Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
Again, there are varying degrees of professional opinions of where next year is headed. You can find those who think it won't be that bad, in the same manner you can find those who think it's going to be really really ugly.
Yes, there is a whole spectrum of opinions as to how the economy is going to fare next year. I laid out for you several perspectives from those with mountains of experience in economic or airline matters that suggest it's not necessarily going to get "really really ugly" - that there is room for optimism.
While you acknowledge there are an array of possible scenarios that may play out economically, you have opted for a worst-case and panic-stricken PFC Hudson "Game over man!" response. To quote you again, "
We are literally headed off the cliff in terms of a good environment to negotiate." Boy, am I glad I never had you on my crew going into Mosul or Fallujah. Wow.
Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
The sick leave issue for the railroad contract was a big issue because at least one union member was sick, told his family he was sick, but was forced to go to work to avoid the point penalty system and then subsequently died in his train. Now that's a life and death matter. No one deserves that.
No one does deserve that. Nor did any rail worker deserve to be treated like a commodity and be threatened with discipline or termination for attending a doctors appointment. The rail unions recognized their employees were worth more than that. And via the leverage provided to them by the RLA, the rail workers hung tough, tolerated the discomfort of going all the way through the 30-day cooling off period, and 59 days of the PEB to achieve what they aimed for. They were willing to walk if they had to. Lo and behold, the rail companies folded before labor did.
Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
Why wouldn't the NMB release Alaska? Because Alaska would have turned down what was the highest offered payrate in the entire country for the 737, along with very significant work rule improvements. Lets face it: it's an industry leading payrate because we are first. I don't see how going back to the table to the mediator paints us in a good light.
Do you understand the role of the mediator and how they work? Their job is to execute the mandate of the NMB: "to minimize work stoppages in the railroad and airline industries." Via their powers of persuasion and their ability to set the pace of negotiations, they can cajole or entice one or both parties to a dispute in a desired direction. Some of their "mediation tools" include threats, lies, and intimidation. Just because a mediator says something is true doesn't mean it is true. A mediator can threaten to put negotiations on ice for months or years. They may or may not intend to follow through. They can tell one side or the other that there's no way they'll be able to achieve this or that whether or not it's actually true.
In a dispute between pilot groups and management, which side is generally less well-informed as to how the RLA works and what is possible? Generally, it's the pilot group. Therefore, in mediation, the pilot group is more likely going to more frequently be the target of the mediator's "blarney" and "hoomalimali." Why do I use those two particular words? Because those are the exact words a federal judge used in a 1991 RLA decision to describe some of the tactics that good mediators use as "a tactic to spur negotiations." Read it for yourself:
...we do not think it appropriate for a court to examine a Board member's statements, made in the course of mediation, so critically. Successful mediators often liberally use blarney (hoomalimali in Hawaiian) as one of their mediation tools. The Chairman's statement may well have been a ploy. By inquiring as to the true meaning of such a statement we could well undermine its entire purpose by forcing the Board to admit it was a tactic to spur negotiations.
Or, as another court put it:
The Board may let a case sit as a mediation tactic, and it may tell parties that it will let a case sit. Congress chose this necessarily protracted means for resolving railroad labor disputes. As the Board explained, Wallace's remarks are: simply the proper responses of a mediator who does not want to give one of the parties an indication that it no longer needs to negotiate in good faith. Parties who are told mediation may soon end have all the more reason, if they are dissatisfied with the mediation process, to harden their position and not participate in good faith … It is the nature of disputes in mediation for one party to feel squeezed.
And another court's take:
The NMB is free to "experiment with any mediation device that can fairly be said to be designed to settle a dispute without a strike and does not independently offend other laws."
If the Alaska pilots reject this sub-par TA, who knows what the mediator's first response would be? Maybe they lie to your NC or threaten them in some way. Who knows? Maybe they turn to management and say, "Look, these Alaska pilots just voted this thing down. You're going to have to do a lot better."
At the end of the day, the mediator can't force you to do anything. They are not an arbitrator. They can't compel your pilot group to ratify a TA the pilot group doesn't want to ratify.
The only thing the NC is required to do is bargain in "good faith." Go read the Spirit ALPA case from 2009 I already referenced in my initial reply to you. I'll repeat it again here. It's important to first understand: "
MOVEMENT TOWARD THE POSITION OF THE OTHER SIDE IS NOT A REQUIREMENT OF GOOD FAITH BARGAINING." Then, re-read this:
The union disputed the claim that there would be a cost increase estimated to be 294% but Chief Judge Peckham found it simply "unnecessary to the resolution [of the good faith bargaining issue] to determine the actual figures. [The airline] is effectively asking the court to hold that the sheer size of the Teamsters' economic demands, and the distance between the parties after a long period of negotiations, amounts to a lack of reasonable effort by the union to reach an agreement." The district court concluded it was forbidden by "'the strong federal labor policy against governmental interference with the substantive terms of collective-bargaining agreements'" from pursuing the matter further ... neither the size of one party's demands nor the "distance between the parties after a long period of negotiations" "amount to a lack of reasonable effort . . . to reach an agreement...
Given the above, do you think the Alaska pilot group will have violated the tenets of good-faith bargaining if they reject a TA that just so happens to include industry-leading (for now) 737 pay? If you still think you are correct, should we believe you or the judge's interpretation of how good-faith bargaining is supposed to work in a RLA case?
Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
I can certainly respect your opinion. Mine is the opposite, that it is highly unlikely we'll be released for cooling after turning down this TA. While we may have had the ever slight chance of getting an impasse declared before this TA offer, IMO that window closes after we turn down what was in some ways industry leading for pay, and in line with what the pilot group claimed were important to them (scope, work rules).
My perspective isn't based on opinion. It's based on fact and case law.
What you don't understand is that the "window" of being able to obtain a release from mediation never closes under the RLA as long as the parties remain in mediation. Do you know why?
Because, under the RLA, labor has a right to strike. Yes, that's right, we have a right to strike. It's not a privilege. Under the RLA, that right can never be taken away from us.
Says who?
Says the Supreme Court of the United States of America:
Implicit in the statutory scheme [of the RLA], however, is the ultimate right of the disputants to resort to self-help.
Or, as a US Appeals Court put it:
But when the machinery of industrial peace fails, the policy in all national labor legislation is to let loose the full economic power of each. On the side of labor, it is the cherished right to strike. On management, the right to operate, or at least the right to try to operate.
If the mediator could, as you describe, somehow permanently close "the window" on the possibility of a release, the mediator would also be simultaneously stripping labor of the right to strike. No power under the RLA is granted that authority. That would be completely at odds with the mechanisms and design of the RLA. It would be illegal.
So
NO, the mediator, were your pilot group to reject the TA, cannot permanently put you on ice or somehow otherwise close the window on the possibility of a release from mediation. They can lie to you and say that is on the table. But they cannot, in reality, follow through on that.
An enormous weakness of almost every pilot and every pilot group is a disastrously poor and hobbling understanding of the RLA. Pilots have shortchanged themselves, their families, and their profession for decades now because 99% of them refuse to take a few hours over the course of their entire careers to dig into the ins and outs of the RLA and try to understand it rather than sponging up the telephone-game myths, and fairy tales they've been told about it by jaded malcontents of years past.
You not knowing how the RLA works or what power the mediator actually has puts you, ShyGuy, in the pretty gross position here of advocating a yes vote on a subpar TA when you, the pilots of Alaska Airlines, actually have far more leverage than you realize.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK.