Originally Posted by Lewbronski

OTOH, what a lot of pilots don’t appreciate is how much leverage the Alaska pilot group had that they did not exploit. I get that their contract was terrible but it’s also a reflection of decades of them not understanding how to play the game. This is the pilot group, after all, that agreed to arbitration if they couldn’t reach an agreement with the company on the terms of their contract by Dec 15, 2004. That arbitration ruling led to the infamous “Kashtration” that slashed pay rates by an average of 26%. They ended up where they were mostly as the result of blundering unforced errors.

Though management and not the pilot group filed for mediation (why?), their SAV was encouraging. They had momentum. Like the rail workers who entered mediation just a couple of months after the Alaska pilot group, they also had nearly perfect timing.

An important event occurred at the end of 2021 that virtually no airline pilot mentions or even seems to be aware of. The NMB went from a Republican majority to a Democratic majority. That change in political composition of the NMB is most likely what allowed the rail workers to be released from mediation into a cooling off period after only a few months instead of the much more typical few years. The one NMB member who voted against releasing the rail workers in June 2022 was the lone remaining Republican on the Board.

Had the Alaska pilot group wanted to, they likely could have ended up in a similar spot as the rail workers with a release from mediation this past spring/early summer, then a cooling off period, then, most likely, a PEB lasting into late summer or early fall.

In terms of impact on interstate commerce, the rail workers pack a much bigger punch than the pilots of Alaska Airlines. They had the potential to severely snarl national supply chains at a most inopportune moment. If they could get released, Alaska pilots, with their much smaller ability to throttle back commerce, could also have been released.

The rail workers intentionally pushed for a release from mediation so that their PEB would be wrapping up near the peak of the mid-term election campaign season for maximum effectiveness while Democrats are still in control of Congress.

Had the Alaska pilot group played the game similar to the way the rail workers played it, all through the busy summer travel season Alaska would have had to deal with the “book-away phenomenon” of passengers hearing stories and rumors of Alaska pilots possibly going on strike soon. That effect would have grown as the date of a possible legal strike grew closer.

It’s important to note that railway management capitulated on day 59 (of 60) of their PEB with just hours remaining before rail workers could have walked off the job. What would Alaska management have done?

Two GOP senators attempted to introduce legislation in the last week of the PEB to block a strike and force the rail workers back to work on management’s terms if the PEB expired without a TA. Sen Sanders from Vermont, however, blocked their attempt. Something like that probably won’t work out so well for labor over the next couple of years if the GOP regains control of either the House or Senate or both.

So, yes, the Alaska pilot group’s SAV was great. Compared to their previous contract, they made gains. But that’s not saying a lot. And it’s saying even less given the nearly ideal conditions they allowed to be frittered away.

Why were the rail workers able to take full advantage of their leverage while the Alaska pilot group stopped short? There are a lot of reasons, I’m sure. I don’t know what all of them are.

But being pretty familiar with the Alaska pilot group and super-familiar with the SWA pilot group, one thing we both have in common is a huge preponderance of “kool-aid drinkers.” That has certainly played into why SWA has perennially ended up with lagging contracts.

One dynamic that it (kool-aid-ism) seems to fuel is a sort of willful ignorance on subjects like what I’ve discussed above - you know, subjects that, if mastered by a majority of a pilot group, could make that pilot group “dangeruss” (as in the Russell Wilson Super Bowl glory years sense of the word).

Many, many pilots, though, seem to adopt some degree of a mindset, even if unspoken or somewhat ill-formed, of “Man, I can’t believe the company pays me to do this job.” There’s an unspoken, maybe even unrealized, feeling that the pilot owes it to the company to not fight too hard or ask for too much. That’s a problem when it comes to actually having the will to go the distance to raise the bar and obtain a truly industry-leading contract.

BTW, notice I didn’t mention the purported pilot shortage even once because, if it exists at the major airline level, it isn’t our strongest leverage.

Originally Posted by hoover

It really isnt a snap up either. It's an average of others IF they get a new contract by a certain date or their 4% raise. I'm assuming it's set up so all they'll get is that 4% raise.
Plus it takes a while for those rules to be implemented.
our union better not send us anything close to this turd

Originally Posted by fcoolaiddrinker

Thats a pretty nice summary of the importance of the change in NMB. The previous nmb there was zero chance of getting released. That became clear when f9 put forth what had to be one of the strongest arguments ever for release. It included 30 pages of examples of indigo negotiating in bad faith, arbitrators stating in ruling summaries management was negotiating in bad faith, and a lawsuit where a judge stated as much. After all of that 4 months of nothing from the nmb. Not even a statement. I’m fairly confident f9 wasn’t going to tank the economy had we been released. The entire reason for the process.

Having said all of that were not going to know if release will be possible under this group until someone puts forth a solid argument. Alaska more than likely would have had a better shot then say the legacies or swa imo.

Originally Posted by Lewbronski

Do you have a reference for the lawsuit you mentioned? What year was it? I searched Google Scholar going back to 2008 for lawsuits that involved Frontier pilots and either the Teamsters or ALPA against the company but came up short. I found several lawsuits but none that seemed to get very heavily into the issue of bad faith negotiating.

And, BTW, one of the major factors that the mediator is looking at when making a recommendation for a release is whether or not the two sides are at an impasse or not. That issue is distinct from whether or not the two sides are negotiating in bad faith (though they can be related). So, in the case you're citing, it could have been that the company was, in fact, negotiating in bad faith, but the mediator still sensed that one side or the other was open to or susceptible to being induced to move from their position. If that was the case, then the mediator would likely not have been amenable to recommending a release.

If the company or the union was negotiating in bad faith, the "remedy" for that is more likely to involve the other side, or even the NMB, going to court to motion for censuring or sanctioning the allegedly offending side in some way as opposed to the mediator recommending a release. Courts are ridiculously hesitant to override the NMB's authority to release a dispute from mediation. A court would likely only do so if the NMB itself was operating in a "completely and patently arbitrary" manner and for a "completely and patently unreasonable" length of time. That's a very high bar to clear.

Originally Posted by RJSAviator76

Or even worse, their signing bonus? I'd want SWAPA heads on the platter if they agreed to something like this.

Originally Posted by RJSAviator76

Alaska pilot group choked. Simple as that. They barked (SAV and picket). Their management threw them a bone in form of some improved work rules over the atrocity they had before, and a snap-up rate just to shut them up, and like loyal lapdogs, they jumped all over it, forgot all their leverage, gave in to FUD about the economy, and passed the buck to others to do heavy lifting for them. But then if you tried to tell them hey, they're only giving you scraps - you can do better, they'd growl like you were trying to steal their scraps.

And yes, the 38% factor here is concerning as well.

Originally Posted by fcoolaiddrinker

The lawsuit was filed in the state of Illinois (in hopes for a labor friendly judge) in 2016 or 2017 I believe. Should be ALPA vs indigo. There were a couple of claims. The biggest of which was the company unnecessarily pulling vac (which they had the contractual right to do). The problem became they did so out of seniority order and cost several pilots thousands (damages). We showed that sick was at a 5 year low and reserve usage at the time was sub 40 block so pulling vac was punitive and part of a larger picture to try and gain leverage in negotiations. It was eventually dropped and the pilots made whole as part of a settlement agreement when we reached a contractual agreement. However during proceedings a judge at one point made some comments on record that were eventually used in our request for release.

This was just a small part of a very large argument made for release. I could go on and on about how far apart both sides were at the time. As part of various ALPA committees for years under multiple management groups it’s safe to say I’ve seen tactics from indigo that probably haven’t been used since the 70’s. Maybe you can find the request for release online somewhere? That would paint the big picture a lot better than the lawsuit that was eventually dropped.

Originally Posted by Lewbronski

The lawsuit was filed in the (federal) Northern District Court of Illinois in July 2018. Here's a copy of the filing. I couldn't find the request for release from mediation but the NMB typically keeps a pretty tight lid on items like that since they can contain proprietary information and information that, if publicly released, could be used to manipulate other disputes in mediation both now and in the future.

I didn't read the entire pleading. But it's pretty clear, like you described, that Frontier management was engaged in bad faith negotiations, especially given the report from the arbitrator attached as an exhibit to the end of the filing. The lawsuit against Frontier was still in motion when you guys approved your contract in Jan 2019 but was dropped as part of the agreement with the company.

However, like I pointed out previously, the fact that Frontier was negotiating in bad faith does not necessarily mean that the dispute was at an impasse. The mediator either saw some reason to believe that hope for progress, however slight, was still viable and/or believed that the board members of the NMB would not be convinced that the dispute was at an impasse and therefore, would not vote to approve a release.

Originally Posted by Lewbronski

They talked about it. I just don’t think it’s nearly the boogeyman at Alaska and other places that it is here at SWA. For one thing, the guys at Virgin had it. Most seemed to prefer it over what a lot of them described as Alaska’s “archaic” line bidding system. Line bidding over there seemed to be viewed as an outdated relic that only boomers could appreciate along with their paper bid packages.