05-10-2024Delta Pilots Association - DPA News - The Conflict of Interest: APA and ALPA ClearlyDefined
The DPA notes ALPA's "Conflict of Interest" then gets it exactly backwards with regard to the politics, the threats and the reality of ALPA's influence on APA negotiations.
It has been the APA's long standing position that American scope should return to:
Quote:
“All flying performed by the Company, a subsidiary, or affiliate directly or indirectly controlled by the Company, or successor in interest, or flying performed on behalf of the Company as a result of any agreement to which the Company is a party or becomes a party, shall be performed by pilots named on the active American Airlines Pilots Seniority List.”
As American Airlines approached bankruptcy, it began a spin off of American Eagle. Since Eagle's valuation as a Company depends entirely on the American Airlines Section 1, management's plan fell on its face as smarter folks began to realize that you can't IPO a company, then negotiate them out of business the very next day. Having the American contract open denied management of the money Delta raised just prior to bankruptcy by spining off ASA.“All flying performed by the Company, a subsidiary, or affiliate directly or indirectly controlled by the Company, or successor in interest, or flying performed on behalf of the Company as a result of any agreement to which the Company is a party or becomes a party, shall be performed by pilots named on the active American Airlines Pilots Seniority List.”
We know ALPA's play book. We have seen it in action at Eastern, US Air, United, Northwest and Delta. It works like this:
(1) ALPA presupposes that small jets are not capable of "mainline" style contracts.
(2) Best to remove the lower paying jets from the property, then limit their numbers by scope clauses which focus on "permitted" outsourcing.
(3) Use scope violations as "bargaining capital" to achieve unrelated contractual gains where feasible.
(4) Employ "no furlough" clauses as job protection to offset the loss of jobs inherent in the outsourcing agreements.
Die hard unionists realize that behind the valid logic of this strategy is the reality of selling of junior members' jobs and senior members' position. When they object they are shouted down with legal arguments which are mostly beyond their ability to evaluate accurately. This is how TWA got rolled (or better stated "rolled themselves") No Judge in any Court has ever invalidated a labor protection provision ... could they? ... maybe ... no one has pressed to test on the issue. Let me explain why.
ALPA's position is that mainline members benefit from outsourcing. The low pay, lack of unity (whipsaw), and loss of longevity help management to save money which hopefully results in greater profits to be shared with the preferred mainline members. Remember the word "savings" and "profits."
In ALPA's view, effective regional scope could harm mainline members. The more cut throat competition among the regional carriers the greater the potential profits which ALPA hopes to distribute among mainline pilots. Even if ALPA's statements in the press deliberately obsfucate the issue, their actions are clear. In every case during the last 13 years, ALPA has resisted attempts by regional carriers to bind their mainline carriers to their services.
My forecast is that the APA will roll over on scope and adopt a "Delta Style" Section 1. ALPA's role, which it has already accomplished to some degree, is to remove Eagle's hold on American's small jet flying. Management will then put that work out for competitive bid.
ALPA hopes the APA will be able to leverage that situation to improve the results in mainline bargaining.
P.S. I applaud the DPA's and Tim Caplinger's support for Toys for Tots. Certainly his heart is in the right place. If his head was in the right place, he would have my enthusiastic support.
To the extent that ALPA has a conflict of interest, they resolve it in our favor. As this goes forward, put together the changes in Eagle's scope and watch this at work. It will be management that does the really ugly stuff and who should get the blame, but when ALPA withdraws scope, there's nothing left to protect pilots.
