That's interesting. Goes to show that you can never be 100% certain of what will happen in a courtroom. If that case had come up before a different judge in some other Fed district the outcome might have been entirely different. You still have to give it a try though, right?

My guess is the lack of interview. Call up, get a class date. No one will ever know about your social awkwardness, right?

Yes and no. First the YES; you never know what will happen when litigating. I have seen cases that are slam dunk do a 180 due to a number of factors. The NO part: There are certain elements of statutory law that need to be met. 98% of judges will rule the same way in these cases; liberal, conservative, does not matter. Judges, in general, do not want to be overruled on appeal so they tend to stick with defendable positions and rule based on existing law. That being said, law varies federal district to federal district unless ruled on by SCOTUS. Districts vary enough in judicial philosophy that one would not even think about using rulings from the 9th Circus Court to justify a position in the 5th or 7th. And yes, parties go judge shopping all the time.

My questions, looking at all the posts, 1) Are non-union airlines paid better than union, or more importantly, do non-union shops enjoy a better/worse working climate with less contention than union represented airlines? 2) What exactly do you get for your union dues (Mesa specific)? 3) If you are not getting what you want from paying the union, why is there not collective outrage, or more importantly, why not change tack?

Mesa was a great move for me. I got awarded PHX (where I live) after a month and a half. I got a line fairly quickly. I could hold left seat on either jet right at 1k hours/18 months and would if I wasn't leaving for a new job flying something a little bigger with a bigger paycheck. The company hasn't treated me badly at all. The chief pilots are very approachable and take care of issues I have brought up when stuff did happen. There are some things that could be better, but talking to my friends at other airlines, this place isn't that bad and other airlines have some things worse than we do.

And there are plenty of well qualified people who come here. Military, prior 121 people, etc. Its not all second career, washouts, and rejects who couldn't get on at other airlines. We have some of the above, but everyone has their reasons for coming here. I don't think things will be all that great once we hit critical staffing levels though and I'm glad I won't be around to witness it first hand.

Thanks for your obviously well-established insight Judge. Based on this and your name it would seem that you're no stranger to the courtroom. Nor am I, but your experience, assuming you are/were a Judge most likely eclipses my own. Nearly all of mine was in Federal Court, however, so I'm also more than casually familiar with statutory law. We're in complete agreement in our awareness of the reluctance of Judges to overrule each other or stray from the route when it comes to upholding existing law. But that's where things can get interesting, where there's some gray area as to what exactly "existing" means. What I see as the reason why the Allegiant Case MAY have been decided differently stems from not the language of the act (which the Teamsters were nearly assuredly in violation of) but rather the lack of a clear precedent in establishing applicability of the RLA itself to an airline. From what I've found, those waters seem to be entirely untested. In the case of a regional airline such as Mesa, with plenty of other competitors to take up their slack in the event of a service interruption, a clear argument can be made that both the Railroad Act and Railroad Labor Act don't extend to that industry. Remember, when those Acts were written, in order for the government to simply use a competitor to extend mail service for example, from say Philadelphia to St. Louis, meant having to lay a new set of track first ... an entirely different and costly scenario both in terms of dollars and required service downtime.

This is why I see a possibility in having a different ruling in another courtroom in the Allegient case. While any other Judge would assuredly be hard pressed to find that the test of the union's exhaustion of efforts had been met, he/she might easily have found that to be of no consequence as the Act itself is inapplicable. As you know, unions are no less money-hungry than most companies themselves. It seems that, up until now, they've found a convenient excuse in citing the RLA as an industry-wide prohibition toward labor cessation. But, it appears that this prohibition is coming from ALPA itself and not from established law. It's far more convenient and far less costly for them to continue to put our dues into their own pockets (salaries) than to take the plunge for us which means having to give a sizeable amount to lawyers instead. This is one reason why I say we're being ripped off. There are obviously others, such as the fact that they could also be working on more mutually beneficial methods in making improvements. Perhaps you agree? Either way, I would certainly appreciate your position on this and, perhaps others would too ... because THIS is how you go about getting things done. Not spitting on newbies at the schoolhouse.

Out of Trim,
Yep, 7 1/2 years on the bench. Municipal law with the black robe and gavel. Loved the experience. Labor law is not something I had experience with. My federal court experience has all been business and BK related, and that as a litigant. In general, suits serve to enrich the lawyers and damage relationships to the point where nothing can ever be accomplished. I view them as truly a last resort.

Do you have links for the statutes you've cited? Case law? Published opinions? Trying to translate dusty antiquated laws is fret with peril, for both sides, and possibly for entire industries. Why do we still have certificates allowing peanut farmers to sell their crops, and subsidies on wool, sugar, and milk. All holdovers from WWI, or earlier. Finding "new law" from old laws on the books takes lots of time and very, very deep pockets. If there is not something substantial to gain, the process is simply not worth the cost. The legislative process is faster, and that is glacial.

I agree with you about the likely view of the union with regard to Mesa, probably not worth their time. They have very little to gain and a lot to lose. That begs the question: as recently as a few years ago there was relative parity with the regionals as far as pay is concerned. Have the other regionals exceeded what the market will tolerate? Will they with their new contracts? Was the new contract a factor, even a minor one, with Republic filing? If the cost of labor goes up, the customers end up eating it in the end. Is it simply a matter of time for relative parity to again emerge between the regionals? Will that take the form of Mesa tracking upward, or the others tracking back down?

I tend to be less adversarial in negotiations with an outlook of what is reasonable for all parties involved. If folks are convinced of both the failure of the union and adversarial position of the company towards it’s pilots, then what’s a creative way to approach the problem?

Plenty of good background/references here, and of course LexisNexis/PACER case searches:

Allegiant Air Shows A Need For The Norris-LaGuardia Act - Law360

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norris...La_Guardia_Act

The Railway Labor Act Simplified

Thanks Flaps. What I was looking for was any published opinion, preferably a majority ruling, that would lend credence to Out's direction of thought. I suspect it's a tedious hunt. Unpublished opinions have little to no weight, and in most jurisdictions cannot even be cited when presenting an argument. I was hoping to skip to concluding paragraphs for a quick understanding. No time with wrapping things up here today and training starting this week. This is good dialogue though.

Out of Trim stated: "the lack of a clear precedent in establishing applicability of the RLA itself to an airline. From what I've found, those waters seem to be entirely untested. In the case of a regional airline such as Mesa, with plenty of other competitors to take up their slack in the event of a service interruption, a clear argument can be made that both the Railroad Act and Railroad Labor Act don't extend to that industry." I suspect Out of Trim has answered his own question. There probably isn't any supporting legal angle. Hence, great time and expenses to pursue, and even if a case can be made the end game is completely unknown.

Which I think leads back to my questions. Thoughts?

Judge, don't have time to answer all, but IMO RAH gave a contract to stop the operational bleeding (canceling 30-50 flights a day) knowing a BK filing was around the corner that would wipe out the "exorbitant" pay rates. Most knew this was going to happen, except for the poor sheep who flocked there.

The crux of the problem with regionals/contract flying, and I'll use Mesa as an example, is that they are FFD (fee for departure), so costs are fixed. We don't sell tickets, we don't buy fuel, in the case of 30 of our ejets, we don't pay financing/leasing costs (they are owned by UAL). We get paid to operate the contract feed. Labor demand has gone up significantly in the last year or two, and the market has had to adjust accordingly. But the contracts to fly all this regional feed were set when labor rates were low, so while mainline is posting record profits, we aren't getting a piece of the pie. If supply and demand further reduces sustainable regional feed, causing regionals to consolidate, at some point when labor cost hits a certain point it won't be cost effective to contract out the flying, which is one reason we are seeing some flying back at mainline (e190s/717s at DL/etc). Mesa's margins are so thin, that unless it renegotiated FFD rates with UA/AA, it can't afford an uptick in labor costs, which is why JO hasn't given more than a nickel (and in fact took money from captains a few years ago with the 76/79 seat debacle) and drags out negotiations for 5 years...no loss for him.

ALPA national of course doesn't care, because 2% of peanuts = peanuts, and their pay is primarily from mainline. ALPA and management (mainline and regional) allowed this RJ "c scale" to exist, voted in by mainline pilots to protect their interests (while they still got wiped out) over the last 15 or so years. ALPA national, when questioned about our horrid contracts, says its up to our individual MEC to negotiate and it can't help us out. So what do they provide? A bad lawyer, John Dean, who has screwed us in the last 3 contracts by allowing loose language which was exploited by the company (and still hasn't learned his lesson...I think because it provides him work settling future grievances over the language but that's just my theory), and some other unimpressive help. They don't help a whole lot with grievances. The one thing they do well is protect jobs if someone gets fired. Without the union the company would walk all over us and fire us at will, destroy our PRIA, etc., and we would have to foot the legal bill. With a union, legal disputes come out of national's coffers. They also help with scheduling issues, teaching how to use PBS, etc., and are good about that. National also wants money all the time for their super PAC, spending tons of money fighting ME3/open skies (which our govt should be doing anyway for the good of our country), fighting 3rd class medical reform (don't know why they dabble with that...waste of money), and some other projects they lobby for.

You'll see the union's sales job in a few days, they will explain why they do more, but it took me a while in the industry to see why airline management has so much leverage/control over labor, especially at the regionals.

BeatNavy,
Fantastic primer. I was unaware of the fixed cost model; FFD. Your explanation clears things up, weaves a complicated web, and then suggests an unholy alliance between the ALPA and the Majors.

Off to Phoenix tomorrow to start training. Thanks to all who offered constructive comments and direction.

Kind Regards,
Judge