Seham, Seham, Meltz & Petersen, LLP
Attorneys At Law
199 Main Street, 7th Floor
\White Plains, NY 10601
October 8. 2015
VIA EMAIL AND
FIRST CLASS MAIL
Edgar James, Esq.
James & Hoffman, P. C.
1130 Connecticut Ave.. N.W.. Suite 950
Washington,DC 20036
Re: Dissolution of the West Pilots Merger Committee
Dear Mr. James:
Via the Protocol Agreement, the Allied Pilots Association (APA) devised a process
whereby the US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA) would be de-certified on the
threshold of seniority list integration (SLI) arbitration and partially replaced by an APA created
West Pilots Merqer Committee.
The West Committee now refuses to acknowledge that it is bound by the very Protocol
Agreement that gave it birth and, more specifically, paragraph 2.b of the Agreement,
which establishes three certified pilot seniority lists as defining the status quo in effect at
American Airlines and US Airways on December 9,2013. (SLI Hearing Transcript of
September 29, 2015 at 128-3 I ).
Paragraph 2.b's recognition of three certified pilot seniority lists as defining the status
quo is not merely a statement of "fact" as you represented at the September 29tn hearing.
(ld.at132). Rather,it is a legal contract that forms the bed rock of theProtocol
Agreement.
By its own design, APA is the sole remaining certified collective bargaining
representative party to the SL.l process. For APA to stand by and knowingly permit an APA-created agent to subvert this process would constitute an act of bad faith. If the West Committee refuses to acknowledge the Protocol Agreement, then APA must dissolve the Committee and prohibit its further participation in these proceedings. APA's inaction in this matter is unacceptable and threatens to have a devastating impact on the
MDA pilots we represent and on East pilots in general.
Background
APA has a storied reputation for exploiting mergers to the advantage of incumbent
American pilots. Indeed, APA and APFA's aggressive stripping of the seniority of their
TWA counterparts prompted the enactment of the federal legislation that now mandates
the Allegheny-Mohawk process.
In negotiating the Protocol Agreement, APA engineered an SLI process in which it would
be the sole union party during the arbitration proceeding. Moreover, at a time when APA
had no duty of fair representation obligations with respect to the former America West
pilots, it negotiated for the future creation of a West Pilots Merger Committee as a
participant in the SLI proceedings.
In our view, the Protocol Agreement derogated from intent of McCaskill-Bond by permitting one union representative to effectively de-certify, and divide the constituency
of, its adversary. It was a bad deal of questionable legality. All the more important,
therefore, that the off-setting benefit negotiated on behalf of US Airways pilots, in
exchange for these concessions, be honored and enforced by APA.
As you have recognized,the status quo embodied in the three certified lists for December
9,2013, accurately reflects the facts on the ground in view of the failed operational
integration of US Airways and America West.
Under both ALPA Merger Policy and the terms of the Transition Agreement (TA)
negotiated between ALPA and those two airlines, ALPA's seniority integration
bargaining proposal embodied in the Nicolau Award could only be implemented as part
of a single collective bargaining agreement merging the pilot operations of the two
airlines. Adoption of a single collective bargaining agreement, however, required prior
approval of both the East and West MEC's and a majority ratification vote by their
respective pilot groups. ALPA was never able to obtain implementation of its seniority
integration bargaining proposal because the East MEC and the East Pilots refused to
consider any single collective bargaining agreement that incorporated the ALPA proposal
embodied in the Nicolau Award.
USAPA was conceived as a means of resolving the AlPA-created impasse. USAPA
recognized that breaking that impasse would require it to reject the East Pilots' pure date of-hire position and forfeit the East Pilots' right under ALPA Merger Policy to retain
control of all East flying in perpetuity.
While the other job classifications on the property - Flight Attendants, Fleet Service,
Mechanics, Dispatchers - implemented pure DOH seniority integration, USAPA stood
alone in forbidding itself to follow this approach. Moreover, this determination to steer a
middle course was baked right into its Constitution and Bylaws, which mandated that any
seniority integration provide for conditions and restrictions that "preserve each pilot's un merged
career expectations." (USAPA Constitution Section g.D).
APA's insistence on injecting an independent West Committee into the process
undermined USAPA's ability to pursue a compromise approach on behalf of all US
Airways pilots and introduced a new intransigent party that continues to insist on a result
that could never have been implemented at US Airways. The quid pro quo for USApA's
concessions was the acceptance of the December 9,2013 certified pilots lists as
representing not just the "fact" of then-current operations, but the legal definition of the
status quo as agreed to by the parties.
Since APA is the sole remaining union party to the Protocol Agreement by its own
design, it would constitute bad faith of the worst kind to enforce only those terms of the
Agreement for which it negotiated and not those negotiated by USAPA on behalf of the
US Airways pilots. APA must demand that the West Committee acknowledge that it is
bound by the Protocol Agreement and that it withdraw submissions to the arbitration
panel that fail to reflect East pilot seniority as defined by the December 9,2073 East pilot
seniority list.
In a related matter, we observe that, not withstanding the fact that the APA maintains that
the applicability of Letter G to MDA pilots is "under review," APA's indecision is being
referenced by the West Committee as a means to undercut the MDA pilots' seniority
rights. (Tr.22l). The damage arising from APA's purported indecision continues to
grow. We consider APA's inaction in these matters to constitute bad faith.
Lee Seham
Cc: Arbitrator Dana E. Eischen
Arbitrator Ira F. Jaffe
Arbitrator M. David Vaughn
Paul D. Jones, Esq.
Jeffrey R. Freund, Esq.
Wesley Kennedy, Esq.
William Wilder
