18/5/5/5
11-26-2022, 08:05 AM
#471
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2011
Posts: 4,175
Originally Posted by Iceberg
I’m sure they’ll argue that, but they can be reminded that they pushed as many employees as they could to take leave and ride on unemployment benefits while simultaneously having the government pick up the tab for those still working. Since they’ve assured us and the investors that we are now financially sound and on the precipice of returning to record profits year after year, they can afford the percentage of pay earned by all of those who worked under the expired, sorry amendable, contract.
11-26-2022, 09:14 AM
#472
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2017
Position: 737 A
Posts: 901
Originally Posted by DeltaboundRedux
We were “heroes”!
(Along with grocery store clerks, truckers, nurses, and grub hub drivers. Seems ridiculous now, but this kind of tripe was all over the airwaves in the midst of it. May as well play it up and monetize it now).
(Along with grocery store clerks, truckers, nurses, and grub hub drivers. Seems ridiculous now, but this kind of tripe was all over the airwaves in the midst of it. May as well play it up and monetize it now).
11-26-2022, 09:41 AM
#474
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2011
Posts: 4,175
Originally Posted by airplanes
If you worked at DL for a short time and left for another airline will you get retro pay when this new deal signs?
11-26-2022, 10:10 AM
#475
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2015
Position: stake holder ir.delta.com
Posts: 10,027
Originally Posted by Trip7
It takes several sessions to get released. This may takes months or even over a year.
11-26-2022, 02:11 PM
#478
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Joined APC: Nov 2020
Posts: 1,745
Originally Posted by Vsop
forgot the real hero’s, the teachers
Bud Light already made a commercial for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qben5MLmtXo
11-26-2022, 08:16 PM
#479
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2020
Posts: 379
Originally Posted by FangsF15
This right here. Add to that, the fact we cannot incentivize the company to drag their feet on future negotiations. Retro to amendable date is a red line. Period. Dot.
And what is “full retro” anyway? DOS % to the amendable? X%, x%, x% ?
11-26-2022, 10:25 PM
#480
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Joined APC: Feb 2018
Posts: 1,256
Originally Posted by Banzai
I am talking about one very specific negotiating point in which the RLA favors the company: “retro” pay. (In irony quotes due to debate over the definition.) The longer negotiations take, the more cost-prohibitive retro becomes. With every day it becomes a larger cost-item on the table, and could, in time, grow to dwarf every other item.
We do not have the authority to impose retro, nor do we have the authority to self-help on a timeframe of our choosing.
I bring it up because “retro” is an important item for many (rightly so). With zero power to impose it or to steer the timeline, the passage of time allows the company to make retro so cost-prohibitive that even a mediator may side with the company based solely on the balance sheet. The reason retro became so large will be largely irrelevant since time cannot be reversed, and holding out for it just makes it even bigger.
You are correct in all your points about the RLA, but the retro issue under the RLA can potentially become a bit of a “catch-22”.
We do not have the authority to impose retro, nor do we have the authority to self-help on a timeframe of our choosing.
I bring it up because “retro” is an important item for many (rightly so). With zero power to impose it or to steer the timeline, the passage of time allows the company to make retro so cost-prohibitive that even a mediator may side with the company based solely on the balance sheet. The reason retro became so large will be largely irrelevant since time cannot be reversed, and holding out for it just makes it even bigger.
You are correct in all your points about the RLA, but the retro issue under the RLA can potentially become a bit of a “catch-22”.
Of course, neither side has the authority to unilaterally impose any terms on the other side. And you're right, only the NMB, not a union nor management, has the authority to terminate the NMB's mediation services and proffer arbitration — setting the stage for possible self help in 30 or 90 days (depending on whether or not a PEB is established).
What I think you may be getting at is the question of whether or not DALPA's demands for the full value of retro since the amendable date fall outside of the bounds of "good faith bargaining" — or as the RLA describes it, "exert[ing] every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements."
On this sort of question, the courts have weighed in more than once to help us understand what good faith bargaining is and isn't. To begin with, the courts all seem to go out of their way to specify that good faith bargaining is really the absence of bad faith bargaining.
In 2012, a federal district court, dismissing a US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA) complaint against US Airways listed examples of what bad faith bargaining on the part of the employer might look like:
Examples of actions that violate an employer's duty to bargain in good faith include refusing to meet with union representatives, to accede to a union's request for NMB assistance, or to disclose relevant data to unions during negotiations. Employers also fail to exert every reasonable effort to reach an agreement where they display hostility towards and seek to frustrate the bargaining process or they otherwise engage in conduct clearly showing a wish to defeat agreement."
Courts must resist finding violations of the RLA based solely on evidence of hard bargaining, inability to reach agreement, or intransigent positions." Here, plaintiff essentially asks the court to find bad faith predicated on U.S. Airways' lack of flexibility and its unwillingness to become more generous as the bargaining process progresses. But a company's bargaining positions do not violate the statutory standards merely because they are "obstinate and unyielding," and the distance between the parties after a long period of negotiations does not amount to a lack of reasonable effort to reach an agreement.
Nor could the facts alleged by plaintiff otherwise permit a conclusion that defendants are engaged in the mere pretense of negotiation. Extreme bargaining positions, such as a proposal by a carrier that would allow it to change unilaterally any work rule at any time for any reason or that would require the union to recruit replacement workers during a strike, have been found to constitute evidence of such surface bargaining. Here, by contrast, USAPA argues that defendants' proposal is unreasonable because it does not conform to industry standards as USAPA defines them. In order to assess this contention, the court would be forced to assess the substantive proposals of each party and to weigh their reasonableness. Doing so would take the court beyond the permissible scope of a bad faith bargaining inquiry.
Nor could the facts alleged by plaintiff otherwise permit a conclusion that defendants are engaged in the mere pretense of negotiation. Extreme bargaining positions, such as a proposal by a carrier that would allow it to change unilaterally any work rule at any time for any reason or that would require the union to recruit replacement workers during a strike, have been found to constitute evidence of such surface bargaining. Here, by contrast, USAPA argues that defendants' proposal is unreasonable because it does not conform to industry standards as USAPA defines them. In order to assess this contention, the court would be forced to assess the substantive proposals of each party and to weigh their reasonableness. Doing so would take the court beyond the permissible scope of a bad faith bargaining inquiry.
In a 1988 federal district court case involving the flight attendants at TWA claiming, among other things, bad faith bargaining on the part of TWA, the judge referenced a 1970 Supreme Court decision to make the point that, "…the labor laws allow economic strength ultimately to control the establishment of contract terms, regardless of which side may have better reasons for its position." The judge then went on to cite the example of a 1980 case involving Trans International Airlines vs the Teamsters. The judge explained:
For present purposes I accept as a persuasive and authoritative ruling the decision of Chief Judge Peckham in Trans Intl. Airlines v. Teamsters, affirmed in an opinion by then-Judge Kennedy. The union was there making demands that the airline contended would impose costs equal to a tripling of the flight attendant payroll. The union disputed the claim that there would be a cost increase estimated to be 294% but Chief Judge Peckham found it simply "unnecessary to the resolution [of the good faith bargaining issue] to determine the actual figures. TIA is effectively asking the court to hold that the sheer size of the Teamsters' economic demands, and the distance between the parties after a long period of negotiations, amounts to a lack of reasonable effort by the union to reach an agreement." The district court concluded it was forbidden by "`the strong federal labor policy against governmental interference with the substantive terms of collective-bargaining agreements'" from pursuing the matter further.
Accordingly, although it is possible to construe the Chairman's remark as meaning that he is giving up on mediation, we do not think it appropriate for a court to examine a Board member's statements, made in the course of mediation, so critically. Successful mediators often liberally use blarney (hoomalimali in Hawaiian) as one of their mediation tools. The Chairman's statement may well have been a ploy. By inquiring as to the true meaning of such a statement we could well undermine its entire purpose by forcing the Board to admit it was a tactic to spur negotiations.
So, sure, the mediator may, in order to exert pressure on the Delta pilots ("as a tactic to spur negotiations"), pretend to "side with the company" if he or she believes that DALPA's demand for retro is a point that the company would never agree to. But the mediator cannot force DALPA nor the company to agree to anything. The courts have pretty clearly established in multiple rulings over the decades that the bar to being found to be bargaining in bad faith is pretty high. The courts have also established that they are loathe to interfere in the substantive terms of collective bargaining agreements. If Delta simply cannot agree to DALPA's demands, and assuming DALPA's demands are within the very wide bounds of "good faith bargaining," then perhaps, after the mediator cycles through his or her various attempts at arm-twisting and manipulation in order to cajole the sides into an agreement, the NMB will recognize that it's time for an impasse to be declared.
Unfortunately for Delta, right now "economic strength" favors pilots. "Economic strength," as the court has made clear, "ultimately [controls] the establishment of contract terms, regardless of which side may have better reasons for its position."
