Originally Posted by
Lewbronski
The
2009 case of ALPA against Spirit Airlines is probably worth reading in entirety. It talks extensively about what the RLA's requirement "to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements" means.
First, the duty to "bargain in good faith," is derived from the above language in the RLA. The court pointed out that a party violates the RLA when it negotiates in "bad faith . . .
[t]he requirement of good faith bargaining is really a requirement of absence of bad faith."
An example given of bad faith bargaining was an "egregiously one-sided `proposed contract' [which] may have some evidentiary value in appraising the intent of a party." The court cited as a further example of bad faith bargaining a case involving Horizon's negotiations with it's FA's where Horizon's "initial proposal allowed [it] to unilaterally change any work rule at any time for any reason and required the union to recruit replacement workers during strikes; [the airline] submitted proposals less advantageous to its flight attendants than existing terms and conditions of employment; [the airline] offered proposals substantially less generous than prior proposals or than provisions included in a contemporaneous contract with its nonunion pilots." It went on to explain that during negotiations, "(1) [Horizon] printed a handbook for supervisory employees that included a section on `union avoidance,'" (2) "[the airline's] chief operating officer opposed the union's organizing campaign by declaring, `I'll fight you every step of the way if it takes me two years, and if you strike, I'll fire and replace every damned one of you,'" (3) "[the airline] warned new flight attendants to stay away from the union," and (4) the airline "frustrated the progress of negotiations" by "refus[ing] to release flight attendant negotiators from their duties to attend negotiating sessions, even though the union offered to pay for the lost time" and "refused to meet on Mondays, Tuesdays, Friday afternoons, and weekends, and cancelled several negotiating sessions."
It's also interesting to learn what the court explained was NOT bad faith bargaining. First, "evidence of hard bargaining, inability to reach agreement, or intransigent positions" does not by itself constitute bad faith bargaining. Also, "proposals described as 'obstinate and unyielding' do not violate" the RLA. The court continued, "In addition, '[m]ere insistence on demands that seem extremely harsh to the other side and that a neutral party may consider `hard' is not a violation of bargaining duties.' This rule has two important implications. First, 'movement toward the position of the other side is not a requirement of good faith bargaining.' Second, '[a]n employer may insist on positions . . . even if the union may consider the proposals greedy.'"
Finally, the court cited a 1988 case involving Trans International Airlines that included examples of reasonable bargaining: "if an aggressive union may lawfully bargain for a tripling of expenses for a flight attendant group believed to be working in substandard conditions, the converse should be true, and an aggressive employer should be able to lawfully bargain for a 50% reduction in total expenses of a group believed to be considerably overpaid and much less productive than is feasible."
You’re triggering my PTSD with regard to the Horizon stuff. I had to deal with their negotiating tactics before. AAG has their own rule book for negotiations. I remember hearing from pilots that were there for their first CBA, that the President/CEO (Bagley) wrote a column in the inflight magazine calling the pilots “juvenile delinquents in uniform”. Yes that actually happened!!!