This from Dallas Morning news or The Startle-Gram
To be fair last year APA Neg Committee members stormed out one morning.
What's an mediator to do? It's his or her job to keep them all in one room. It's his or her job to make progress.
Speaking on the phone with one of my pilot buddies who is divorced and went through divorce mediation in Florida. His mediator was really aggressive and forceful in trying to make negotiations happen, so much so that my buddy felt he was being railroaded. Finally his attorney said, "just walk out, leave and go to a pub."
Divorce mediators are monitored (graded) by the courts in their success rates. If they do not have a high %age of success in out of court settlements, then they less likely to be assigned work by the courts. Florida requires court ordered mediation for divorce before court date.

This contract seems more like a divorce than contract negotiations.
7576

UPDATE: AA, APA trade shots about negotiations
>
> 12:05 PM Thu, Apr 02, 2009
>
> Terry Maxon
>
> UPDATE: I originally reprinted an excerpt from the American Airlines update
> on pilot negotiations. Now I've seen the Allied Pilots Association update
> from the union's Wednesday hotline.
>
> So we'll just lay out the two versions of what happened Wednesday:
>
> Management's interpretation, from American Airlines Negotiations
>
> "The agenda for Wednesday morning was to discuss Scope-related issues,
> something that we recognize is a sensitive and important issue to pilots. AA
> negotiators began the session with an industry comparison on the competitive
> importance of commuter feed. Within minutes, it became evident that the
> behavior of APA's negotiating committee chairman would make it impossible to
> have a productive discussion on Scope and talks were recessed for the day."
>

Allied Pilots Association interpretation, from the APA website:
>
> "More valuable bargaining time was lost today when management's negotiators
> walked out of scope discussions 10 minutes into the day's session after
> becoming upset and frustrated when questioned about the content of their
> scope-related slide show comparing regional carrier operations within the
> industry. In addition, the management negotiators were unable to answer some
> basic questions or explain the intent of their presentation. The federal
> mediator was unable to convince them to return to the table, so the result
> was an entire day of bargaining lost."

Soon the bonuses for Top Talent will be made public again.
Probably "just a couple million each"
Middle of April AMR will pay out more more more money to it's management execs.
When questioned they will respond "In order to keep top talent we must pay them bonuses. The head hunters are calling. We need these talented people to stay here."
I say "The only talented people at AA are the employees that took deep pay cuts to keep this company out of BK."
AMR will respond "No the pilots only took pay cuts to keep their pensions, it shows how selfish they are and how they do not understand executive compensation. Perhaps they should have gone to management business school.
I love how they always spin we took pay cuts to save our pensions. That is classic!
7576

7576,

"Walkouts" have become a standard ceremony in contract negotiations. In fact, if no one has yet walked out, it means that an agreement is still far away. Your prediction: is dead on. I think management officials keep this response on a laminated wallet card for quick reference.

Quick Reference card reply: C YA, or just YA

Keep the talent? Last I heard the unemployment rate was at 8.5%. I bet they could find some pretty damn good talent in that pool if they looked, and I bet they'd be cheap.

Interesting lines being drawn on the APA scope debate.

According to management's posting, American is basically looking for Delta scope. Expansion into the use of 76 seat RJ's and deleting specific references to American Eagle, so they can start the bidding (a'la Delta Connection).

APA responds with a proposal that American Airlines pilots perform all American flying with the provision for an eventual merger of Eagle.

American's management is basically arguing the same position as D-ALPA. That bringing flying to mainline would drive up costs unacceptably (or as as ALPA says it, would drive the mainline pay down unacceptably).

For all of us, it is interesting to watch it unfold. As a Delta pilot, I'm pulling for the APA.

Could they be waiting for the First Qtr. financials on all the airlines?

Don't give an inch!

Yeah I hear there are some ex AIG execs looking for work.

.... deleted