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Oh Well....

March 6, 2014

Although we are now one MEC and one pilot group, some issues that arose while we were still separate MECs continue to require attention.

One of these issues is a dispute against UCH under Section 4-A of the Transition and Process Agreement (TPA) filed in January 2012.

The dispute arose in response to the Company’s having struck an agreement, outside the confines of Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement (JCBA) negotiations, with the Continental Master Executive Council (MEC) to grant profit sharing to the Continental pilots outside of the provisions of the existing L-CAL CBA and TPA. When the Company entered into an agreement with the L-CAL MEC, ALPA grieved the issue utilizing outside Counsel. The Association’s case, heard by Neutral Richard Bloch, claimed that the Company erred in failing to obtain the national union’s agreement, as reflected by the absence of the ALPA President’s signature. ALPA requested that the grievance be granted and that the matter be remanded to the parties for consideration of an appropriate remedy.

The TPA was designed as a standstill agreement that prevented the Company from dealing solely with one legacy pilot group or the other during negotiations of the new JCBA. All matters were supposed to be handled between the Association, acting as a unitary body, and the Company. The ALPA Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) at the time was negotiating for the benefit of all 12,000 United pilots and was seeking profit sharing in the JCBA.

The grievance was successful. Neutral Richard Bloch agreed with ALPA, ruling that UCH violated the TPA when UCH paid 2011 profit sharing to the L-CAL pilot group outside the negotiated terms of the TPA and existing L-CAL CBA. The case was then remanded to the parties to agree on a proper remedy.

For several months, the Association attempted to engage the Company on settlement talks which proved fruitless. The Company did not respond positively to our proposals which would have created additional value for United pilots, and the case was referred back to Neutral Bloch for resolution of remedy.

From the first day of the complaint, Company senior management and attorneys insisted that the first step in any remedy should be rescission of Profit Sharing from the L-CAL pilots
Management suggested and argued in arbitration that they would simply take back the disputed profit sharing payments from the L-CAL pilots. Although entirely viable, this solution was unacceptable to the L-UAL MEC, and we refused to entertain such a divisive and inflammatory concept. It was decided that although the L-UAL pilots were certainly harmed by the decision to award profit sharing, they would not allow that harm to be visited on the L-CAL pilots. The L-UAL MEC position was, and is, that our management should compensate the L-UAL pilots with an amount comparable to the amount paid to L-CAL pilots as a remedy for the Company’s violation of the TPA.

Management refused ALPA’s efforts to seek justice, and on March 4, Arbitrator Bloch issued his final decision.

According to the decision, L-UAL had one legal option, to demand rescission or “claw back” of the awarded money.

Neutral Bloch found that,

There is no real question the Company’s actions could be (and were) viewed as a violation of the TPA that could reasonably threaten the vitality of the Union’s representational stance. The sole question presented here is whether, and to what extent, a make-whole monetary remedy is appropriate.

There was a remedy available to the Union, at least from a purely contractual standpoint: It could properly have demanded rescission of the Company’s grant.

Nothing in this opinion should be read as minimizing the potentially devastating impact of a Company’s adjusting contract terms outside the context of collective bargaining. In terms of both statutory and contractual proscriptions, unilateral actions of this nature are prohibited, as has been routinely held in countless administrative and court decisions too numerous to require citing, and which was found in the earlier arbitration case between these parties, cited above.

The requested remedy was denied.

Although we strongly disagree with the Neutral’s decision on the remedy, we stand by our decision not to seek rescission from the L-CAL pilots. This decision was made in the interest of United pilot unity. We are now one pilot group and we must stand together. Further, unlike our management, we are well aware that two wrongs never make a right. We will continue to resist UCH management’s efforts to divide the United pilots.

A second dispute (CBA 3-L), over the dilution of money from L-UAL contractual profit sharing “bucket,” is ongoing.