Good point. At least we have a contract and a grievance procedure to deal with crap like this. B6 guys have to take it and like it.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. So I won't.

 

I tell you, for JB's management not wanting unions on property, they are going in exactly the opposite direction. The FAs have started organizing and the rampers are coming due again. Now if the pilots can get on board....should know in the next month or so. I just don't see where it benefits them to not have collective bargaining or at least a united voice. I'll bet the bank they are a union company by year's end.

 

You know what they say, "Companies get the Unions they deserve."

There are organizations that treat their labor fairly, but they are few and far between.

 

Basically...it's not UPS. They would do it despite the contract that is in place and then tell you to grieve it. But technically...nothing. Although, the dollar costs to JB would be too high.

 

Sorry about the big font, I was not trying to be emphatic, I use my word processor to spell check and I needed the larger font.

 

Red-eye : I agree with you that it was the TWA MEC that made the agreements with AMR that lead to only some TWA pilots having jobs. But we all know where those same pilots would have been if AMR did not buy the TWA operation. And they would not have bought them if the MEC had not agrees to such language. One of my best friends was at TWA and is now at another airlines. But is still does not change the facts.

 

But we all know where those same pilots would have been if AMR did not buy the TWA operation. And they would not have bought them if the MEC had not agrees to such language.

Actually, I'm not sure I can agree with either of those two statements.

TWA was nearing the eleventh hour financially. Three serious suitors were present and there were others waiting in the wings. AMR, Boeing, and fair to say, possibly America West. Others were AirTran, Carl Icahn , and some quack from California that didn't even own an airline. AMR's offer presented our CEO an opportunity to retain some control over TWA LLC, leave with a hefty parachute and in quotes would offer "most of the TWA employees with positions with the new airline" (unbeknowgnst to us, positions with no seniority and susceptible to immediate furlough during a sagging economy back in 2001). The Boeing offer would have resulted in paycuts and furloughes and the loss of control of the airline to an outside management firm. I am not familiar what the America West code-share proposal or the AirTran offer. I can only imagine what Uncle Carl Icahn would have done to us, and the quack from California, deal would never have been approved anyway. So to say what would have happen to TWA if the AMR offer fell threw is purely speculative. It may not have been pretty, it may resemble the trials and tribulations that our brothers/sisters at USAir, United, and Delta have had to endure or it could have resembled what the good folks at Pan Am and Eastern and others have had to go through. In short, we don't know which offer would have gone through if AMR had backed away.

It's not entirely true that AMR wouldn't have bought us if we did not agree to waive scope while we were in bankruptcy. Our collective bargain was not dissolved but in bankruptcy it was just a matter of time. In addition AMR AND TWA LLC management asked us to waive scope or else they would file a Section 1049 (I'm not sure the number, but in bankrupcy it would effectively voided our contract anyways). If we agreed to waive scope they promised us a better seniority deal. In retrospect, our refusal to waive scope would have only added one step to dissolving our scope protection. I will go on record to say, that I'd rather task management with that "one more step" to know that in my heart I did everything possible to attain/negotiate what was best for the TWA pilots. So to say that our MEC's refusal would have stopped the deal, I would respectfully say that I disagree, it would just add work to their lawyers workload.

If my memory serves me correctly our F/As did not relinquish their scope clause, it was dissolved in bankrupcty court, and they were treated far worse than the pilots..specifically, no severence pay upon furlough and 5 year recall rights which will end soon with Zero TWA F/As recalled-essentially they were fired. This 5 year limit to recalls was put in place by the AA F/A union, and approved by AMR. It amazes me how one union would so blatantly trample fellow industry professionals from another airline and then blame management.

AMR 1 AA Unions 0 TWA -22,500

 

I don’t want to seem unsympathetic to what happened to those at TWA. It was my airline of choice since I was a kid and I had many friends there up to when AMR took it. But there were only so many seats to go around and I can’t see how any of the AA pilots should have had to pay with their job to allow those at TWA to continue to fly. I believe that if there was room for more at AA then keeping as many would have been great, like when AMR bought Reno Air. But to put AA pilots on the street would not have been a fair tradeoff. If we all started out with Date of Hire then I can accept it.

 

????

TWA brought 186 jets to the party, valuable landing slots at ORD/JFK/LGA/DCA, Worldspan Reservation system (which when sold netted AMR hundreds of millions of dollars) and 76 international route authorities some overlapped AA's, some did not. TWA and AA were hiring right up to the time of the merger...from actually being there at the time of the merger, I observed that there were more than enough seats to go around. Maybe I misunderstood your post, but I respectfully disagree.
If American had not bought TWA, who would have taken the 2,889 furloughes that AMR dished out to the pilot group ?? IMHO, AA pilots paid less with the merger than they would have if they had to endure the furloughes without the TWA pilots.

FF