Originally Posted by
Lewbronski
Pinnacle also had a clause in their contract saying "if a strike at Pinnacle leads to a certain percentage of Pinnacle planes not flying for seven days or more, Northwest can terminate the agreement." Why on earth any airline pilot union would agree to language like that, I do not know. However, it eviscerates any leverage you might have had at Pinnacle regardless of a strike vote. No leverage therefore leads to long, drawn-out negotiations.
Pinnacle's union also requested binding arbitration from the NMB which is a sign to me that they knew they had very little leverage given the above contractual clause. Binding arbitration is the last thing I'd want as a union. However, given the above contractual clause, it was probably their best option.
I don't think it's standard policy for the pilot union to get to negotiate the ASA with the mainline partner. That clause wasn't part of the pilot contract, it was in the NWA contract with Pinnacle corporate.
Binding arbitration was requested because the company had already made it clear that they saw no reason to negotiate. They even put out memos stating such. The union's position was that being accepting of arbitration was at least showing the pilot group was trying to possibly increase the chances of the moderators releasing us. Not that it ever happened though.