Originally Posted by
scambo1
If scope is a permissive bargaining topic over which a union cannot strike, why on earth would ALPA have sold so much scope if it cannot be recaptured?
Two points:
1. "ALPA" doesn't do anything.
Pilots make decisions, then the national organization gets unfairly blamed for decisions made by pilots at the local level. ALPA is not some all-powerful entity that forces pilots to make certain decisions. Pilots ignore the advice of the attorneys almost as often as they follow it, and it almost always bites them in the ass later when they do. The decision to sell scope was not made by ALPA national officers, or ALPA attorneys, or anyone else with an office in Herndon or on Massachusetts Ave. It was made by Negotiating Committees, MECs, and pilot groups at each individual airline.
2. Scope
can be recaptured. I think there is just such an opportunity at CAL/UAL right now. But, here's the problem: it's not going to be free. Because the law makes it quite clear that management has absolutely zero obligation to bargain over scope, you have to make it worth their while to do so. How do you do that? You have to prioritize and decide what is more important to you. Is that 40% pay raise more important, or is capturing the flying more important? Those are the kinds of decisions that have to made to recapture scope. Pilots were idiots to sell the scope in the first place, but now we have to decide what we're willing to pay to get it back.
Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
I never consider asking questions to be making a fool out of ones self. I've asked you to post the sources on this for months over multiple threads and you never would. I'm not in the habit of accepting the unsourced claims of Internet posters, without asking questions.
Those documents could have been easily found by you with a simple Google search, Carl. Before spouting off and pretending to be an authority on something, you may want to collect the facts next time.
Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
If ALPA's crack legal team DID know about it, they advised all of our negotiating committees to go ahead with Scope cave-ins knowing full well that you could never strike over it in order to get it back if it later proved to be a mistake.
Since I cannot conceive of ALPA legal not knowing about this case, it's clear their advice was the latter. Truly unbelievable.
What evidence do you have that ALPA advised any such thing? Attorneys don't run ALPA. Decisions are all made by pilots. Unfortunately, the attorneys usually know best, but pilots ignore them. I've been doing union work for a good while now. In my experience, pilots only listen to the advice of attorneys about 60% of the time. The other 40%, they usually end up regretting that they didn't. As someone who has observed scope negotiations first hand with some of ALPA's most senior attorneys in the room, I can tell you that there is never any pressure to concede scope. If anything, the attorneys encourage pilots to be very careful about trading scope.
Originally Posted by
Mesabah
I'm looking for the actual case files of a bankruptcy that happened several years ago, when I find them, I will post them here. they are about a steel company that tried to use bankruptcy to get out of its union scope contract and hire outsourced workers.
Steel workers fall under the NLRA, not the RLA. I'm not familiar with the case you reference, but it wouldn't be relevant to us, anyway.