Originally Posted by
smoothatFL410
*shrug* Understood, no problem.
I don't have time for a legal debate with you, quite frankly, nor am I interested in one. But I can tell you that I have significant union leadership experience at more than one previous airline, and happen to know directly through experience that you're wrong. You can disagree all you want. That's fine. I can sleep at night knowing you are mistaken. ;-)
Companies get busted for violating laboratory periods and/or status quo all the time. They don't get a free pass on your existing work rules that went into effect when the laboratory period became active simply because a TA gets voted down. That doesn't mean they won't try.
I'm mistaken/wrong because, in your experience, it hasn't happened to you... There's got to be a CRM analogy that applies here.
The only thing that might preclude the company from making unilateral changes is the same thing that motivated them to negotiate in the first place...
You mentioned your experience at other carriers, and you mentioned that companies get in trouble all the time for status quo violations... So in your vast experience, can you provide a single precedent of when a company was obliged to maintain status quo on work rules without an RLA agreement already in place that had established those work rules to begin with? What company? What union?
Not trying to have an academic discussion, but I sincerely don't believe that the Allegiant pilots have the same status-quo protections that a pilot group with an established agreement in place would have if that group then voted down an amendment to the agreement. I'd ask my reps, but I also wouldn't be satisfied with what they "think" (too many airlines, and several unions, in my past, too...). But it's a question that should be asked and answered in fact during roadshows and before a vote.