Just to put a little more granularity on this, Un-mediated talks opened in April 2019. After very little/sloooow progress, DL & DALPA jointly filed for
Mediation in Jan 2020. 2 months later, Covid shut down everything, so we didn’t really get started with the NMB until mid-Jan 2022, and had a TA at the end of Nov 2022. So about 10 months of actual Mediated talks, meeting every other week (which is fairly aggressive for the NMB).

 

Mediation….arbitration comes much later in the process.

 

You're right. By the time I realized I typed the wrong thing it was too late to edit. But I did mean meditation.

Thanks the correcting though.

 

I would recommend that pilots not click on or read articles from that site anymore. They (View from the Wing) have an agenda and they don't want our opinion.

 

When would arbitration EVER come into play in Section 6 negotiations??? I guess maybe if congress tried to impose a contract to prevent a strike after a failed PEB by the president

 

Outside the place where a CBA requires arbitration after a certain period of time in section 6, the NMB process has binding arbitration as the last resort before being released from mediation. If arbitration is offered, and both parties agree- the NMB will arbitrate the matter instead of releasing the parties in to a cooling off period. To my knowledge, there has never been a case where a carrier and the pilots union have agreed to NMB conducted binding arbitration, its just a black hole of the unknown and at that point the parties are invested in getting a thier agreement, and are willing to use strikes/lockouts to achieve it.

 

I think Alaska did before. Pretty sure it was a disaster for the Alaska pilots to the point that ALPA will never travel that road again.

 

Pretty sure Atlas' last TWO CBAs were imposed on their pilots as the result of binding arbitration. If my memory is correct, that's over 20 years without being able to vote on a contract.

 

“While the NMB’s decision to release the parties from mediation comes with a proffer of binding arbitration, the proffer, under provisions of the RLA, must be accepted by both sides, with history suggesting mutual agreement will not occur. Indeed, were the parties so inclined, they could have agreed to binding arbitration while in mediation. “ - Railway Age, https://www.railwayage.com/regulator...rail-shutdown/

Some one asked when arbitration would occur in section 6- the answer is 1)when required by an agreement between the parties (previous CBA, LOA on how negotiations are to be conducted, or mutual agreement) or 2)at the end of the NMB process when the mediator doesn’t think mediation will lead to a mutually agreeable solution. In the second case, both parties must agree to arbitrate the remaining disputes, they can not be forced into binding arbitration by the NMB.

Atlas fell under the first exclusion, they had a CBA that required binding arbitration in certain circumstances, and one of the conditions that required binding arbitration arose. I believe Atlas Management and the Pilots at Atlas have come since to an agreement to remove that clause from the contract for future use because of the last arbitration.

Going forward, there is nothing in the AA contract that would require arbitrating in section 6 (that I am aware of), and I don’t think it will be agreed to by both parties at the end of mediation, if mediation is ever started at AA.

 

The difference is that (in this scenario) senior guys only caring about pay and giving us the finger is bad for many and good for some. What we want is exactly what you want, plus more. In other words, it's good for everyone.