Originally Posted by
dera
This is all good info, and hard to find too. Thanks for posting it.
Again, I did apologize on the previous page. This subforum just happens to be a bit of a toilet bowl of APC. People post negative crap all the time, even when it's without any factual base "we have the worst reserve rules (no we don't)", "175 FO reserve is over a year! (no it isn't)" and so on, and if you try to inject any positive comments, people start hating on you. It gets old pretty quick.
Your post just happened to be the last one on that page, and my trigger finger was a bit too quick.
Well, the reserve rules were written back in 2000. Amended in 2004, 2008 & 2012. When FTDT changed in 2013 there were no amendments either. So, realistically the reserve rules as written do not even directly corelate to the rules as they are now. They are the worst because there are so many sections, letters of agreement, side letters, grievance settlements, arbitration awards and who knows what else that you can't even really figure out which section trumps which section since you can find conflicting data if you dig hard enough. The company is in no hurry to make any changes at all because the ambiguity works well for them. The CBA means what they say it means at the time, because they can pick which section to use. Then when you point to a different sections they say, oh yeah... well we don't see it that way, feel free to file a grievance, but in the meantime fly it then grieve it.
Not sure when ALPA lost their balls, but I remember when I was hired that if it wasn't in the contract then it wasn't binding. If it wasn't binding I wasn't obligated. If I wasn't obligated, then I wasn't doing it.... and we went home. When they tried their management rights stuff that since it wasn't covered by CBA they could do as they pleased, we'd cite some DOL law under the RLA that any change to the working conditions, work rules, or compensation was required to be negotiated... and until then, we weren't obligated. Then sometime around 2009 it became the current fly it a grieve it crap.
Honestly, I almost got National to go to bat to argue that the RLA shouldn't apply to regionals since we were not a real airline. We were only a staffing company.
We owned no planes.
We owned no gates.
We owned no routes.
We sold no tickets.
We leased no concourses.
ALPA actually was considering flighting that we should have been under the NLRB and NFSLA and not the RLA.... and then one thing stopped them dead in their tracks. A small piece of paper that said "Air Carrier Certificate."
I argued at the National BOD meeting in 2014 that the PAC should be tasked with updating the RLA commensurate with modern business practices. In other words, when the RLA was written you couldn't go to a TWA pilot and say give us these concessions or we are giving your flying to PanAm. The RLA wasn't written with the outsourced business model in mind. The very fact of outsourcing the flying is contrary to the status quo requirement during section six negotiations.... yet it happens all the time because the RLA doesn't consider contract flying CPA's.
When I made that motion; the place went into pandemonium. A parade of lawyers entered the committee room and explained for three hours why they didn't want to touch the RLA. IN the end they scared enough reps, that nothing got done.
I did manage to get defending the 1500 hour rule added as an agenda item and ratified by the whole Board of Directors. I smile every time I see an ALPA advertisement or video defending the FTDT/1500 hour rules. That was my doing. The Delta, United & Fedex reps helped me organize it, word it and push it through. The Delta guys more than others. If there is one thing I did good for this industry, that was it.