AWA MEC Letter to pilots

[a320av8r]

..."it is ALPA’s duty to defend the award, and not to evaluate its fairness."
Obviously Vasin doesn't think it is fair either...

 

[BoeingBoy]

<snip>

Or, to put it another way, be careful what you wish for - you may get it only to find out it's a lot worse than what you had.......

I've seen a lot of bravado and threats of this or that action thrown around in the last few days. Every one has the potential of far more harm to the East pilots than anything they perceive they lost in this arbitration.

Jim

 

[767jetz]

I've seen a lot of bravado and threats of this or that action thrown around in the last few days. Every one has the potential of far more harm to the East pilots than anything they perceive they lost in this arbitration.

Jim

Jim, Exactly. Now that the true ugly nature of these guys (burning down the house, etc. etc. etc.) is out in the open for all to see, there isn't an airline in the world that would touch this group with a ten foot poll.

Unfortunately I truly believe that this could be the beginning of the end of USAirways. These mis-contents will start a fire that can never be put out. I feel worst for the good West folks (and some of the more rational East ones) who are now hitched to them and will sink with the ship.

Very, very sad.

767jetz

 

[Revolutions]

I am not, nor have I ever been an airline employee and as far as LCC, I don't even fly them anymore.

However, its difficult to see any alternative other than DOH to resolving airline mergers. There are no other unbiased options for the simple fact that labor has never taken upon itself to implement a meritocracy in which quality measures (think baseball player stats) are generated for each employee. Until that happens, its DOH or some sort of arbitrary, political, nosebreaking, threatmaking third world scheme.

 

[AWA320]

..."it is ALPA’s duty to defend the award, and not to evaluate its fairness."
Obviously Vasin doesn't think it is fair either...

I think you are wrong in your assumption of what Mitch thinks!!

 

[AWA320]

"IF" 70 % of profits for the company is in the EAST ops--with our pilot contract cost advantage----just operate separately and forget those junior pukes.

Excellant idea you should do that!! Oh wait you did and you failed. Look no one and I mean NO ONE furloughs people with 18 yrs of service unless they were headed to the grave. Come on!! Do you honestly think that the east was on the verge of some heroic come back??? Think about it. Now you want to right the wrong done to you by putting that on us!! For the last 6 years your 18 year furloughed employee has been UNEMPLOYED while we in the west were working and hiring 30 per month. Saving you has cost all of us.

 

[767jetz]

or some sort of arbitrary, political, nosebreaking, threatmaking third world scheme.

Actually that is not the process. What you describe is what the East pilots are making of it because of their perceived unfair treatment and what they THINK they are entitled to.

The process is a fair one, and it involves the 2 parties negotiating a reasonable solution. It is only when the sides reach an impasse (as is the case when one side remains rigid and uncompromising with their expectations) that the process moves along to a mutually agreed upon arbitrator with 2 chosen "Neutrals," one from each side. At this point both sides agree to present their case to the arbitrator and live with the final decision. Sometimes the arbitrator will come up with his version of what is fair. Often he will weigh which side's proposal is more fair and reasonable and award something very similar to that. This is the motivation to come to the arbitration with your most reasonable proposition. If you come with an all or nothing stance, you tend to lose any leverage you have.

DOH integration may seem most fair to the casual outside observer. And in some cases like the flight attendants it is often the best solution. (You see, flight attendants are trained on all equipment and paid the same no matter what airplane they fly) But pilots are trained specifically on one type, and pay is directly proportional to equipment and position. For this and many other reasons, DOH is not a fair integration method.

Relative seniority based on what you currently bid (ie: slotting) or percentile based position regardless of years of service is a much better gauge. If you are in the bottom 25% of your old airline, you end up in the bottom 25% of the new airline and you keep the same relative position as before. Same for the 50th percentile, the 90th, etc. This way you still bid in the same place you did before, relatively speaking. It doesn't matter if the 25th percentile in one company is a 4 year guy and in the other is a 19 year guy. You are still a 25th percentile person regardless. Hence the whole premise of career expectation. It is helpful for people to move away from raw numbers and look at relative position.

Of course once a relative position is established then adjustments and fences can be constructed to account for variables such as attrition or international/widebody flying that one group had and the other didn't. Additionally future equipment needs to be specified as "replacement" or growth to keep things fair. It is in these areas that perhaps the US East pilots could have seen an improvement had they negotiated in good faith rather than tied their hope to DOH.

As for furloughs, it is unfortunate that any company gets in a position that it needs to put people with 20 years of service on the street. But this is not caused by the other half of the collective group, and they (west) should not have to pay to correct it. These people were furloughed before the merger and continue in that percentile (shall we say the minus -0 percentile).

 

[Junebug172]

..."it is ALPA’s duty to defend the award, and not to evaluate its fairness."
Obviously Vasin doesn't think it is fair either...

Ya, sure, that's it. You got Mitch pegged.

Now shut up.

 

[aquagreen73s]

Ya, sure, that's it. You got Mitch pegged.

Now shut up.

USA 320 drivel reminds me of the Quayle/Benston debate: "Senator [Quayle], I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. And Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

 

[exB717Flyer]

However, its difficult to see any alternative other than DOH to resolving airline mergers.

What you're saying is that DOH is the best way to do things even if it royally screws one pilot group. ALPA Merger Policy doesn't prohibit DOH, in fact, if Nicolau had felt DOH was fair that's exactly what he would've awarded!

There's a lot of sympathy for the East pilot group because we all know through no fault of their own their careers have suffered greatly. It's my opinion that the Nicolau Award doesn't further harm them; it merely fails to restitute what they lost. In other words, those captain jobs lost in the bankrupcties may be lost forever. That's a shame but it happened because the only way to get those captain jobs back was to get them from the West pilots, who've been stagnant since the merger closing. The Easties had much to gain and little to lose, whereas the Westies had much to lose and little to gain.

As I've already written, before the Nicolau Award the Westies were very nervous and I suspect the Easties were fairly confident. Think about why this is.

 

[hp_fa]

I am not, nor have I ever been an airline employee and as far as LCC, I don't even fly them anymore.

However, its difficult to see any alternative other than DOH to resolving airline mergers. There are no other unbiased options for the simple fact that labor has never taken upon itself to implement a meritocracy in which quality measures (think baseball player stats) are generated for each employee. Until that happens, its DOH or some sort of arbitrary, political, nosebreaking, threatmaking third world scheme.

Straight DOH is patently unfair. Let's use two existing airlines to illustrate the point. These two airlines are not merging or in discussions, but are used only to illustrate the issue.

Northwest Airlines has been around for years and has a very senior workforce. JetBlue has only been around a short time and has a relatively junior workforce. If these two airlines were somehow to be combined the effect of the JetBlue folks would be awful. They would be basically stapled to the bottom of the combined list. The JetBlue employees, some of whom had left other airlines to be part of a startup and take a chance at being senior rather then junior would be penalized for all that effort and risk taking, not because the airline failed, but because it had somehow ended up in a transaction.

I have stayed completely out of the argument between East and West, but I am posting simply to argue that straight DOH is wholly unfair.