Yes, hence the title of this thread.

 

Title says SW, sounds like it's saying the company filed.

SW and SWAPA are very different entities in my book.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

ABOUT TIME. Hopefully this should be the fire we need to get the ball rolling

 

yeah I should have said swapa

 

Better late than never!

This is good news and certainly a step in the right direction. It's also great that the BOD unanimously voted to file for mediation.

IMO, the next big step is to conduct a strike authorization vote. Ideally, that vote would yield a result similar to Alaska's strike authorization vote back in May: 99% in favor with a 96% turnout.

A strike authorization vote like that delivers a very important message to both the company and to the NMB that our pilots are absolutely united around the idea of taking this thing as far as we need to in order to get the contract we deserve. As mediation progresses, the goal is for the company to look out on the horizon and, like the Germans did on the morning of D-Day, see the overwhelming strength of the invasion fleet and feel an existential threat.

I believe that to get to that point, though, will require a massive education effort from SWAPA and from our more well-informed peers. For years, guys like TD over on TOF have capitalized on our pilot group's ignorance and resultant fear to shepherd us into substandard contract after substandard contract. Please get educated and help spread the word so that we ratify an industry leading contract this time.

Off the top of my head, several issues need to be addressed. I'm kind of pressed for time right now so I can't cover all the issues. But for a start, the pilot group needs to understand:

1. The mediator will lie to, threaten, and attempt to intimidate our negotiating team. Word will filter down to the pilot group. Don't believe the mediator's lies. They are accustomed to labor, particularly our pilot group, being ill-educated on the topic of the RLA and breaking ranks in the face of the pressure they intentionally create. Below is evidence of the truth: mediators can and do lie, threaten, and intimidate. Many in our pilot group do not realize this. Mediators do not have unlimited power to keep us in mediation forever as I discussed in my post on the thread "Mediation? Now?" I've posted nearly all of the below quotes before, but I'll post them again here:

• From a 1991 US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit case:
  • Quote:

    Successful mediators often liberally use blarney (hoomalimali in Hawaiian) as one of their mediation tools. The Chairman's statement may well have been a ploy. By inquiring as to the true meaning of such a statement we could well undermine its entire purpose by forcing the Board to admit it was a tactic to spur negotiations.
  • Quote:

    ... we are not entitled to prevent the Board from experimenting 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.
    "Mediation device" can include threats, lies, and intimidation.

• From a 1989 US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit case:
  • Quote:

    The Board may let a case sit as a mediation tactic, and it may tell parties that it will let a case sit. Congress chose this necessarily protracted means for resolving railroad labor disputes. As the Board explained, Wallace's remarks are: simply the proper responses of a mediator who does not want to give one of the parties an indication that it no longer needs to negotiate in good faith. Parties who are told mediation may soon end have all the more reason, if they are dissatisfied with the mediation process, to harden their position and not participate in good faith … That one side feels disadvantaged by maintenance of the status quo is absolutely irrelevant under the law. It is the nature of disputes in mediation for one party to feel squeezed. The Supreme Court recognized this inevitable imbalance ...
• From a 2016 paper by former NMB Chairman, Joshua Javits:
  • Quote:

    [The NMB] uses the threat of release and its opposite, the threat of maintaining or freezing negotiations, to try to move the parties toward agreement.

2. In the unlikely event we actually get to the point of walking off the job in the form of a strike, it is likely to be a short one if history is any guide. Since 1997, there have been nine airline pilot strikes of any variety. There have only been three "mainline" strikes (American for 24 minutes in 1997, Northwest for 14 days in 1998, and Spirit for four days in 2010). The average length of all strikes was 22 days and the average of mainline strikes was 6 days. The median length of all strikes was 14 days and the median length of all mainline strikes was 4 days. BTW, the six non-mainline strikes were Skyway in 1997, Comair in 2001, Polar in 2005, World in 2006, Petroleum Helicopters in 2006, and Amerijet in 2009.


3. We do not need, as many in our pilot group advertise, to reflexively "give something up to get something." The duty to bargain in good faith that arises from the RLA's statutory requirement for both parties to "exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements" does not necessarily require moving toward the company's position. This is especially true in sections of our contract that lag the industry. Below is from a 2009 US District Court case brought by ALPA against Spirit Airlines that is worth reading in its entirety, particularly the section on "Breach of Duty of Good Faith Bargaining".

• Quote:

  ("[t]he requirement of good faith bargaining is really a requirement of absence of bad faith" ... For example, "[a]n egregiously one-sided `proposed contract' may have some evidentiary value in appraising the intent of a party."
• Quote:

  the Court must: ... (3) resist finding violations of the RLA based solely on evidence of hard bargaining, inability to reach agreement, or intransigent positions,"
• Quote:

  proposals described as "obstinate and unyielding" do not violate [the RLA]). In addition, "[m]ere insistence on demands that seem extremely harsh to the other side and that a neutral party may consider `hard' is not a violation of bargaining duties." This rule has two important implications. First, "movement toward the position of the other side is not a requirement of good faith bargaining." Second, "[a]n employer may insist on positions . . . even if the union may consider the proposals greedy." (Emphasis added)
• Quote:

  an aggressive union may lawfully bargain for a tripling of expenses for a flight attendant group believed to be working in substandard conditions, the converse should be true, and an aggressive employer should be able to lawfully bargain for a 50% reduction in total expenses of a group believed to be considerably overpaid and much less productive than is feasible
• Quote:

  The union [in Trans Int'l Airlines] was . . . making demands that the airline contended would impose costs equal to a tripling of the flight attendant payroll. The union disputed the claim that there would be a cost increase estimated to be 294% but Chief Judge Peckham found it simply "unnecessary to the resolution [of the good faith bargaining issue] to determine the actual figures. [The airline] is effectively asking the court to hold that the sheer size of the Teamsters' economic demands, and the distance between the parties after a long period of negotiations, amounts to a lack of reasonable effort by the union to reach an agreement." The district court concluded it was forbidden by "'the strong federal labor policy against governmental interference with the substantive terms of collective-bargaining agreements'" from pursuing the matter further.
• Quote:

  ... neither the size of one party's demands nor the "distance between the parties after a long period of negotiations" "amount to a lack of reasonable effort . . . to reach an agreement."

 

Thank you for all of that Lew. Quick question that you may have answered before, but do you recommend any good first reads on the RLA in terms of getting people who are unfamiliar with even the basics of it up to speed?

 

Lew, please keep it up. And please take this also to TOF and FB too. Kinda hard to argue with facts, historical and case precedent, and especially now that railroad workers got a TA....

Whack... you damn right I read Carl's emails. You don't get better motivation to picket and vote NO than his emails.

Also, take the Companywide survey too and go bananas... I don't miss a single one. This is how Bob Jordan gets the pulse of the company. If the pilots have minimal input, and hide behind SS4M, they're really doing our negotiators a disservice because then the company points to the survey and says something like "well, our surveys don't indicate any of this." No, the survey time is when we should let the company have it family-friendly (or not), double-barreled.

 

I don’t have a book suggestion, but I would just point to what is literally happening to the railroads WRT how the RLA process can potentially play out since they took the RLA process completely to the end. We are able to watch the entire process in real time right now. It’s been a fascinating and complex process to watch unfold. All Airline Labor unions should be learning all they can and even meet with some of the Railway labor unions in order to share information about best practices that all unions that work under the RLA can use to help facilitate TA’s for their membership going forward.

 

It would send a stronger message if no pilots at all took the survey.

Those are employee engagement surveys. Years ago when flying corporate I had the VP of HR on the airplane. While waiting in the FBO we got to talking about the survey and she shared that what they were REALLY interested in was how many people took the survey. If they took it, it meant they still cared. If they didn't they were just showing up for the 5th and the 20th. Kind of "quiet quitting" is the new buzzword to describe it.

Word got out in our department and participation dropped to a record low. All of the sudden as the deadline approached we were flooded with emails begging us to participate. Apparently management was getting worried about how our lack of participation reflected on them.

The group still didn't participate, and perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, some of the management was replaced a few months later along with "how can we make things better" town halls.

Just food for thought.

 

Know thy enemy….