Originally Posted by
FliFast
Ohhh baloney sandwiches. You guys could have easily recalled Judas John Darrah which would have sent a message to Ed "We're Saks 5th Avenue pilots" White-head of the merger and acq. committee. To repeat a conversation a 2001 new hire American Airlines pilot had with a friend of mine that worked for TransMeridian at the time....."When we staple all those red guys to the bottom, us new hires will bid to be STL 767 Captains and have their Captains yanking the gear for us". True statement.
Recalling John Darrah and Ed White would have simply put someone else in charge who would have done the same exact thing. What you don't understand - since you weren't on AA property when this went down - was that the TWA integration was pretty much concocted and carved in stone from day one between APA, AA and the arbitrator (facilitator) who was the same guy that did the OZ deal in '86.
A few of our reps insisted on signing the merger document with the APA, within days they were recalled. For the record, the TWA pilots did not sign the merger agreement with the APA. For the record, the Ozark pilots DID sign the merger document with the TWA pilots giving them DOH. AA73 you fly with OZ guys in STL, you can check the accuracy of this statement.
Exactly - and had you not recalled those TWA pilots who wanted to sign, you would have ended up with a FAR better deal than what you got. True statement. But you recalled them, and got a worse deal. And your new "militant" M/A troops walked out "en masse" from the last M/A meeting, which irked APA to the point where they crafted CC into stone since your boys were so unwilling to negotiate. Not so fast, my friend, the blame lies with both parties here.
So c'mon, you guys saw a windfall of 2400 pilot seats, upgrades, opportunities at a new base and International routes and authorities that you didnt have beforehand and you guys were going to protest that. Of course not, why pass up an opportunity to gain at the expense of another pilot group....greedy: yes-professional, moral or ethical: no.
We saw no such thing. This is pure fabrication. We saw an exact repeat of what AMR has done in the past: buy an airline, sell all the airplanes and routes, and keep the employees. 9/11 took care of BOTH our AND your employees, but they are now getting recalled. Meanwhile, we've dumped almost the aircraft and most of the routes - wow, great assets we ended up with. Not.
Lorenzo, Hulas, Icahn, Ornstein, Wolf, Gangwall, Crandall, and Carty all are well versed in screwing pilot groups. Add the APA to that list.
As well as ALPA, and any other union that has screwed another pilot group in the past. Cmon, FF... this is not unique to the APA.
Every dues paying member has a voice in their union. Why pay dues if your reps aren't doing what you want them to do ???? That is your hard earned money going to support someone else's agenda ????
We pay dues to our union to properly represent us as well as getting us a decent contract. There is some stuff that we have no control over. Mergers/acuisitions are one of them. Just ask the AWA/USAir boys and you'll see they had absolutely no influence as well.
Absolutely crazy.....
No doubt. But it's crazy at any airline, not just AA.
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