Originally Posted by
Turbine1
Germany and Hong Kong Today, Unemployment Line Tomorrow! Should be the new advertising banner here on APC.
Per our EXCO Chairman:
“At the meeting, I was particularly alarmed by some of the comments that company officials made. Company executives expressed their main goals relating to Scope to include the ability to dry lease aircraft without being constrained by any protections for the Atlas and Southern pilots if they decide to sell off all or part of the company. They further told us that having pilots attached to the business might reduce what they can get for any given part of the company.”
Today it was announced that the most anti pilot, anti union executive in the company is being promoted to CEO effective Jan 1. A Frank Lorenzo protege and lawyer by trade, he would love to outsource ALL our jobs, yesterday. Depending on our arbitration award in a couple months he may get license to do just that.
The good news is anyone who comes to Atlas and Southern now to become furlough fodder probably won’t get the chance to waste much of their career here and can move on to an actual airline ( not a holding company that leases airplanes ) that provides real compensation and stability.
They need to start attacking the RLA the same way the civil rights movement attacked all the laws that constrained civil rights. Instead of playing on a rigged playing field, T1224 needs to attack the very law holding back unionized labor action.
Get into court and argue the RLA was written at a time when the outsourced business model of subcontracting did not exist. You could not go to a PanAm pilot and demand concessions under threat of transferring the flying to TWA. Today we have places like ATSG and AAWW that own multiple subsidiaries and routinely threaten exacly that; take concessions or we transfer your flying to our other subsidiary. We still keep the profits, but you get screwed even more than by these concessions.
The RLA never ever envisioned the outsouced/contractor business model. The restrictions against self help in the RLA makes perfect sense when the flying can not be transferred, and in fact even a strike doesn't transfer work. Not true in the Contractor segment of the industry.
I really think the best thing that T1224 could do would be to file a multi-union class action against the federal government and the related airlines alleging the forced application of the outdated RLA is unlawful in todays business environment.
The intent of the RLA was to maintain a status quo. Clearly there is no status quo when your work can be given away even while in section six.