Hiwaymiles

When I got hired 22 years ago at USAir, I didn’t know how my career would turn out. But, it was reasonable to assume that there would be good times, and bad times, that the company would try to screw me, and that the union would try to protect me, and that the longer I stayed, the higher I would go on the list.

Who else is going to protect my interests if not my union? But, it turns out that union I paid to protect me decided that the last few years of my career, at my airline, would be spent jerking gear for guys and gals hired many years after me, some of whom were in middle school when I got hired.

Let’s see, is there any corollary in history of a group who had been so screwed by their own government, that they threw off the yoke of oppression and formed their own government to protect their own interests, and serve their own needs?

The Declaration of Independence says this:

“….whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…

Here are the reasons the colonists threw out the English:

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Those testosterone-laden contributors to this forum who say East pilots should “man-up” and take the screwing they’ve been given remind me of the English gentry of the late 1700s, tut-tutting from the bounty and safety of the English shores, that those pesky colonists should just do what the King tells them, else they make all Englishmen look bad.

If we listened to guys like alfa-romeo, America would still be an English colony. Unless, of course, it was alfa-romeo who had gotten screwed.

NERD

Nice try, but not good analogy. Y'all agreed to binding arbitration knowing full well what could happen. During arbitration you were told multiple times that your position was a nonstarter. While there are/were some of us that had some sympathy for y'all, the lack of integrity shown after has changed that for most. That is why the bulk of other pilots look down on you. A lot of NWA pilots and some Dal (90-91 hires) did not like the results, but you don't see any of the rancor you see here. We agreed to binding arbitration understanding full well what could happen and accepted it.

NuGuy

Hi Carl,

Very interesting that while some hold the Nicolau award as some sort of tablet from Solomon, another one of his awards is being reviled, and legal plans are being mounted to fight it.... the recent American Eagle/AMR award on flow through.

Guess it depends on which side of the table you are on.

Nu

DALMD88FO

Carl,

At least on the DAL S of the merger, we were told that although both sides agreed to a certain framework as to the integration (i.e. the very general ALPA merger policy) that the arbitrator COULD go out on his own and form a list. That is one of the reasons we agreed on three arbitrators instead of the normal one arbitrator process. Our MEC wanted there to be no doubt in our minds that this could end very badly, especially since we had already signed the joint contract.

Carl Spackler

With guys like alfa, it's not testosterone laden, it's estrogen laden. They simply don't believe in fighting against their company or anything else. Yet these same pacifists ask you to "man up." To these folks, your unpardonable sin was that you fought against authority.

Clearly the Nicolau award was very far off the reservation of past precedent. I don't know if you'll ultimately succeed, but I respect the fact that you've fought this battle. Anytime you have such unanimity as shown in the east group, something must be drastically wrong.

Carl

Carl Spackler

It ALWAYS does.

Carl

Carl Spackler

To be more accurate, I should have said: "Arbitrators CAN do anything they want, but arbitrators are NOT the final say." They never have been.

Carl

Pineapple Guy

You "respect that they've fought this battle"??? Some call it fighting a battle; others call it reneging on an agreed to binding arbitration. You call that respect; I call that a complete lack of integrity.

No different from the guy who calls in sick when he's not; or tricks the system to block out when he hasn't; or gets disability benefits for life when he's not disabled; or gets a sham divorce so his ex can get his pension, and the list goes on and on.

Pineapple Guy

Not to everyone Carl. Some people actually do the right thing, regardless of how it affects them. Accepting the binding decision of a binding arbitration that you agreed to would be one of those.

alfaromeo

Well, Carl, it is good to see that your legal analysis has stayed at the level previously exhibited. This has nothing to do with the arbitration results. The former AWA pilots sued their union over DFR because they were trying to negotiate a new seniority list after one had already been established through the appropriate channels.

The question that the Ninth circuit decided was when a DFR case is "ripe" to go to court. The AWA pilots thought it was ripe due to the commitment that USAPA showed to overturning the award and the proposal made by the union. The Ninth ruled that ripeness occurs when a deal has been concluded and ratified by the membership. In their ruling they explicitly issued a warning to USAPA that they are obligated to FAIRLY represent the interests of ALL their pilots.

So you are just plain wrong with your analysis. The Nicolau award and the arbitration results were not a subject of the case. What the East pilots want to do is use the majority vote to overturn the outcome of a process that they freely entered into. If you support that, then you would also support 7,000 former Delta pilots outvoting 5,000 former Northwest pilots to staple them all to the bottom of the list. That is basically what the East pilots want to do, staple the West pilots to the bottom of the list.