aquagreen73s
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The transition agreement survives, as does the arbitration. The issue is successorship under the RLA versus the NLRA. Burns is an NLRA case and was subsequently distinguished in later RLA cases, all of which had the opposite holding of Burns. Why? Because the RLA has different concerns and requires a contrary holding to Burns. That's not my opinion, but comes from the post-Burns cases themselves. One case in particular has a detailed discussion as to the policy reasons for the the RLA law to be contrapositive with NLRA law when it comes to CBA successorship. However, the u-sap plan might work if this were an NLRA matter, but then again Burns comes from a different era and I would bet that should that issue arise again, the Supreme Court would reverse it. Burns arguably puts managements at a disadvantage. Putting management at a disadvantage is not necessarily a bad thing IMO, but the current Court is not exactly labor friendly and a management-appellant would certainly have the ears of four justices. Interestingly, the issue of successorship rarely arises in either the NLRA or under the RLA but I suppose that is not surprising given the fact that CBAs don't change very often and when they do, they don't try to repudiate agreements. In any case, whether Burns would be reversed nowadays is immaterial. Heck, this probably won't even reach a vote given the toal screw-up and last minute mea culpa to the NMB last week. In any case, the worst for the West would have been a cave and fortunately the line held. Henceforth there won't be any time nor any reasonable excuses for another steering committee where the West could once again be laid on pretty heavily to cave. If there is an election and if usapa becomes the CBA, then they have the impossible task of literally rewriting RLA case law. Don't believe me, then just go to your local law library, log on to Westlaw, and keycite Burns. You'll see a number of yellow flags pop up which means the case has been distinguished. Scroll through some of those yellow flags and you'll see for yourself - the RLA and the NLRA are very different when it comes to successorship.