Merger Committee Arbitration
 

It must be fantastic to be a union attorney! These briefs (and the $ billing) just go on and on and on.

For the west, a much better showing I thought in terms of the brief itself. It felt more square to the issues.

USAPA seriously has lawyers lawyers, procedural wizards. The merits take a back seat a bit to procedure and law - I thought well done there. They really do string things together nicely, and in law the procedure can win, so that's no knock on them.

My gut - this goes very much west's way (for once).

But seriously, who has time / interest to write these briefs on these issues, I'd go nuts! I felt like they all could be summarized in 3-5 pages.

And I don't know if the composition of the west legal team changed, but this set of arguments on the west side really flowed much more smoothly.

The first in a long set of steps to get the list settled down. I'm sure more to come. Just wishing the whole thing would move along faster..

The protocol agreement has already set the course. The participants won't be be able to steer outside of that but the lawyers will make folks feel good and get paid well to do so.

USAPA's cash defending West law suits will eat up the $13M bank account that USAPA is holding. I do not expect a refund from USAPA. Just like ALPA in that respect, all the money gets spent.

I got a refund two years ago and expect another one for this year from ALPA (they almost lowered dues again but it didn't quite have the votes, too many people thought services would be cut too much)

....but yeah, I bet you will burn through all of the $13mil pretty quickly with all the lawyers. good luck.

Well that's not entirely true. There can be a valid argument made that the protocol agreement was drafted in such a way the it harms one group or rather a class of participants thus should be nullified. Now I am in no way saying that will be the approach but I would not at all be surprised if it were.

WD at AWA

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

The west's dues disgorgement claims are a stretch, USAPA former board likely has discretion. And USAPA's actual lawsuit against individual pilots feels like another total stretch... I don't see either of those really going anywhere.

I do think inside the protocol, particularly the SLI arb, the lawyers may really earn their fees. I'm not so sure with any potential JCBA arb, that seems more constrained if it gets there.

Either way, two years and it should be done.

I thought I read somewhere that per the MOU timeline, the latest that the final list can be issued is December of next year.

That's simply the deadline stipulated by the MOU. It IS possible for unforeseen circumstances to result in that deadline passing without an ISL. The way it's set up now, the arbitrators will complete the final arbitration with perhaps 6 months to orchestrate their integration award and if delayed by the present JCBA situation by a few months could still expedite their efforts at a ruling.

Should outside legal action by whomever occur, that could force delay beyond the MOU deadline date. I think APA will wave a JCBA TA over their heads by the end of next week at the latest resulting in minimal delay to the MOU process.

That's the hope.

But SLI arb can't begin until JCBA is done. JCBA was supposed to go to arb shortly after NMB certification if there was no agreement. The JCBA deadline I believe has already been voluntarily waived by company and apa.

Before that the NMB certification for single carrier and bargaining rep took a bit longer than initially expected, and USAPA was working to slow parts of that down.

So you can get a feel for how the delays may creep up.

That said, Airways was caught up with this issue before with USAPA and getting to JCBA, so there is a LOT more in the MOU to force things along. Ultimately, nothing has to go through negotiation and no agreement has to be reached, everything can be arbitrated. That let's them force timeline.

Ok.

Consider this.. The PA is presently a governing document. AOL has acknowledged as much in that they have submitted to it and made application for a west merger committee pursuant to the PA... In that they submit to the PA, they (all of us) will be required to follow all of it.

If AOL intends to repudiate the PA, when are they going to do so? And if they should ever be successful in invalidating the PA (by who's authority?) then what governing document will replace the PA (and again by whose authority will a new PA be established?). And how soon is AOL going to make all this happen, seeing that they haven't even started to do so?