Welcome to Atlas
 

This week will start with emails, messages, union excuses etc …. Welcome to Atlas.

Atlas has a union that isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe.

Welcome to Atlas Lite.

At least at Atlas our EXCO fought tooth and nail for five years. Ultimately, we were limited by the confines of the RLA and binding arbitration. But we shot for the stars. I fully support 2750 and and thank them for getting us what they were able to. Even now, our stewards are very proactive at contract compliance. Very often they’ll contact the pilot to tell them a violation took place and they should grieve it.

As opposed to FX ALPA where you are threatened with furlough for voting no on a proposed TA.

I firmly believe that Tumi TA at United doesn’t happen with EXCO from Atlas in charge. That’s for sure!

Is that why their 747 captains barely make more than our 757 captains.

You do know that binding arbitration is voluntary?

Oh? Please explain. I'm all ears.

Yeah... Atlas had Alpa throw some bs SCOPE language in their contract that allowed John Dietrich to exploit it so that their pilots haven't voted on a contract in like 20 years... They get forced arbitration that the company wins every time. They finally got the language removed after they rammed their latest contract down their pilots' throats in arbitration and Captains were still leaving left and right.

Both parties have to agree to binding arbitration which was the best path forward for the atlas pilots.

No... It wasn't the best path forward for Atlas pilots. Section 6 was the best path, but John Dietrich showed up to day 1 of negotiations on the Atlas contract and informed their NC that they were buying Southern in 10 minutes. At negotiations the next month he informed their NC that the company would be merging ("Amalgamating") their contract with Southern's bankruptcy contract. Southern had 20 day work months, no retirement of any kind, 15 day "vacation" lines, and pay rates that were about 2/3rds of Atlas's subpar rates (among other brutal things in there). This would've resulted in an averaging of their contracts if it went to arbitration which is what their crappy Scope forced upon them at the end of Dietrich's "Process". Their contract said that they had to present a combined list to the company which triggered something like 9-12 months of negotiations followed by mandatory arbitration of all outstanding issues.

After winning every lawsuit he filed on the issue, John Dietrich forced arbitration on their unions which nearly every pilot in the group was opposed to. They had voted over 99% in favor of a strike (my vote included) and wanted to strike if need be, but that only happens in Section 6. Somewhere along the line so many Southern pilots left that they could no longer staff the airline, so John Dietrich proposed to just put their pilots on Atlas's current contract but the arbitration clause would stand in court. After being forced to give a combined list in another law suit (the contract gave no timeframe for that) the final negotiating started. Any improvement with an economic improvement for the pilots in it was rejected knowing the arbitration judge would ultimately rule in Dietrich's favor. At the end of the negotiating period in the contract, something like 200 items went to the judge for arbitration - an unprecedented number. How's that for negotiating in good faith? The judge ruled almost all of it in the company's favor and for the pay rates added like $2 an hour to the company's proposed rates when the union was probably $50 an hour apart.

That's what happened at Atlas. John Dietrich literally won so big that pilots were still leaving Atlas left and right. He was forced to renegotiate again in a few months and make enough concessions to their union to prevent the Captains from all leaving. Make ZERO mistake about it that arbitration was 100% forced upon their group. They wanted Section 6 and were forced into their merger language which ended in arbitration.

I can guarantee you, at no point in time did Atlas Teamsters leadership ever agree to binding arbitration.

In point of fact, as indicated above, the company literally sued the union to force the "The Process". Anything contrary to that would have been in contempt of a federal judge.

Are you confusing arbitration with mediation?

We lived this every day. So no... We aren't confusing this with mediation. It wasn't part of the Section 6 flow chart. It went to Atlas's SCOPE which defined a "Process" that ended in forced arbitration.

Yeah I know…question was for JackStraw.

Yes I suppose I am confusing the NMB process with the “amalgamation” that took place.

You were indeed.

You mean a clause in your scope that was approved by the pilots in another contract. So this group that will go toe to toe voluntarily gave up their right to withhold labor in favor of binding arbitration?

Not exactly. That language originated in the very first ALPA contract settled over 20 years ago. Atlas is now Teamsters which was finally successful in having that language removed. The only reason why it remained in place for so long was because the company deliberately exploited it by purchasing two carriers with the same bargaining agents, thereby avoiding Sec 6 and the ratification process, forcing the contract into the hands a 3rd party arbitrator. They did this twice!

Polar Air Cargo was ALPA, same as Atlas, when that merger was announced in 2004.

Then in 2016, Atlas was Teamsters, and so was Southern, when they were acquired in 2016.

Language was finally negotiated out early 2022.

This is what happens when an agreeable and uneducated pilot group allows nonsense to pass. For Atlas it was 20 or so years ago. Then they learned and fought the enemy. For FedEx it was 2006, 2010, 2015 no lesson learned. 2023 was the year FedEx pilots stood up and fought by a majority. The scary part is, we have gaping holes in our agreement like Atlas did that will be exploited. It will get ugly. But we will prevail, or they will fail.

Should be a good example why Scope is one of the, if not the, most important part of a CBA. Any loopholes there can and will be abused. Dietrich is a seasoned veteran in this.