We do not address the thorny question of the extent to which the Nicolau Award is binding on USAPA. We note, as the district court recognized, that USAPA is at least as free to abandon the Nicolau Award as was its predecessor (NOTE TO THE CLUELESS: The predecessor was NOT free to abandon the Nicolau Award), ALPA. The dissent appears implicitly to assume that the Nicolau Award, the product of the internal rules and processes of ALPA, is binding on USAPA.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion
Case: 09-16564 06/04/2010
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“In this instance, despite a year of negotiating efforts, there was no agreement on a list. Subsequently, the Representatives choose the Undersigned as Board Chairman and opted for the Med-Arb process. Those mediation efforts, held over the course of five days in October 2006, were similarly unsuccessful. Thereafter, the Parties agreed on the arbitration ground rules, and, pursuant to the Policy, each chose a Pilot Neutral from ALPA's Pilot Neutral Master List as a nonvoting member of the Arbitration Board.”
George Nicolau, Mediator
AWA/AAA Opinion & Award; May 07, 2007
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“…The Arbitration Board conducts an evidentiary hearing, with witnesses, evidence and a stenographic transcript. The Board’s Opinion and Award are to be issued simultaneously, within 150 days following the PID, unless both pilot groups and ALPA’s President agree to an extension. The Merger Policy provides, “The Award of the Arbitration Board shall be final and binding on all parties to the arbitration and shall be defended by ALPA.” No ALPA seniority integration arbitration result has ever been set aside by the courts although some dissatisfied pilots have challenged the award before administrative agencies and the courts.”
US Airwaves June/July 2000
US Air Merger Committee Members: Todd Cardoza (PIT), Mike Cleary (BOS),Randy Mowery (PIT)
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“Of course, in negotiating for a particular seniority regime, USAPA must not breach its duty of fair representation. Accordingly, if USAPA wishes to abandon the Nicolau Award and accept the consequences of this course of action, it is free to do so. By discarding the result of a valid arbitration and negotiating for a different seniority regime, USAPA is running the risk that it will be sued by the disadvantaged pilots when the new collective bargaining agreement is finalized. An impartial arbitrator’s decision regarding an appropriate method of seniority integration is powerful evidence of a fair result. Discarding the Nicolau Award places USAPA on dangerous ground.”
Judge Roslyn O. Silver, Chief United States District Judge
No. CV-10-01570-PHX-ROS ORDER; October 11, 2012
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“Actually, it is USAPA that is needlessly delaying the resolution of the seniority dispute and jeopardizing the enforceability of the agreement the parties are able to reach. …….The arbitrator’s decision was to be final and binding on both pilot groups and was to be accepted by the Company so long as certain conditions were met. The Nicolau Award has resulted in four years of litigation including a trial in federal court and jury verdict fining USAPA’s proposal for a non-Nicolau list to constitute an unlawful breach of the union’s duty of fair representation….”
Paul D. Jones; Vice President – Legal Affairs and Chief Compliance Officer
Exhibit 1 of Declaration of Counsel; Case 13-15000, 02/20/2013
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In the matter of: Preliminary Arbitration Board APA/USAPA/AA (December 17, 2014)
ARBITRATOR JAVITS: All three lists. I guess the gravamen of the questions is are you then putting yourself in the place of Nicolau, are you the new Nicolau because you are proposing a list which may not reflect Nicolau's list? ….. And American pilots. And, therefore, you're making a proposal, which may be different than what Nicolau had in mind and issued back in '07.
MR. FREUND (in closing): As the Chairman put it so nicely in his questioning of Jess Pauley, what the US -- what the East Committee, the US Airways Committee, the USAPA Committee, call it what you want, what it wants to do is to put itself in the place of George Nicolau and redo what George did in 2007.
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I think (based on testimony, and judicial commentary) that the EAST pilots and those that led USAPA are the ones that LIED to thier pilot group and cheated them out of MILLIONS of dollars, TIME OFF & contract improvements that they will NEVER recover.
Hey...WYE don't you quote some 10 year old blog of a person that WAS NOT in a position to do anything other than opine to make your point? WYE don't you post a 25 year old video to cry "WYE ME???!!!???".
Don't you worry. Everyone in this industry knows exactly whom they are dealing with. The end of your little tantrum is drawing to a close.
