Originally Posted by
jetnwa
Alfa,
As with you, I didn't keep up with the DAL issues in your Ch-11 IMHO, NWA management wanted AMFA off the property and there were IAM issues after they were voted off the property that added to the issue. NWA spent a lot of money to exterminate them and they did.
To say the NWA F/As failed is being a bit naive. The DAL F/As compensation may be better but there are other areas of job security that was being threatened. The fact is the NWA F/As pushed the envelope in unknown Ch-11 territory that no one else did. You say the company imposed but there is no determination that such a contract would be enforced after the company left Ch-11 and the F/As could have pushed the issue. You can't make someone come back to work if they don't want to.
In hindsight, it makes sense why NWA settled the F/A contract with improvements than what they were first offered. They also settled the AMFA strike as to not have issues after CH-11. IMHO, they wanted a neat package for exit financing and to be ready for the merger. It doesn't matter now as management can do what they want with the other employee groups with no worries about pushback. Those issues aren't my fight.
I don't want to infere anything from your post but are you suggesting that if under Ch-11, the pilot group should take management's first offer and not be a pain to them in being afraid of having a judge impose a contract?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but RA's modus operandi is this, "when the going gets tough, RA will get going". I just saw DS getting on an airplane last week. I have no illusions if things head south again and the ax has to fall, you will see some of the characters we dealt with in CH-11. These guys mean business and the first sound people will hear is their heads hitting the floor.
There is a big difference between accepting the first offer and not cutting the deal when you have pushed as hard as you can. The NWA flight attendants had a much larger claim in the deals they voted down. When their contract was rejected the judge ruled they had no right to the negotiated claim. It was only when they went running back at the last minute that they got anything at all. So, their final deal was WORSE than the ones they rejected when you factor in the claim.
As for what may happen in the future, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have seen it all before. CEO's come and CEO's go, at some point we will have a new CEO. I like RA and think he is a good executive, but I am not going to curl up in a fetal ball when he goes. Life will continue. I know some of you guys think we had some cake walk through CH 11, but look further up the thread and see what they were asking for. They came after everything, we didn't accept the first offer, we didn't accept the 50th offer. At some point you are done negotiating and you either cut the deal or wait for the next shoe to drop. Sometimes that can work in your favor and sometimes not.
The biggest fallacy I hear is "Vote No, It will always get better." In fact, most of the time it gets worse. In CH11 the company has a large array of tools at their disposal. One of our tools that DALPA wielded with high effectiveness was to scare the poop out of the UCC that we would shut the place down if our contract was rejected. At that time no one knew the answer to that question. After the NWA flight attendants got an injunction, we knew the answer and it was not good for labor. So those flight attendants took away that tool for us to use in the future if it is ever needed. Far from being heroes, I view them as goats who did not know how to cut a deal and screwed the rest of us forever.