Airline Pilot Central Forums - AA May Have an AIP

We’ll have to wait and see if the rumors regarding the AA AIP are true, but if they are and this thing turns out to be as bad as it sounds, then it should be even more clear to everyone than it was before that the idea of a pilot shortage at the major airline level as massive leverage bringing us all to the promised land is not something to pin our hopes on. IMO, it never was.

There’s a great post right now on the “Conscience” thread OTOF pointing out that it’s becoming apparent that airline management is willing to pull a lot of other levers with respect to solving their pilot manning issues that do not include paying us or agreeing to significant improvements in our contracts.

We have to get very comfortable with the idea of actually acting like organized labor if we want to apply real leverage against the corporation. To many pilots, though, “organized labor” and “unionism” seem to be synonymous with “socialism,” and “anti-Americanism.” That is a mental hurdle that must be cleared by our pilot group if we are ever going to get our act together and secure the compensation, retirement, work rules, medical benefits, and lifestyle for ourselves, our families, and our profession that is commensurate with the liability and responsibility we assume every time we walk down a jetway.

If we can’t make that leap and be willing to employ the credible threat of and, if necessary, actually use the strongest economic weapon available to us, then we can expect the company to continue to walk all over us and reward us with far less than we deserve.

Right now, unfortunately, our act is not together. In the latest RP’s RLA educational section, there are several errors. Think about that: our own union, who would be the people, if we decide to go that route, to shepherd us along the bold and, for us, new path of attempting to employ the RLA to maximum effect doesn’t even itself fully understand the RLA and/or can’t be bothered to proofread their own RLA education articles.

First, the article says that the NMB, because it’s an election year, would be unlikely to release us until next year when the new president takes office. This article was published in October 2022.

This NMB has already proven that they were willing to release a major dispute (the railroad unions in June 2022) with a potentially enormous impact on interstate commerce in this election year. While it’s very likely true that we will not get released this year due to the fact that there are only a couple of months left in the year, it’s not because the currently seated NMB would be unwilling to release a union with the ability to significantly affect interstate commerce in an election year.

Beyond that, we are more than two years away from a potentially new president taking office. Whoever the next president is will not be sworn in until January 2025 as opposed to the article stating that a new president will take office next year. Whether we get released or not this year has nothing to do with a new president taking office next year because, barring the death or resignation of the President or a coup, there will not be a new president in 2023.

Second, the article says that after a PEB convenes, the board has 30 days to report its findings to the president. That is true. But then, the article says that, at the president’s direction, that thirty day deadline can be extended. That is incorrect.

The president does not have the authority to extend the thirty day deadline for the board to issue its report. As Deputy Asst AG John McGinnis reported to President Bush in a 1990 report entitled Presidential Authority to Extend Deadline for Submission of an Emergency Board Report Under the Railway Labor Act, “The President may require an Emergency Board under the Railway Labor Act to submit its report before the statutory deadline, but he may not extend that thirty day deadline unless the parties involved have entered into a side agreement extending the status quo period during which they refrain from self-help.” Read the full DOJ legal opinion for yourself at the highlighted link.

This point is absolutely critical to understand. The President CANNOT extend a PEB nor create a second follow-on PEB to further delay the onset of self help. Many people within our pilot group, including within SWAPA, have claimed that the President does, in fact, have that power. They are wrong.

In my experience, these people have typically made these claims in conjunction with the assertion that attempting to leverage the RLA is therefore pointless because the President can prevent us from threatening to strike by simply indefinitely extending a PEB or creating endless follow-on PEB’s.

Are they willfully or negligently putting forth misinformation when they try to make that point? I don’t know, BUT THEY ARE INCORRECT.

The president only gets 60 days to delay self help. That is all he/she gets. This is a point that every member of our pilot group and, especially every SWAPA rep and staff member should understand with 100% clarity.

But SWAPA doesn’t understand it. SWAPA’s most current RLA education information is wrong. And the pilot group is reading that incorrect information and believing it because who would guess that SWAPA, who ought to be an authority on the subject, would get it wrong? But please don’t simply believe what I’m saying. Believe the DOJ. Read the legal brief linked to above.

Third, the article states that after a PEB issues it’s report, both sides can either accept or reject its recommendations. It then goes on to explain that, if rejected, another thirty day cooling off period is triggered.

This is kind of a minor point, but the way SWAPA explains it is not really the way the PEB is intended to work. Yes, the parties could both accept the PEB’s recommendation upon issuance of the board’s report or any time during the thirty days afterward and end the dispute. That’s true.

But it’s not technically the rejection of the PEB’s recommendations that triggers the thirty day status quo period following the issuance of the PEB report. That thirty day status quo period is mandated by law. The RLA stipulates, “After the creation of such board and for thirty days after such board has made its report to the President, no change, except by agreement, shall be made by the parties to the controversy in the conditions out of which the dispute arose.”

The thirty day status quo period automatically begins after the board issues its recommendations. It’s not triggered by the rejection by either side of those recommendations.

The NMB adds some clarification on their web site, “After the emergency board reports to the President, the parties to the dispute have another 30 day cooling off period to consider the recommendations of the emergency board and to reach an agreement. If no agreement is reached at the end of the cooling off period, then the parties may engage in self-help, including strikes, lockouts and unilateral changes in terms and conditions of employment.”

If we are going to finally end our fifty year long exodus wandering around in the desert of lagging contracts, we are going to have to learn how to apply real pressure on the company. If our own union doesn’t fully understand in intricate detail the law that governs our ability to do that, we are likely to end up wandering for quite a few more years.