Originally Posted by alfaromeo

They sure spent a lot of money and collected a lot of dues for having no goals. Couldn't they have just had a yearly meeting and played dominoes if all they wanted to do was not make contract improvements. What they wanted was to negotiate a new seniority list based on Date of Hire and they failed. In that failure they cost their pilots billions of dollars. It is just amazing how the webboard folks can dismiss this type of failure while attacking DALPA as a failure. Sometimes you guys have shifting standards of success that have no consistent basis, just whatever confirms your own bias. If DALPA merely says their goals are exactly what happened then they are successes in your mind. How convenient.

USAPA has NOT abrogated an arbitration. They have delayed it. I know the webbboard lawyers are celebrating their temporary delays as some victory, but they are coming to a close. USAPA will soon not represent anyone in anything. They signed away their right to represent in the MOU and soon APA will represent the entire pilot group.

The APA has stated openly that they will not take on the DFR liabilities of USAPA. That means that there will be three separate merger committees, East, West, and APA. Actually, AMR management is also a party to the proceedings and they have openly stated that they will not take on the DFR liabilities of USAPA. The Allegheny/Mohawk LPP's dictate that all disputes amongst the parties will be solved by final and binding arbitration.

Therefore, my guess is the first dispute is what list will be integrated in with the American list. That dispute will be solved by an arbitrator (or panel of arbitrators) and they will decide whether or not the previous arbitration has been abrogated by USAPA's delays. My guess is that the East pilots will not be happy with that arbitration.

All complicated cases like this go their own way so there may be some other solution. In the end, the West pilots have their rights. As one of the federal judges said, a neutral arbitration is powerful evidence of a fair result. Therefore, whatever happens to the West pilots will be judged on the basis of what their rights were under the Nicolau award. If the Nicolau award is not used, then the West pilots will have to have seniority as good or better than the Nicolau award or someone will have to pay them money.

As I said before, neither the APA nor AMR management want to be writing those checks, so USAPA has merely delayed the arbitration, they have abrogated nothing. USAPA can't negotiate away the West's pilots rights no matter how much internet blather they spew. Delay is not victory. Instead, they just flushed away billions of dollars they will never get back. WINNING!!!!!!!!!