AWA ALPA Thread 10/12 to 10/18

[Richard]

Here's the new thread for West -- remember to not make it personal....

 

[AAA73Pilot]

ZFLYGRL Jan 6, 2006 05:14p.m.

There comes a time when a person must stand up for the rights of the person they have decided to spend their life with.... I am the wife of a AWA/Us Airways Group/ LCC pilot and I have had it with ALPA aka ALPO. My hubby was one of the pilots who was furloughed (OUT OF SENIORITY) from AWA when they had ONE of their many rough periods. Now ALPA wants to take that time from him...which will effect his seniority and/or longevity. As a wife and being someone who has been in the airline industry for MANY years....I now must say STOP!!!! Slow down...enough is enough....the Irish in me is now overflowing. ALPA 62 and it's MEC had better take a few steps backwards and think about this. At the same time my guy was put out to pasture ...(at the time he was on the 737) junior pilots who where on the dash stayed on line. So I have decided to "Stand by my man" .... and get as many wives together as I can to fight this outrageous display of Union one-sided treachery. Contract 95 said that their longevity and/or seniority would not be touched now...the story is different... And nearly all those pilots that have filed grievances...have had them denied. So ALPA I will go to the newspaper and have a talk to them and if needed I shall contact the Gov and all Senators of Arizona. If need be I shall stand outside the ALPA office with a sign and ask for answers. If my guy has to lose time so do the junior pilots who stayed. The fight has just begun......I feel if this happens ALPA will have broken their contract with my husband...when you pay your dues....it is to protect your future (job)...seniority and longevity. The problem with the unions today...is that they have forgotten what their purpose is.....the people at the top have become nothing more then politicians in union clothes.
Well I have had my say and I thank you for this time.

Hey flygrl, Thanks for leaving this around. This is one great post to add to my long list for dumping ALPA.

The bold print was my doing. I couldn't agree with you more. BTW. Does 20+ plus years of dues paying qualify for anything? Just curious.

 

[traderjake]

The job he holds after twenty years means more than the fact it took him the twenty years to get it.

 

[P51Pilot]

The job he holds after twenty years means more than the fact it took him the twenty years to get it.

His 20 years also means he will inherit the jobs ahead of him as well. i.e., A330 Captain, unless someone is "arbitrarily" placed in front of him and from an airline, that didn't bring that flying to the table. Whether it took him 20 years to be where his is now, doesn't or shouldn't preclude that the next 5 will take him there. Otherwise he should have quit in 2004 and went to AWA so he could get in 6 months, what he sacrificed and worked 20 years for. Oh but 20 years of hard work is meaningless in your world.

The best thing the East pilot group could do now is use their majority create a longevity based pay contract, with pay being based on days away from home. You get paid for how long you've been around and how much time you spend away from your family.

I can't wait till a CAL or even UAL merges with someone like Airtran. Why should the younger smaller airline even bother to show up till arbitration. The worst they could get is DOH. Hell if you have 3 year Captains, you just shoot for and take your ratio seniority. Merger policy was changed by the powers that be in an unprincipled way, under the presumption of biasing things when merging with an older pilot groups. Not always the case and I would love to see Paul Rice's reaction to UAL/Airtran merger where those guys were put in under a ratio method with their 737/A320 pilots.

 

[Phoenix]

The job he holds after twenty years means more than the fact it took him the twenty years to get it.

What you meant to say is that the Job his seniority holds after twenty years, three months, two days, five hours, 22 minutes, and 16 seconds, (the exact moment of the merger) means more than his seniority, which is of couse false. What one's seniority can hold at any one moment is NOT more important than one's seniority. The job he held at 15 years, or will hold at 25 years is meaningless with regard to defining his seniority. Seniority defines everthing else, not the other way around.

His seniority never changed.

 

[Cactus737]

His 20 years also means he will inherit the jobs ahead of him as well. i.e., A330 Captain, unless someone is "arbitrarily" placed in front of him and from an airline, that didn't bring that flying to the table. Whether it took him 20 years to be where his is now, doesn't or shouldn't preclude that the next 5 will take him there. Otherwise he should have quit in 2004 and went to AWA so he could get in 6 months, what he sacrificed and worked 20 years for. Oh but 20 years of hard work is meaningless in your world.

Funny you should mention that, because that's exactly what many US Airways pilots (furloughed and active) did in 2004. I know many of them and, at the time, they didn't reasonably expect to ever see A330 captain.

The best thing the East pilot group could do now is use their majority create a longevity based pay contract, with pay being based on days away from home. You get paid for how long you've been around and how much time you spend away from your family.

And how long is that going to take? Another 3-4 years? To happen in the middle of the next economic downturn? And of course, that's assuming that USAPA even survives that long.

I can't wait till a CAL or even UAL merges with someone like Airtran. Why should the younger smaller airline even bother to show up till arbitration. The worst they could get is DOH. Hell if you have 3 year Captains, you just shoot for and take your ratio seniority. Merger policy was changed by the powers that be in an unprincipled way, under the presumption of biasing things when merging with an older pilot groups. Not always the case and I would love to see Paul Rice's reaction to UAL/Airtran merger where those guys were put in under a ratio method with their 737/A320 pilots.

AirTran isn't an ALPA carrier, so they probably won't have that problem. Sort of how UAL won't have any problem screwing all of us if USAPA is on property.

But even assuming that AirTran is an ALPA carrier, the UAL MEC wouldn't make the same mistake that yours did, and they would actually negotiate to best protect their guys. Have your read their Merger Committee's report about the Nicolau Award? Here's one of the recommendations contained in it:

"Negotiated solution to as many issues as possible is the wisest course of action"

I'm certain that had your guys negotiated, even a little bit, AWA would be completely fenced out of the widebodies, the furloughed guys would have had priority bidding rights to East captain vacancies, and we would all have a contract by now.

As far as a merger with CAL or United goes, don't forget that both a United and a CAL pilot helped craft the Nicolau Award, and they believe it's fair.

 

[ClueByFour]

The best thing the East pilot group could do now is use their majority create a longevity based pay contract, with pay being based on days away from home. You get paid for how long you've been around and how much time you spend away from your family.

Dog won't hunt. The west group still has to ratify a joint contract.

 

[AAA73Pilot]

As far as a merger with CAL or United goes, don't forget that both a United and a CAL pilot helped craft the Nicolau Award, and they believe it's fair.

The CAL pilot was dissenting on the placement of the MDA pilots. So far I haven't seen anything from the UAL pilot. Or did I miss his attachment?

 

[ClueByFour]

What you meant to say is that the Job his seniority holds after twenty years, three months, two days, five hours, 22 minutes, and 16 seconds, (the exact moment of the merger) means more than his seniority, which is of couse false. What one's seniority can hold at any one moment is NOT more important than one's seniority. The job he held at 15 years, or will hold at 25 years is meaningless with regard to defining his seniority. Seniority defines everthing else, not the other way around.

His seniority never changed.

This is analogous to denying either inflation or exchange rates.

As a practical matter, it takes far fewer "America West employment days" (as a currency) to hold an A320 Captain slot than "US Airways employment days."

The position is what matters.

 

[Cactus737]

The CAL pilot was dissenting on the placement of the MDA pilots. So far I haven't seen anything from the UAL pilot. Or did I miss his attachment?

The UAL pilot agreed 100% with the award, as he issued no dissenting opinion. The CAL pilot only disagreed with *one* aspect of the award:

"At a minimum, it is my opinion that the US Airways pilots, who had already received notice of their opportunity to return to work from furlough, should have received some consideration for the substantial time they have already invested in their airline."

That means that his only beef has to do with the treatment of the senior most furloughees. He doesn't specifically disagree with their placement on the list, and in fact he mentions elsewhere in his dissent that those pilots should be all be furloughed ahead of Odell. He doesn't disagree with the ratios either, and he certainly doesn't agree with the division of attrition (your windfall argument).

BTW - it's incorrect of you to state that his dissent was "the placement of the MDA pilots" because he, in fact, never mentions MDA in his dissent. He obviously doesn't agree that MDA was mainline. It's hard to buy that argument when you *had* to be furloughed from mainline to bid MDA, and you didn't accrue mainline longevity while at MDA. It's pretty obvious that the MDA pilots didn't get the consideration they should have from the AAA MEC, as evidenced by their suit against ALPA, but that only solidifies the argument that MDA was NOT mainline.

Also, it's pretty clear to me that although he may have felt that the senior most furloughees should have had more consideration, most of what he wrote could have been done with the primary purpose of political appeasement. He was, after all, hired by the AAA MEC to serve as their pilot neutral.

 

[AAA73Pilot]

This is analogous to denying either inflation or exchange rates.

As a practical matter, it takes far fewer "America West employment days" (as a currency) to hold an A320 Captain slot than "US Airways employment days."

The position is what matters.

Also as a practical matter, since when do you or me have any control over our respective "Employment days"? Other than bidding the lines as published in seniority.

Position? By your premise a 73 Capt number 1 is the same as 73 Capt. number last. That is where we disagree. Seniority is the only determinant of position and quality of life.

 

[Phoenix]

This is analogous to denying either inflation or exchange rates.

As a practical matter, it takes far fewer "America West employment days" (as a currency) to hold an A320 Captain slot than "US Airways employment days."

The position is what matters.

If seniority doesn't matter then what is all the fuss about? And why do the AWA keep talking about how they won and the AAA MEC has a bad strategy and lost.

But to address your cute analogy. If your anaology is an accurate description of what occurred then it demonstrates why the Nicolau Award is not valid. How apropos that you would liken the Nicolau award to an “exchange rate”. At an exchange the rate is fixed and the banker does not take into account expected fluctuation of interest or inflation that will occur in the future. The banker gives absolutely no credit or penalty for the fluctuations that each currency will have. If the banker were to follow Merger policy, then he would be required to give credit or penalty for the expected fluctuations of each currency. The terms of ALPA do not allow a merger to occur without addressing career expectations. Your cute analogy demonstrates exactly what Prater has acknowledged. There is a seniority issue still to be dealt with.


Well done!

 

[Cactus737]

If seniority doesn't matter then what is all the fuss about? And why do the AWA keep talking about how they won and the AAA MEC has a bad strategy and lost.

No fuss on our part, other than that you're empowering Dougie to send flying to the lowest bidder.

I don't think one of us has said that we "won", because I know I certainly don't feel like I've received anything but bad news since this whole deal was announced. But this being my 2nd merger, I knew to expect to be unhappy.

The only thing I'm happy about is that after you spent 2 years trying to screw us with your DOH crap, it failed. That's how most of us feel BTW. You want to talk fences now? Fine by me. I know most of our pilots object to the idea simply because they're not interested in giving you a 2nd bite at the apple after you tried to screw us so bad. The problem is though, your MEC passed a resolution for a) permanent separate ops, B) no Nicolau Award (and no fixes to the award either), and c) no joint negotiatons. I don't see an opportunity for compromise there.

 

[EastUS]

No fuss on our part, other than that you're empowering Dougie to send flying to the lowest bidder.

Sigh...Guess that leaves you guys, at best, in the position of "Having your Nic...and eating it too". I've surprisingly little sympathy for your plight there.

Cactus737: "Funny you should mention that, because that's exactly what many US Airways pilots (furloughed and active) did in 2004. I know many of them and, at the time, they didn't reasonably expect to ever see A330 captain." And...ummm....your AWA group EVER expected/had "career expectations"/even night fantasies about holding ANY A330 position before this "merger"? Hmmm...must be some subtle point that I'm again missing.

 

[AAA73Pilot]

I don't think one of us has said that we "won", because I know I certainly don't feel like I've received anything but bad news since this whole deal was announced. But this being my 2nd merger, I knew to expect to be unhappy.

I suggest you look at Junebugs posts from this summer. Seems to me there are references as to that very thing. I know all about happiness, 3rd merger here.