Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
I know. Guys like alfa are all about highlighting just what they want.
I just think it's important to the US Air guys on this forum to know the background of the guys from DAL who call them vicious names. They need to know those very guys don't have the courage to stand up to their company for anything. Never have, never will. I think they know that now and that's all that matters. There certainly is no changing alfa and his ilk's mind - unless the company tells them to change their mind that is.
Carl
Hi Carl,
I agree. I posted a number of responses to absolutely giddy West guys about not counting their chickens after the appeal to the Ninth.
The Ninth is extremely unpredictable. The rulling essentally points out that binding really ISN'T binding because:
1) It is an INTERNAL process by the union, and;
2) It can be undone/superceeded by further negotiations, which may or may not be similar in structure to the original result.
This as ALWAYS been the case, but it took this court ruling to illustrate this to the braintrust here at APC.
Once the result wasn't palatable for the majority of the pilots, and the inevitable happened. Both sides have acted like petulant children. BUT, should they negotiate another list with the company, and it MEETS the rather broad interpretation of DFR, then the legal requirements will have been met.
Sure, the West can sue again in Phoenix, and again it will be appealed...to the Ninth. Should the negotiated list fall within the wide chasm of what the court considers "fair", then it's over and done.
Personally, I think this is a watershed case in the processing of seniority list integrations. It showed that an unpalatable result can be challeneged, and successfully IF you have the horsepower (IE the majority) on your side.
Of course, this puts a chink in the "if you belong to ALPA, you are guaranteed a good result vs a non-ALPA carrier". armor. The TWA/APA result was expected. You had 2,000 vs 10,000, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to see that was going to be a steamroller.
But here we have a virtual start-up union fight the big dog to a draw.
Some of the true believers are a bit upset because it shows that there IS life outside of ALPA, so naturally they're going to come down on the West side. Because it stands for the status quo and shows "the system works".
But according to some rumors I've been hearing, some DAL guys are starting to figure that there is life outside, too....
Nu