Hasn't the newhire bonus/extra pay scheme been going on for a long while? At what point does something that's not specifically in the contract become "past practice", or passively accepted by the group? Would a judge see it that way? It seems like it could be pretty overdue to sue over this.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see it won by the union and hope I'm wrong... some form of leverage is way overdue, but I've got to think this is not a slam dunk as much as it maybe seems. FWIW, have been out of the loop - not at RAH anymore - so maybe I'm missing some details.