2015 Pilot Discussion.

[Kenny]

No. Not at all.

I'm trying to determine why there seems to be a disconnect between worthy in one groups eyes vs another.

 
Bean,
 
A worthy question, and this of course varies greatly depending on what industry or profession you're talking about. Commercial aviation? It was traditionally determined by some measurement of sweat equity until UAL pilots were successful in getting ALPA to skew their policy toward something as ambiguous and unreliable as "career expectations." I'm not saying that some evaluation of a pilot's expectations is completely inappropriate, but when you base everything on that and leave it in the hands of a single (very old) person, you get......Nicolau "award." And how has that worked out for Everyone?
 
Back to the more nuanced issue you raise about worthy/unworthy, how one group views the other, etc....sheeze, you could go nuts trying to figure this out by taking the psychological temperature of the very small portion of the pilot group who enjoys sparring on the Internet. This place is a cesspool of broken dreams and anxiety and enough attachment to bring down a Buddhist temple. When this is finally over, if rumors hold true that the MOU was adhered to and the three lists that existed on Dec 9, 2013 were merged in an F&E manner, we should ALL be thanking our lucky stars that panel had the fortitude and wisdom to do just that. If done properly, we will all be ordered -- as closely as possible -- by the sweat equity we have poured into American/US Airways/America West airlines, with some consideration given to address the discrepancies between the groups in terms of expectations. Had America West pilots not decided/demanded to separate themselves from US Airways pilots in this current merger, then A330's could have been considered part of what they brought to the table. If AWA pilots still receive credit for WB flying, then that's a small windfall in itself at this point.
 
But this whole question of "worthy vs unworthy" is really too personal and touchy-feely for this crowd. Personally, without even meeting you I can tell you with absolute certainty you are worthy and deserving of love, kindness, fairness, a bottle of clean water, and even the occasional First Class meal. Heck, we even had a guy on the East who wanted a pony! And while I'm not sure Lance ever got his pony, I sure would have granted him a pony if there was a pony to be granted. We all deserve to be considered worthy, and we are. I have a degree, but I don't consider it part of what makes me worthy to work for an airline. And I certainly don't think it makes me or anyone else in my mostly college-educated pilot group more worthy or that it should propel us up the seniority list. I think Fair and Equitable will be just fine, and I really hope that's what we see in a few weeks or whenever the powers that be decide we are all "worthy" of seeing the final results.
 
Bean, you are worthy. You are loved. You are needed. Now head on over to gate B9 and fly that bus like you mean it!
 
Kenny

 

[FL430]

If your implication is that those institutions are somehow academically inferior, I think you are sadly mistaken.
I would be delighted to have you share your distinguished academic resume' with us, so we may be duly impressed. It would be interesting to learn where you received your intellectual grounding and embellished your room temperature IQ.

I was paying the man a compliment, you are the one that said academically inferior. Geez, he went to three colleges. I will let the readers decide on academically inferior themselves on that one. You came on to defend this individual thinking I was vituperateing or calumniating with him, says a lot as to your intelligence.

BS, MS Chemistry, MIT ; how about you?

 

[luvthe9]

I was paying the man a compliment, you are the one that said academically inferior. Geez, he went to three colleges. I will let the readers decide on academically inferior themselves on that one. You came on to defend this individual thinking I was vituperateing or calumniating with him, says a lot as to your intelligence.
BS, MS Chemistry, MIT ; how about you?

Definitely BS......

 

[N924PS]

I was paying the man a compliment, you are the one that said academically inferior. Geez, he went to three colleges. I will let the readers decide on academically inferior themselves on that one. You came on to defend this individual thinking I was vituperateing or calumniating with him, says a lot as to your intelligence.
BS, MS Chemistry, MIT ; how about you?

Yes, I was defending him because the way it was written certainly did not sound complimentary.

"Vituperating or calumniating?" I'll have to look that up in my Funk and Wagnall's.

I'm just a lowly BS from Florida State with an ATP and a handful of type ratings that are meaningless.

 

[cactusboy53]

Wye did they not listen to their legal counsel I wonder.


I feel bad for the fool that came up with NIC or nothing.

 
WYE didn't you take the contract offered?  You've lost so much money.  What will you do if you don't get the "Rick-o-lau"?

 

[cactusboy53]

If you are referring to dumping ALPA in a completely legal fashion, after they failed to correct a total windfall (IF YOU DON'T THINK SOMETHING IS FAIR, THEN IT IS AUTOMATICALLY A "WINDFALL")? A " fair " arbitration which put new hire West pilots with 17 year never furloughed East ones (AND THEN PLACED THE FURLOUGHED - NEVER TO RETURN TO THE OLD US AIR BENEATH THE EMPLOYED PILOTS - YOU FORGOT THAT PART)? Absolutely, and even faster given the opportunity.

By the way, ALPA warned you it was coming if you did not fix it, so you took a serious gamble and lost.

Not my problem.

 
Will it be your problem if you don't like the next ARBITRATION?

 

[cactusboy53]

[SIZE=12pt]The Board shall retain jurisdiction[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] in accordance with Section H. 5 .b. of the ALPA Merger Policy to resolve any disputes over the meaning or interpretation of this Award. This retention of jurisdiction shall terminate when all provisions of the Award have been satisfied. In the event the Chairman becomes unavailable or unwilling to serve to resolve such disputes, the Merger Committees will agree on a replacement Chairman or will select one by the alternate strike method from the most recent ALPA list of seniority integrations arbitrators.  In the event one of the Pilot Neutrals becomes unable or unwilling to serve on the Arbitration Board to resolve such disputes, the Chairman, after consultation with the Parties, shall decide how to proceed.  In any such arbitration, if there is a dispute between the methodology contained in the Award and the accompanying Integrated Seniority List or any other list purportedly using such methodology, the Seniority List prevails.[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=12pt]George Nicolau, Mediator[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]AWA/AAA Opinion & Award; May 07, 2007[/SIZE]

 

[cactusboy53]

[SIZE=12pt]“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….”[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=12pt]Paul D. Jones; Vice President – Legal Affairs and Chief Compliance Officer[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Exhibit 1 of  Declaration of Counsel; Case 13-15000, 02/20/2013[/SIZE]

 

[cactusboy53]

[SIZE=12pt]In the matter of: Preliminary Arbitration Board APA/USAPA/AA (December 17, 2014)[/SIZE]
 
[SIZE=12pt]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.[/SIZE]
 

[SIZE=12pt]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.[/SIZE]

 

[cactusboy53]

[SIZE=12pt]Freund:   Okay.  And would it be fair to say that in looking at this slide, if one were to take the American pilots out, what we would see would be (NAME REDACTED FOR CRYBABIES) substituted judgment as the new George Nicolau with respect to the relationship between the East pilots and the West pilots?[/SIZE]

 

[cactusboy53]

[SIZE=24pt]arbitration[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]Also found in: [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Dictionary[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt], [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Thesaurus[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt], [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Medical[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt], [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Financial[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt], [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Encyclopedia[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt], [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Wikipedia[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=18pt]Arbitration[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]The submission of a dispute to an unbiased third person designated by the parties to the controversy, who agree in advance to comply with the award—a decision to be issued after a hearing at which both parties have an opportunity to be heard.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Arbitration is a well-established and widely used means to end disputes. It is one of several kinds of [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Alternative Dispute Resolution[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt], which provide parties to a controversy with a choice other than litigation. Unlike litigation, arbitration takes place out of court: the two sides select an impartial third party, known as an arbitrator; agree in advance to comply with the arbitrator's award; and then participate in a hearing at which both sides can present evidence and testimony. The arbitrator's decision is usually final, and courts rarely reexamine it….[/SIZE]

 

[cactusboy53]

[SIZE=12pt]3.  The West Committee understands that, despite the Ninth Circuit’s decision regarding USAPA’s conduct in negotiating the MOU, there is no legal argument to be made that the Nicolau Award is now binding in this SLI proceeding as a consequence of the terms of the America West-US Airways Transition Agreement.  Nonetheless, as an equitable matter—and[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]this proceeding is at heart an equitable one—the East Committee is wrong to assert that using the Nicolau Award as the starting point for the integration would deny the East pilots their “true” seniority equities.  What the foregoing demonstrates is that for the past nine years, the East pilots did not exercise “true seniority equities” that they owned outright, but rather that they exercised seniority rights in an East-only list that always remained—up until USAPA’s final unlawful act in negotiating the MOU—subject to divestment upon the achievement of a JCBA.  In other words, after Arbitrator Nicolau settled the equities between East and West pilots arising out of the US Airways-America West merger through a contractually binding and final arbitral process, the East pilots no longer had “true seniority equities” in the operation of an East-only seniority list that were independent from the Transition Agreement and the Nicolau Award; rather, the East pilots were exercising seniority by virtue of an unlawful course of conduct by USAPA on their behalf that has robbed West pilots of their rightful career expectations established in 2007 through the processes established through the Transition Agreement, ALPA Merger Policy, and the ISL contained in the Nicolau Award.[/SIZE]

 

[luvthe9]

WYE didn't you take the contract offered?  You've lost so much money.  What will you do if you don't get the "Rick-o-lau"?

The east is very happy not living in a self induced fishbowl ............you have lost so much money and on top of that gave so much many to Marty and all for nothing ........





"Jeff Freund is a top-notch lawyer. We have no doubt that he told our MEC the truth about how negotiable the NIC really was. The question is: why didnt CJ, Bendett, et al, listen? We figure that they either didnt believe him or after all their hairy-chested resolutions and hotlines, they were afraid to back down. What good are attorneys if you dont take their advice?"


Yes, WYE did they not listen?









"Its time to take a good look in the rear-view mirror. If we had a single contract in place, the NIC would also be in place. Sure, we would probably still have USAPA. But long before the East removed ALPA, we would have been operating under a single contract, with the Nicolau seniority list in place. Next time you go to a training center brown bag lunch, before you go after the company and the East, keep in mind how close we were to a TA prior to the NIC. We did it to ourselves, guys."

Dave Blomgren, for the U-Turn

NEXT U-Turn: More details on what we lost and how we lost it.




Yes indeed, YOU LOST IT..............

 

[cactusboy53]

The east is very happy not living in a self induced fishbowl ............you have lost so much money and on top of that gave so much many to Marty and all for nothing ........

"Jeff Freund is a top-notch lawyer. We have no doubt that he told our MEC the truth about how negotiable the NIC really was. The question is: why didnt CJ, Bendett, et al, listen? We figure that they either didnt believe him or after all their hairy-chested resolutions and hotlines, they were afraid to back down. What good are attorneys if you dont take their advice?"

Yes, WYE did they not listen?

"Its time to take a good look in the rear-view mirror. If we had a single contract in place, the NIC would also be in place. Sure, we would probably still have USAPA. But long before the East removed ALPA, we would have been operating under a single contract, with the Nicolau seniority list in place. Next time you go to a training center brown bag lunch, before you go after the company and the East, keep in mind how close we were to a TA prior to the NIC. We did it to ourselves, guys."

Dave Blomgren, for the U-Turn

NEXT U-Turn: More details on what we lost and how we lost it.

Yes indeed, YOU LOST IT..............

 
Dude....you REALLY have to stop quoting Blomgren.  It shows exactly how desperate you are.  Dave's not one of my favorite union volunteers for a variety of reasons.  The same Jeff Freund argued BRILLIANTLY in front of the BOA as to why the Nicolau list should be the starting point AND the LAA guys opined THE SAME WAY.
 
Stuck on the island?  Sure.  Nic is DEAD??  Who knows?  I don't.  I guess we'll see, and then see who's right & wrong.
 
Hang in there buttercup, it's just a little while longer.

 

[MUTATIS MUTANDIS]

[font=times new roman']3.  The West Committee understands that, despite the Ninth Circuits decision regarding USAPAs conduct in negotiating the MOU, there is no legal argument to be made that the Nicolau Award is now binding in this SLI proceeding as a consequence of the terms of the America West-US Airways Transition Agreement.  Nonetheless, as an equitable matterand[/font] [font=times new roman']this proceeding is at heart an equitable onethe East Committee is wrong to assert that using the Nicolau Award as the starting point for the integration would deny the East pilots their true seniority equities.  What the foregoing demonstrates is that for the past nine years, the East pilots did not exercise true seniority equities that they owned outright, but rather that they exercised seniority rights in an East-only list that always remainedup until USAPAs final unlawful act in negotiating the MOUsubject to divestment upon the achievement of a JCBA.  In other words, after Arbitrator Nicolau settled the equities between East and West pilots arising out of the US Airways-America West merger through a contractually binding and final arbitral process, the East pilots no longer had true seniority equities in the operation of an East-only seniority list that were independent from the Transition Agreement and the Nicolau Award; rather, the East pilots were exercising seniority by virtue of an unlawful course of conduct by USAPA on their behalf that has robbed West pilots of their rightful career expectations established in 2007 through the processes established through the Transition Agreement, ALPA Merger Policy, and the ISL contained in the Nicolau Award.[/font]

. The West Committee Proposal is plainly inequitable to East Pilots. It asks the Board to do what every court hearing the complaint of West Pilots concerning the Nicolau Award dispute has refused to do and which McCaskill-Bond prohibits the Board from doing -- to impose the never implemented Nicolau Award ISL.