1. “Qualification Training”
The UAL Committee’s pilots in training proposed C&R (Number 1.3) is as
follows:
Pilots who, at the time of implementation of an integrated seniority list, are in the
process of completing or who have completed qualification training for a new position
(e.g., B-777 Captain or A-319 First Officer) may be assigned to the position for which they
are being or have been trained, regardless of their relative standing on the Integrated
Seniority List.
Two of the CAL Committee's proposed C&Rs address pilots in training:
Neither the implementation of the ISL nor the implementation or expiration of a
condition or restriction herein, in and of itself, shall cause the displacement of any pilot
from his or her then-current position (including a pilot who has been awarded a position
but has not commenced or completed training).
Pilots who, at the time of implementation of the ISL, are in the process of completing or
who have completed qualification training for a new position (e.g., B-777 Captain or A320 First Officer) may be assigned to the position for which they are being or have been
trained, regardless of their relative standing on the ISL. Pilots awarded new positions
shall be considered as “in the process of completing . . . qualification training for a new
position”, within the meaning of this provision, unless and until they have cancelled their
bids for the new positions, withdrawn from training, failed the training without further
recourse to further training, or successfully completed the training.
The CAL Committee’s training protection proposals include “a pilot who has been
awarded a position but has not commenced or completed training.” (Emphasis added).
That expanded definition would have the Board sweep into protective coverage some
400 CAL pilots awarded tentative February 2014 positions in the January 2013 CAL Bid
14-02. As of the close of these arbitration hearings, many of those individuals had not
even been awarded a training date, let alone begun training. Moreover, treating them as
“currently in” those positions or “in the process of completing training” would
unilaterally rewrite language mutually agreed to by the CAL pilots, the UAL pilots and
the Company (See TPA Section 5-B. Acceptance of the Integrated Seniority List, in
Appendix 1).
There simply is no fair and equitable basis for this Board to award what the CAL
Committee proposes. Under the guise of protecting pilots from displacement from
“then-current positions”, it would extend such protection to pilots who don’t actually
have such positions at all. In short, if granted, it would interfere with the fair operation
of the ISL forever by placing CAL pilots immovably in positions that their ISL seniority
would not entitle them to hold. For all of those reasons, this Board did not adopt the
CAL Committees' proposed C&R Numbers 1(b) and 1(c).