Ahhhh, he called me a tool??

Look, you may believe what happened here was beyond our control, but it wasn't. There were a series of missteps by the union in order to paint our situation as a success story. It was, until it wasn't. We should focus on what we did wrong as to prevent it from happening in the future.

This situation would be exactly the same as Delta buying 777's to operate at 9E. The Delta pilots would easily win a cease and desist from the court system, but the remedy winding up being an ALPA merger policy/Allegheny-Mohawk type SL integration. No that should not happen.

9E management purchased Q400's for the Colgan group as a scope violation to the 9E pilots. There should have never been an SLI between groups, the planes should have transferred to Pinnacle and that was the end of it.


"ALPA Defeats Pinnacle Management in Arbitration

An arbitrator has ruled that Pinnacle Airlines Corp. and Pinnacle Airlines, Inc., functioned as alter egos to sidestep the Pinnacle pilots’ contract. The pilots won a significant victory when the arbitrator ruled that management had violated the pilots’ contractual rights when it refused to meet and discuss labor protection issues with them after Pinnacle Corp. bought Colgan Air in early 2007.

Pinnacle Airlines, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pinnacle Airlines Corp. The arbitrator found that PNCL and PAI were alter egos functioning as a single employer at the time of the Colgan purchase. Relying on separate corporate structures, Pinnacle Airlines Corp. alleged that it was not legally bound by the contract that the pilots had signed with Pinnacle Airlines, Inc.

“Our pilots knew that Pinnacle management was playing games—we simply built the case,” says Capt. John Prater, ALPA's president. “This victory shows the strength of a resourceful union—we put a lot of manpower behind this pilot group, and they came out of this arbitration with another win.”

“This is a major victory for us,” says Capt. Scott Erickson, the Pinnacle MEC chairman. “The arbitrator recognized the corporate shell game this management has been trying to play and saw through its pathetic attempt to create an alter ego company to sidestep the legally binding contract it signed with us in 1999.”
The arbitrator ruled that Pinnacle’s “consistent failure to distinguish between the two corporate entities provides persuasive evidence that Pinnacle Airlines Corp. (PNCL) and Pinnacle Airlines, Inc. (PAI) were alter egos functioning as a single employer at the time of PNCL's acquisition of Colgan,” and concluded, “… because PNCL and PAI were alter egos functioning as a single employer when PNCL acquired Colgan …” the company violated the labor protection section of the collective bargaining agreement with the pilots.

“We are very pleased with the arbitrator’s recognition that Pinnacle violated our contract when they refused to negotiate with us after buying Colgan Air,” Erickson said. “We hope this ruling puts an end to managements’ continued quest to deny us our contractual rights, prompting it to negotiate a contract that adequately compensates us for our dedication and sacrifice to this airline.”

The Pinnacle pilots began collective bargaining with management under Section 6 of the Railway Labor Act in February 2005, and the agreement under which the pilots currently work became amendable in May 2005. Thus, Pinnacle pilots and management have been in contract negotiations for more than 3 years. A mediator assigned by the National Mediation Board has been involved in the process since fall 2006."