because thus far, a divided group has been a cheaper group, and he'd like to preserve that status quo without legal liability...so there is no contract to be had "inferior enough" to allow you to swallow the Nic. If that's an inadequate or irrelevant answer it is because you fail to give me adequate motivational context to the question. The whole question appears to be moot at this point, as it appears the seniority dispute will be handled by the courts and not by the exigencies of a USAPA-acceptable JCBA.
Did you know that there was an officer election for USAPA last year? Did you know that AOL(west pilot's LLC) put a slate of candidates forward, and those candidates said they would end the fight over the Nicolau award(implement it)? Did you know that those candidates were defeated by a 2 to 1 margin despite the field on the east being split? There was a price at which the east pilots would have accepted the Nicolau award. It's just that Parker would not pay it.
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So the East has retained a steadfast majority against the Nic, regardless of who the candidates are...is that surprising? -or do you mean to imply even elements in the West didn't want to implement the Nic? You'll have to forgive my ignorance again here, R57, but the last two sentences in your above paragraph seem to bear some perhaps...tenuous relationship to the all-important central crux of an answer to your "inferior contract" question above...which throws me into even more hair-pulling fits of confusion...
I can assure you that both parties understood that TA before the process started. The west pilots thought they would take it in the shorts in a SLI with a larger, longer ALPA group. They wanted an "out". It was only after it was used against them that it bothered them. Everyone at ALPA told them the risks of going down the road they did. The warriors didn't listen.
Now this is an area where I don't think being steeped in the intricacies of the USAPA/AWA dispute conveys any special insight, particularly the way you have framed it...which is disingenuous at best. You project upon the West group a back-handed strategy that in fact only your group had the majority power to implement. Am I to understand that before arbitration that it was an overt "given" in the understanding of both groups that the arbitration would not be "binding"? Was the SLI first, JCBA second an intentional construct by both groups to make a potential mockery of the term "binding"? If this is true, R57, then all bets are off...I will have to revise my judgement on this whole sad affair...a judgement for which hundreds of avid followers of this thread will have to await in trembling anticipation...
So Wiggy, go study the offer that was on the table to stand alone US pilots-The Kirby proposal. Tell me if you would accept it in exchange for a permanent and continuing decrease in relative seniority.