No because the RLA states that both sides must maintain status quo during negotiations. The union is arguing that the implementation of multiple separate pay schemes is a violation of status quo since they were not started during a period of non negotiation.

 

Why would it change anything? There's always **someone** willing to chase the quick upgrade (RIP) to work for the premier bottom feeder.

 

Congratulations to the Republic pilots who now have much more bargaining power to get a market rate contract. Congratulations to the union lawyers for finally growing some snowballs. They finally will get to see what a court room looks like. Its like watching a paraplegic step out of his wheel chair and learn he was never paralyzed after all.

ALPA should be filing. Companies are not allowed to pay employees outside of the CBA. The CBA is the law. I don't believe they would even have to grieve it first. The system board of adjustment is to resolve disputes of interpretation. The bonuses are a clear violation and not an interpretation dispute. See Conrad v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 494 F.2d 914, 917-18. The airlines need to compete based upon their contracts and not by offering the prospective employees money not called for in the contract.

Nobody is being sandbagged. If republic gets a better contract pilots will go there when the other bonuses are gone. If the other airlines want to attract pilots they can go to their unions and ask to increase pay rates. Once the other airlines get new contracts to attract pilots and the pilots go there, then Republic can then ask to increase the rates again. Eventually, the market level is reached. People become pilots again.

Of course the G7 pilots will still be sitting at the minimum wage rates that they have been enjoying and drool over the possibility that Delta may give them 5 more planes.

 

Precedence happens when the IBT agrees to it. They never agreed to it and they illuded not to pick up open time. So, no precedence set here.

 

Teamsters couldn't even get an arbitrator to count to 100. What makes anyone think they could win this?

 

No matter how bad the teamster attorneys are this would be a hard one to lose. You cannot pay someone outside of the contract for doing work done by members of the employee bargaining group.

 

Past experience shows that the political views of the judge that the lawsuit draws has much more to do with the outcome than the merits of the case.
If an antilabor judge rules on the case, then in all likelyhood the pilots will lose.

 

Hasn't the newhire bonus/extra pay scheme been going on for a long while? At what point does something that's not specifically in the contract become "past practice", or passively accepted by the group? Would a judge see it that way? It seems like it could be pretty overdue to sue over this.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see it won by the union and hope I'm wrong... some form of leverage is way overdue, but I've got to think this is not a slam dunk as much as it maybe seems. FWIW, have been out of the loop - not at RAH anymore - so maybe I'm missing some details.

 

It will probably boil down to the definition of "employee". That's where the IBT loses most grievances. The definition of "seat", "a pilot", "city", "airport" are just a few examples that have different definitions per the company. Every judge and arbitrator on the planet will simply rubber stamp the company definition. I appreciate the thought, but the idiot teamsters are going to lose this as well. The only winners are the lawyers collecting some serious coin.

 

Is this lawsuit delaying negotiations until a resolution is reached? Are they even negotiating anymore because of this?