Globemaster2827

No... It wasn't the best path forward for Atlas pilots. Section 6 was the best path, but John Dietrich showed up to day 1 of negotiations on the Atlas contract and informed their NC that they were buying Southern in 10 minutes. At negotiations the next month he informed their NC that the company would be merging ("Amalgamating") their contract with Southern's bankruptcy contract. Southern had 20 day work months, no retirement of any kind, 15 day "vacation" lines, and pay rates that were about 2/3rds of Atlas's subpar rates (among other brutal things in there). This would've resulted in an averaging of their contracts if it went to arbitration which is what their crappy Scope forced upon them at the end of Dietrich's "Process". Their contract said that they had to present a combined list to the company which triggered something like 9-12 months of negotiations followed by mandatory arbitration of all outstanding issues.

After winning every lawsuit he filed on the issue, John Dietrich forced arbitration on their unions which nearly every pilot in the group was opposed to. They had voted over 99% in favor of a strike (my vote included) and wanted to strike if need be, but that only happens in Section 6. Somewhere along the line so many Southern pilots left that they could no longer staff the airline, so John Dietrich proposed to just put their pilots on Atlas's current contract but the arbitration clause would stand in court. After being forced to give a combined list in another law suit (the contract gave no timeframe for that) the final negotiating started. Any improvement with an economic improvement for the pilots in it was rejected knowing the arbitration judge would ultimately rule in Dietrich's favor. At the end of the negotiating period in the contract, something like 200 items went to the judge for arbitration - an unprecedented number. How's that for negotiating in good faith? The judge ruled almost all of it in the company's favor and for the pay rates added like $2 an hour to the company's proposed rates when the union was probably $50 an hour apart.

That's what happened at Atlas. John Dietrich literally won so big that pilots were still leaving Atlas left and right. He was forced to renegotiate again in a few months and make enough concessions to their union to prevent the Captains from all leaving. Make ZERO mistake about it that arbitration was 100% forced upon their group. They wanted Section 6 and were forced into their merger language which ended in arbitration.