ALPA/USAPA/West thread 3/30-4/5

[aquagreen73s]

Do yourselves a big favor, and knock off with the "heroic"..."WAR" rhetoric. Having had the distinct privelege of knowing a few prior residents of the Hanoi Hilton..your childish BS: "

Meeting a former POW at a booksigning doesn't count, East. You flew cargo trash far away from any sort of real danger, so please spare us all from your pious indignation - it's soooo fake.

 

[EastUS]

Meeting a former POW at a booksigning doesn't count, East. You flew cargo trash far away from any sort of real danger, so please spare us all from your pious indignation - it's soooo fake.

Nice try..and "soooo" fully "cute" in the fiercesome AWA style. Grow Up. You're making complete fools of yourselves, and by sad extension, all of us.

 

[dariencc]

Nice try..and fully "cute" in the feircesome AWA style. Grow Up. You're making fools of yourselves, and by sad extension, all of us.

I don't know, I think those "Wolverines" are pretty scary. That Powers Boothe is one bad ass dude. He played Jim Jones in another flick, if I recall. Kind of fitting for who we're dealing with. And Charlie Sheen? Original Brat Packer. Boo-yah! Nobody comes between that dog and his meat, if you know what I'm sayin'.

Hey, I think I just figured out why Patrick Swayze is such a fave with the "Rines":

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/swayze1.html

 

[AAA73Pilot]

USAPA theoretically can negotiate around the Award, but doing so exposes them to a clear cut DFR suit. Additionally, the company is a party to the original transition agreement and has already accepted the seniority list. For them to do anything that would dilute the Award only exposes them to a signficant liability; a liability which far outweighs any possible benefit to negotiating with USAPA.

It thrills me to no end you interviewed no less than 3 law firms. Good for you! USAPA leaders interviewed more than one also. So is this what it's coming down to? Our law firm is better than yours? Too funny.

As for your "clear cut DFR suit", well, good luck with that. Here is an excerpt of a little light reading. This is a synopsis from one website that mirrors many others. Hope you can appreciate it.

Understanding A Union’s
Duty of Fair Representation

The Union’s Duty of Fair Representation is made up of three distinct responsibilities:

1. to serve the interests of all union members without hostility or discrimination toward any
one member;
2. to exercise its discretion in complete good faith and honesty;
3. to avoid arbitrary conduct

These three distinct responsibilities were laid out in Goolsby v. Detroit, 419 Mich 651, 358
NW2d 856 (1984).

And NO I did not take the time to read this decision. Just quoting a website.

Since we are hopelessly divided under ALPA, USAPA is a new entrant that can break the stalemate. We have the legal right to elect a new bargaining agent if the majority so chooses.

Therefore, IMO, all USAPA has to do is administer its C&BL's without hostility or discrimination. Execute those ByLaws in good faith and honesty. Finally, not be arbitrary. It's all laid out for the voters to see. Too bad you don't like it. But that is expected in a representational election. So if a majority of voters want the new union, then so be it. If they want the current one, then so be it also.

However, I believe after USAPA gets up and running, the work will begin to reconcile the inherited contracts that conflict with the new C&BL's. Up to and including modification of the ALPA Transition Agreement. Oh but wait, in an ALPA roadshow the TA disappears according to an ALPA attorney. Personally I don't know one way or the other nor care. It's the reconciliation process that I am interested in. Since we are considered one class and craft per the NMB ruling, the reconciliations must conform to the new unions C&BL's.

We will definitely enter a new arena concerning labor law. Some say precedent setting. At least it won't be dull around here for a long time into the future.

 

[AAA73Pilot]

FYI: While Wikipedia is not a definitive source for DFR. It does have some interesting reading.

Duty of fair representation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The duty of fair representation is the obligation, incumbent upon U.S. labor unions that are the exclusive bargaining representative of workers in a particular group, to represent all those employees fairly, in good faith, and without discrimination. Originally recognized by the United States Supreme Court in a series of cases in the mid-1940s involving racial discrimination by railway workers' unions covered by the Railway Labor Act, the duty of fair representation also applies to workers covered by the National Labor Relations Act and, depending on the terms of the statute, to public sector workers covered by state and local laws regulating labor relations.

Application
The duty applies to virtually every action that a union might take in dealing with an employer as the representative of employees, from its negotiation of the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, to its handling of grievances arising under that agreement, as well as its operation of an exclusive hiring hall and its enforcement of the union security provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. The duty does not ordinarily apply, on the other hand, to rights that a worker can enforce independently; put another way, the union has no duty to assist the employees it represents in filing claims under a workers' compensation statute or other laws.

The duty likewise does not apply for the most part to unions' internal affairs, such as their right to discipline employees for violation of the union's own rules or union officers' handling of union funds, which are regulated instead by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. The courts have, on the other hand, applied the same principles that govern the duty of fair representation to union members' suits to enforce union constitutions.

Court's View
The courts have, on the whole, taken a deferential approach to reviewing unions' decisions challenged as a breach of their duty of fair representation. Recognizing that the collective bargaining process typically requires compromises, which may favor some workers at the expense of others, the courts have held that a union only breaches its duty if it acts arbitrarily, in bad faith or discriminatorily. Practical considerations have also led the courts to refuse to second-guess unions' decisions: if a court or jury could substitute its judgment as to whether a particular grievance had merit, then unions could not function, since their decisions would rarely be final in any practical sense. Accordingly, the courts have refused to overturn union decisions as arbitrary so long as they were based on a reasoned decision by the union, even if the court might believe that this decision was wrong.

New Applications
In recent years the courts and the National Labor Relations Board have applied the duty of fair representation to regulate the manner in which unions enforce the union security provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. Unlike the standard applied to unions' decisions concerning grievance handling and collective bargaining negotiations, the courts and the Board have regulated this area very extensively, specifying the types of expenses that a union can include in the fees that it charges employees who choose not to join the union but are required to pay dues under an agency shop or union shop clause, the accounting procedures used to calculate those amounts, the procedures which the union and employees must follow in the event that an individual worker objects to paying the full amount of dues charged to members or challenges the union's calculation of the lesser amount that non-members can be required to pay and the procedures that the union must follow before it can force the employer to fire an employee for non-payment of dues. Even stricter standards are applied to unions covered by the Railway Labor Act and to unions of governmental employees, but on constitutional, rather than fair representation, grounds.

The NLRB applies a similarly strict standard in reviewing unions' enforcement of exclusive hiring halls, i.e., those in which the employer is bound, by contract, to hire only employees referred to it by the union. The NLRB requires unions to establish clear procedures and to follow those procedures in order to minimize the likelihood that the union would use a hiring hall procedure to exclude non-members or those in disfavor with the union from the workplace. On the other hand, the NLRB applies the more deferential standard applied to union decisions generally in the case of non-exclusive hiring halls, i.e., those in which the union has the power to refer applicants for employment but the employer may also hire employees "off the street"; in those cases the union is barred from acting arbitrarily, in bad faith or discriminatorily.

Violations
The NLRB recognizes a breach of the duty of fair representation as a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Because the duty of fair representation was originally created by judicial interpretation, however, rather than as an express statutory prohibition, employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act may sue their unions directly, without being required to first exhaust any administrative procedures provided under the National Labor Relations Board. The same is true for workers covered by the Railway Labor Act, which does not provide any administrative procedure for pursuing claims against a union. Employees' claims under either Act are governed by a six-month statute of limitations.

The NLRB and the courts provide different remedies against unions that breached their duty of fair representation. Because the Board usually does not have the jurisdiction to enforce the collective bargaining agreement or to issue a remedial order against an employer that has violated it, the NLRB often cannot award complete relief to employees. A court, on the other hand, may order an employer to reinstate or pay back pay to an employee if it finds that the employer violated the collective bargaining agreement and may, in some instances, order the union to pay attorneys' fees to a successful plaintiff. These distinctions do not apply to workers covered by the Railway Labor Act since, as noted above, they have no administrative procedures to enforce their rights.

A union may, in some limited circumstances, require employees to exhaust any internal appeals procedures provided under the union's constitution before filing suit. Unions and employers may also generally require employees to exhaust their rights under the grievance arbitration procedures provided for under the collective bargaining agreement before suing the employer for breach of contract. Employees usually do not, on the other hand, have to exhaust such procedures if they are suing only the union, since very few collective bargaining agreements even allow for the filing of a grievance against the union by covered employees. To the extent that an employee might have a breach of contract claim against a union arising out of its performance of its duty to represent that employee, the courts will apply the same deferential standards and procedural requirements that they would employ if the worker sued the union on a breach of the duty of fair representation theory.

 

[EyeInTheSky]

[/size]

Eye;
Apparently it would be the same "part" that my eastern brethern (& sisters ) don't understand about the term FINAL & BINDING.

IF YOU TRY TO TAKE MY JOB, IF YOU TRY TO BUST MY UNION.....

THERE WILL NEVER BE LABOR PEACE!!

USAPA = SCABS[/size]

Wow, GIANT FONT did I get ewe mad? Oh go ahead with you sheepforbrains bretheren and cry the east big bad wolf theory. It's getting old. Furthermore, do you realize how moronic it is to incorrectly use the term SCAB? Do you think it's a boo boo or something? Sorry but the one thing east does not have is any SCABS on the property. On the contrary, you have quite a number of Ansett SCABS on the west side -- make you proud? Guaranteed those low lifes would never, ever be hired over here. They are lucky to have a job.

Oh, on another note. Love Tracy Parrella's letter. I think this whole Nicolau thing could be decided with Tracy and that skanky westie hag from the YouTube videos in a mud wrestling match. My money is on Tracy -- she rocks!

Later,
Eye

 

[nostradamus]

The world is watching the NMB. The following alpa cheerleaders that worked for us airways, now work for the nmb. This is not making a statement, just providing dinner conversation.


Mike Tosi , former alpa spinner for usairways.


Gerry McGuckin, another former alpa spinner for us airways.