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Old 11-27-2022, 03:49 AM
  #481  
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Dang Lewbronski…. Good work.
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Old 11-27-2022, 03:51 AM
  #482  
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Originally Posted by igotgummed View Post
We got retro in TA2 and it did nothing to stop mgmt from not negotiating in 2019, and going straight for mediation in 2020.

And what is “full retro” anyway? DOS % to the amendable? X%, x%, x% ?
You are missing the point entirely. What would our progress have been had we not gotten 10 months of retro with TA2?? And what will C26 negotiations look like if we capitulate on years of retro now?

We would never get an on-time contract ever again. We would literally incentivize the company to drag their feet for years at a time… in perpetuity.

Last edited by FangsF15; 11-27-2022 at 04:31 AM.
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Old 11-27-2022, 07:07 AM
  #483  
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Originally Posted by FangsF15 View Post
… in perpetuity.
Hey! You watch your language.
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Old 11-27-2022, 09:14 PM
  #484  
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Originally Posted by Lewbronski View Post
I'm not sure what you mean by, "We do not have the authority to impose retro, nor do we have the authority to self-help on a timeframe of our choosing."

Of course, neither side has the authority to unilaterally impose any terms on the other side. And you're right, only the NMB, not a union nor management, has the authority to terminate the NMB's mediation services and proffer arbitration — setting the stage for possible self help in 30 or 90 days (depending on whether or not a PEB is established).

What I think you may be getting at is the question of whether or not DALPA's demands for the full value of retro since the amendable date fall outside of the bounds of "good faith bargaining" — or as the RLA describes it, "exert[ing] every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements."

On this sort of question, the courts have weighed in more than once to help us understand what good faith bargaining is and isn't. To begin with, the courts all seem to go out of their way to specify that good faith bargaining is really the absence of bad faith bargaining.

In 2012, a federal district court, dismissing a US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA) complaint against US Airways listed examples of what bad faith bargaining on the part of the employer might look like:


That same court went on to further expand upon what bad faith bargaining does and does not look like:

In a 1988 federal district court case involving the flight attendants at TWA claiming, among other things, bad faith bargaining on the part of TWA, the judge referenced a 1970 Supreme Court decision to make the point that, "…the labor laws allow economic strength ultimately to control the establishment of contract terms, regardless of which side may have better reasons for its position." The judge then went on to cite the example of a 1980 case involving Trans International Airlines vs the Teamsters. The judge explained:


The only real powers the mediator has during mediation is the power to control the schedule of mediated negotiating sessions. The mediator cannot force either party to accept any contractual item. But the mediator can attempt to lie to and manipulate one or both sides in a dispute. They may try to intimidate one side or the other by suggesting they have more power than they really do by threatening, for example, "To put the dispute on ice 'forever.'" As a 1991 RLA case pointed out about a statement that the chairman of the NMB had made to a representative of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) claiming that their dispute was at an impasse (and therefore, the IAM sued the NMB believing they should be released):


A 1991 RLA case stated, "The NMB is free to "experiment with any mediation device that can fairly be said to be designed to settle a dispute without a strike and does not independently offend other laws." IOW, the mediator can do or say just about anything that doesn't involve literally holding a gun to the NC chairperson's head in order to try to create pressure to move toward an agreement. Remember, the NMB evaluates itself in its annual reports to Congress entirely on how many disputes were settled, not on how fair those disputes that were settled were to labor or to management. The mediator just wants to get his or her job done as expediently as possible. If lying or pretending to side with management is the most expedient way to do that, then they will do that. Avoiding an interruption to commerce is their charter. Ensuring a labor union gets the best deal possible is not. That job belongs to the labor union.

So, sure, the mediator may, in order to exert pressure on the Delta pilots ("as a tactic to spur negotiations"), pretend to "side with the company" if he or she believes that DALPA's demand for retro is a point that the company would never agree to. But the mediator cannot force DALPA nor the company to agree to anything. The courts have pretty clearly established in multiple rulings over the decades that the bar to being found to be bargaining in bad faith is pretty high. The courts have also established that they are loathe to interfere in the substantive terms of collective bargaining agreements. If Delta simply cannot agree to DALPA's demands, and assuming DALPA's demands are within the very wide bounds of "good faith bargaining," then perhaps, after the mediator cycles through his or her various attempts at arm-twisting and manipulation in order to cajole the sides into an agreement, the NMB will recognize that it's time for an impasse to be declared.

Unfortunately for Delta, right now "economic strength" favors pilots. "Economic strength," as the court has made clear, "ultimately [controls] the establishment of contract terms, regardless of which side may have better reasons for its position."
You’re hired. I don’t know who you work for, but I just hired you to work for our negotiating team. You’re to report to somewhere in North Carolina tomorrow. Be there. Negotiations start Tuesday, probably after a nice long breakfast buffet, around 11 am.
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Old 11-28-2022, 06:21 AM
  #485  
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Originally Posted by Big E 757 View Post
You’re hired. I don’t know who you work for, but I just hired you to work for our negotiating team. You’re to report to somewhere in North Carolina tomorrow. Be there. Negotiations start Tuesday, probably after a nice long breakfast buffet, around 11 am.
I believe he LUV's his current job.
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