Bob Owens has said that upon abrogation, the entire contract is wiped out, and everything must be negotiated from scratch, as if there has never been an agreement.
I disagree with Owens' interpretation. IMO, the proposed Order AA submitted with its motion sets forth the relief AA seeks, and that is the ability to impose the provisions of the term sheet to over-write the applicable articles, while leaving the others intact. So the 16 articles will be amended, and the other 31 will continue unaffected.
When did I say that? I said if it was abrogated we have no contract, no CBA, thats what we were told by the lawyers, however terms of employment remain, the company has asked to modify terms unilaterally. So while terms remain there is no Collective Bargaining Agreement. You can play semantics if you like by claiming that terms are a contract, therefore even mechanics at Delta have contracts, but when we talk "contract" we are talking CBA.
The fact is what happens next is still yet to be written. The appelate court in their desire to please their corporate masters made a huge blunder at Northwest. Their ruling threw in a lot more questions, they should have allowed the FAs to strike, as they allow ALL other workers subject to abrogation, but in order to deny us our rights and get around the RLA and Status Quo they said that if a contract under the RLA is abrogated in BK that its as if the contract never existed so there is no status quo to violate. They said its as if the Union just came on the property and we have to Negotiate under Section 6 as if the terms that were abrogated never existed. By saying they never existed, which is a pure lie, they went around the RLAs language that allows us to engage in self help upon unilteral changes to pay and working conditions. The AFA screwed up by not going forward to the Supreme Court or by simply striking anyway.
The RLA also allows for contracts to be abrogated, after release and a 30 day cooling off period, provided it does not go to a PEB, then if there is no resolution it could be put before Congress. What the Appelate court did was create a new law that would allow the company to abrogate but deny Airline workers their rights as provided by the RLA, the right to self help upon unilateral changes to the terms and a major dispute due to the violation of the CBA.
Basically what the Appellate Court did was say that the company is free to engage in self help, limited to the ask I'm assuming, but that has yet to be clarified by the court, but the union can not do the same.
The "amended" CBA arguement falls flat on Judge Lane's statement in court, that if he abrogates we still have to negotiate, if the court grants the companys motion and the contract is just considered to be amended and not abrogated then there would be no need to negotiate because as you have claimed before we would have a new amendable date. Now you are the one who claims to be a lawyer, not me but if the company could impose a new amendable date then they would not have to continue to negotiate. Even that f----d up appelate court said that negotiations would resume under Sect 6 of the RLA post abrogation as if its the first contract.
Another question is Dues. Our CBA, unlike the pilots, require that members pay dues as a condition of employment. We have at least one mechanic who does not pay dues because the TWU denies him membership however under those condistions the union and the company can not terminate employment because the mechanic has never refused to become a member, and pay dues. Since the terms were not agreed upon collectively, therfore no CBA exists, just terms of employment, is it legal for a company to force the payment of dues to an organization that does not have a CBA in place? In other words we legally agree to pay dues to the union by agreeing to the collective bargaining agreement, but since there is no CBA and we are working under terms, similar to non-union workers what is the legal basis for a company to impose dues payment absent a CBA? Has it ever happened before? Dont most unions in a just organized workplace start mandatory dues collection upon ratification of the CBA? If the contract never existed, therefore no status quo violation, then how can the company impose dues payments? Sure they may be in the terms but is it legal for a company to unilaterally impose Dues payments in its terms when there is no CBA? I thought that was one of the things they outlawed when they tried to abolish "Company Unions"?
My recommendation is regardless of how one feels about the quality of representation is to continue to pay the dues if it comes to that rather than take the risk that the court will rule that compulsory dues payment as a condition of employment when there is no CBA is legal. Maybe you can give an opinion on that FWAAA, you being a lawyer and all.
The thing about "Law" is that nobody can say with absolute certainty what the ruling would be, so everything is an "opinion", Lawyers "practice" law, and even if there is a ruling it can be appealed and even if it goes to the highest court in the land legislators can write a new law for the courts to reinterpret as they have C-11 and the RLA and start the cycle all over again. Workers dont have the time or resourses that corporate America has and the alternate route to Justice is civil disobedience and disruptions to commerce. Since we cant afford to buy the legislators or Judges like they can thats the most expedient and efficient path , indeed the only path that we have been left, for us to take.
If workers continue to believe that Justice lies within the walls of a courtroom absent the very real threat of civil disobedience and massive disruptions to commerce then they may as well still believe in Santa Clause. The ruling from the appelate court in the NWA-APA case along with the even more outrageous decisions from the Supreme Court should be an awakening to all as to how corrupted the system has become. Its almost pointless to elect legislators because even if they write laws like 1113 and the RLA it only takes a couple of Judges to rewrite the whole intent by issueing a ruling thats taylored to the needs of their corporate masters.
