nycbusdriver said:
Also, I don't think the judge ruled any such thing as you maintain. He simply stopped the progression of the contract maintenance in acknowledgement of some possible merit to the IAM claim. The restraining order simply called a halt while the legal situation is sorted out. Whether the IAM prevails, or not, remains to be seen. The judge simply realized that the IAM members MAY be in the process of being illegally harmed by the outsourcing, so he stopped it. The T in TRO stand for "temporary," I do believe.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction, not a temporary restraining order. The judge additionally refused to stay said injunction pending an emergency appeal.
This means (prelim versus TRO) that the IAM is likely to prevail on the merits of the case. It also means that (not staying his own order) that the judge believes that he won't be overturned (federal judges are very picky about this). Taken together, it indicates that the IAM's case has enough merit to solidly sway a federal judge.
The possibility exists that if the 3rd circuit feels the same way that you could see the preliminary injunction converted to a permanent injunction. While it would thwart Dave and Dave's plan to end-run around the CBA, it would probably be in the company's favor--as the preliminary injunction would probably stay in place pending a full hearing/trial on the matter, which could take months (if not years) and thus prohibit US from overhauling any of the Airbi.