Curious to the low turn out from the CO guys. What I don't understand is why the teamsters even put this survey out when they said from the beginning they have to go by DOH (date of hire) or sometimes refered to as classification hire date. They were screaming DOH in the Airtran SLI nego's. As far as the courts are concerned, I can only tell you what happened here at SWA. The courts all told the company and unions that if your the same union representing both sides AND they have merger language, they must abide by such language for SLI. If the two unions are represented by different unions then they must NEGO SLI following the new laws in place that state both sides must agree, and will be fair and equitable to both sides.
Me personally? I am a firm believer that if you guys go DOH, and two fall on the exact same day the mech on the list of the co buying the other co should be DOH. Is this what you guys are being told??
You are off a bit but not by much. DOH and Class seniority for many of us are the same because we hired in as mechanics. But there are those who worked in different areas and for this purpose the distinctions should be maintained. Your mention of the courts in your case is also much different than the case at UAL.
Following the equal rights movement of the 60's, United Airlines faced a class action law suit created by several groups of former employees in several different classifications including mechanics. The suit claimed that UAL Corp was furloughing and recalling employees based on sex and race rather than by a seniority method. There was enough evidence to prove the case and United was found guilty and consequently forced to follow language created by the Federal Court of Appeals with an implementation date of July 2, 1965. This is what we call Consent Decree Seniority. The courts basically follow the date an employee entered the company, or date of hire. There are no expiration dates for this court decree and as long as there is a United Airlines the affected employees and unions will follow these non-negotiable seniority methods. The only option in altering seniority for the purposes of lay off and recall is to challenge the Federal Courts, and possibly the company and the opposing unions if you can not get them to go along with you. Chances of success are reportedly very very low based on testimonials of lawyers who were retained to look in to the matter.
Continental and United merged, there was no buy out (although many of us working at the new airline have a different point of view). In any event, the surviving company was named/renamed United Airlines and must abide by the consent decree. The Judge who decided the case wrote language anticipating the future possibility of a merger. UA or CO did not acquire either as was the case with SWA and Air Tran. Continental Airlines, because of it's new relationship with United, is now subject to the full weight of the consent decree.
The question on the survey was very clear to those of us on the UAL side who have lived with the consent decree for some 47 years. We are certain any challenge to the decree would be a waste of time and money and would like to move forward with negotiations. Beyond that, in the issue of merging seniority for the different mechanic groups, most of us feel that date of hire would be fair because most of us do not have a different classification date. Again, most of us at UA were hired as mechanics. Perhaps this is why so many more of us participated?
I had asked the same question you did a few weeks ago; "why the teamsters even put this survey out when they said from the beginning they have to go by DOH?"
I was told that during the very recent seniority committee meetings, representatives on the Continental side were
claiming that their was an overwhelming urge by
all CO members to put a hold on negotiations and pursue a legal challenge to the consent decree seniority and create a new form of merging the lists. The survey was put together quickly to test this claim. The results seem to indicate that the committee may have over-exaggerated the position of their members.
Committees are great and most times do very well in voicing the wishes of those they represent. Sometimes, unfortunately, they get it wrong. A survey is a good, fast way of checking the real intentions of the overall group. I am happy the Teamsters chose to poll the entire membership with this issue rather than act on what a few committee members were claiming.
