Actually it was the DAL PWA. Scope was the biggest non-starter, but so were things like moveable domestic RDOs, a 65 hour line guarantee, vacation/training/sick pay and pay rates with profits flowing in. Two Captains over twelve hours is nice though. Bravo NW pilots.

Here you go Carl, no more waiting: ENJOY. And I can't wait to hear your response. You even have a quote from President Bush. I also want an apology because you were WRONG!

Northwest walkout is on hold / Presidential order puts airline unions on notice
LAURA GOLDBERG Staff
SAT 03/10/2001 Houston Chronicle, Section A,

FacebookStumbleUpon A potential strike by mechanics at Northwest Airlines, the nation's No. 4 carrier, is on hold for 60 days after an order from President Bush.
The president also warned labor unions at other airlines that he will act to stop them from striking.

While Northwest's mechanics are closest to a walkout, unions at four other major carriers - American, Delta, Southwest and United - have ongoing contract disputes. Houston-based Continental Airlines has no contract talks under way.
Bush, who addressed the issue while in South Dakota speaking about his tax-cut plan Friday, said he was concerned that airline strikes could hurt the economy and would inconvenience travelers.

"I intend to take the necessary steps to prevent airline strikes from happening this year," said the Republican president.

Bush is able to delay a strike by creating a presidential emergency board, or PEB, something generally opposed by labor and favored by management.
The union representing Northwest's mechanics, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, said it was disappointed at Bush's order, especially since "significant movement" had occurred during its most recent talks with the airline.
"We still believe this action is premature, unprecedented and unjustified and that by issuing the PEB at this stage, the government is essentially dictating the free collective bargaining process and taking away labor's right to seek self-help," O.V. Delle-Femine, the union's national director, said in a written statement.


Northwest saw it another way.

"President Bush's appointment of a presidential emergency board ensures that our customers can continue to make their travel plans on Northwest Airlines with confidence," said Robert Brodin, the airline's senior vice president of labor relations, in a written statement.

Bush named three professional arbitrators to the emergency board, each of whom has been appointed to such boards before.
The emergency board has 30 days to make a recommendation to the president for a mechanics contract. After that, the airline and the union have 30 days to consider the recommendation.

If the two sides still can't agree, the union is free to strike.
Even then, Congress may decide to legislate a settlement rather than allow a strike. Industry experts doubt Congress would do so, though they don't rule it out.

Bush's power to delay a strike comes through the Railway Labor Act, which governs the contract negotiating process for airlines and railroads. It sets a series of steps that force continued negotiations.

Before a president gets involved, the National Mediation Board oversees the process. Once the mediation board believes the two sides won't make additional progress, it releases them into a 30-day strike countdown.
When the countdown expires, the union may strike unless the president calls an emergency board.

During the 30-day countdown, the parties typically make a last-ditch try to reach a deal.It usually takes months or even a year or two before the mediation board agrees to a strike countdown.

Industry experts don't expect strike countdowns at American, Delta, Southwest and United any time soon, especially with the Northwest situation unresolved.
Emergency boards are rarely invoked, and a president typically considers a variety of factors before creating a board: potential disruption to consumers and businesses; the economy's strength; the time of year; and whether the mediation board believes the parties would ever reach a deal on their own. Politics also plays a role.

Since 1967, only one airline emergency board had been impaneled, though there were others for rail disputes. President Clinton, a Democrat, called the airline board.

Even though Democrats are regarded as more friendly to labor, the union involved in this case, representing pilots at American, wasn't affiliated with the Democrat-supporting AFL-CIO.

For Northwest's mechanics, the 30-day strike countdown expires late Sunday, and Bush had already said he would create an emergency board after the National Mediation Board recommended he do so.
Negotiations were expected to continue over the weekend, with the possibility remaining that a deal could be reached before the board is activated Monday.
Northwest said Friday it would accept whatever contract recommendation that is made by the emergency board.

The mechanics union was surprised that Bush acted Friday instead of waiting. The union and the airline started their latest round of talks Wednesday and were negotiating as Bush made his announcement.
The two had reached agreement on insurance issues and progressed on outsourcing, while back pay, pension and pay rates remained open issues, said Steve Lanier, the union's national secretary.

Bush's order enhances management's leverage at the expense of labor's and reduces the urgency of settling, said Rob Milmore, an airline stock analyst at Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder.

Northwest and its mechanics began talks in 1996, reaching a tentative deal in 1998.
The rank-and-file rejected that deal and threw out its union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in favor of AMFA. Talks started again in 1999.
Other unions, including the Air Line Pilots Association, reacted negatively to Bush's statements.

"We are troubled when the government steps in when a union and management are negotiating," said Don Skiados, an ALPA spokesman.



Btw Carl, this article was mainly about NWA and the mechanics. Were you paying attention back then? Obviously not.

Executive leadership never said that. This is a misquote. Perhaps you did not mean to misquote a senior executive of the company you work for. Perhaps it is an innocent mistake.

"cost neutral" I believe was his choice of words. So if you stop spending 400 million dollars at DCI to generate ASM's and instead spend 400 million to generate the ASM's at mainline, that's cost neutral right?

But isn't it a 400 million dollar increase to the pilots' pocket book?

That isn't what my friends who left CAL for DAL said about it, but whatever makes you happy.

P.S. The 2 captains over twelve was a DAL not a NW thing FYI.

Why does everyone always skip past this?

NMB means something but not forever, the President actually doesn't mean anything.

................

Carl wanted to see Bush's quote, and I gave it to him. You need to re-read it too. Bush wasn't going to allow it. Your quote above applies, but it could have been delayed for a long long time, essentially not allowing it. Same could happen today, especially if it would hurt the economy here. Then the head of the NMB says it could take 29 months to complete mediation, with a question mark after that. Can you see the point here? Help Carl out if you can.

First of all, NWA pilots did NOT bring 2 Captains over 12 hours to the joint contract. That was DAL. And I'm really starting to think you aren't even a UAL pilot. You really didn't know your managements offer was Delta RATES + $1?

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Disclaimer: this message is not Georgetg approved, vetted or similar quality.

Okay, so is it cost neutral? Yes. For the company it is. For us... it isn't, but imho it's a loss.

Using the numbers airlinefinancials digs out of the BTS and SEC data you can estimate what our total pilot costs are to the company. If we continued on our path of approximately 4% raises per year under the PWA and compared it to the TA, the TA is going to cost the company $90M more than the PWA would have for the 2012-2015 period. That $90M goes to us. Sounds like a win, but two things:

First, it's 1% over what our trajectory had us going at, or 6% YOY raises vs 4% before you remove 300 pilots across every category. So you can kind of claim 1% is neutral, but that's not the point. So throw this out.

Second, and follow me on this, by the end of 2015 with the TA we go from DCI 598/255 to 507/305. That is a drop of 91 aircraft. $90M TA pilot cost increase / 91 airplanes = $994K/yr lease / 12 months / .01% lease rate = $8.3M airplanes.

If those CRJ-200s being parked cost around $8.3M each, we're indeed transferring the cost savings from parking those CRJ-200s to us over the 2012-2015 time period. A Lumberg style win, we're getting compensated. A wealth transfer if you will.

So that would be cost neutral to the company and a gain for us. But that's the ruse.

From our point of view we get raises, 717s and 450 cap on RJs. For the company, they get

• A quick contract allowing merger mania to continue unimpeded,
• Rid of CRJ-200s they wanted to get rid of without paying extra for it,
• To reduce DCI down to a number they probably prefer,
• To get us to sign off on more 76 seaters that they wanted without having to give up 70 seaters which under the old PWA would've cost money,
• To give us raises without it costing anything to them,
• To use the TA as a leverage with Bombardier to do a swap and the DCI carriers to allow the changes to happen, and
• To leverage the 717s they were going to get anyways to get the pilots to sign off on a 27% jumbo RJ scope concession.

So they just hit a grand slam. They may have even made a profit on this whole thing.

Because without having to spend anything or do anything more than they would've done in the first place, they just got us to concede critical scope. So that's why imho it's a loss, because if we reduce our ranks due to the unnecessary jumbo RJ scope concession then that cost us all jobs.

Maybe I don't understand, but are you assuming that we will get a 4% pay bump in 2013 and beyond with our current PWA? Because I believe we are scheduled for a 0% pay bump in 2013 and beyond with our current PWA.