Light Years, that was exactly it. Thanks! And you're right: any more detail is just academic unless we're bidding schedules together.
Sorry, guys, I guess it was insensitive of me to just ask without saying why I was looking. I'm a UAL flight attendant. On voluntary furlough myself. You're exactly right about my question being seniority list integration, though I'm not exactly siffing for road kill or anything. The whole question of merger or whatever is out of all our hands; all we can do is watch and wait and worry.
I have two reasons for looking into the possible results of an integration of the lists. First, no two people I listen to at UAL have the same picture of USAir seniority, though many of the guesses are sensational (the real number here are not as alarming as some Chicken Littles are advertising). And AFA is pretty worthless when it comes to information like that.
Second, the United F/A's are in the process of switching from AFA-CWA to a new independent union, the United Flight Attendant Union (UFAU). As you well know, were there to be a merger of the lists under AFA-CWA, then it would be a straight Date-of-Hire (DOH) integration.
Under UFAU, on the other hand, it would be negotiated between the two groups. If no consensual agreement were reached, it would go to arbitration. Historically, arbitrators have held to precedent in cases of seniority. Our precedent at UAL was a 1:5 slotting when UAL bought Pan Am's Pacific routes wet (bought the routes, equipment, and employees). Looks like a negotiated UAL:USAir integration might be closer to 2:1. I think the general idea is that if you were in the 74th percentile on your former list, then you would be slotted in at roughly the 74th percentile on the new list, maintining the relative seniority of each F/A from both lists. Furlough status should not matter in an integration, and would likely be started over with the merged list. Looks like you guys would be in pretty good shape either way.
It may be refreshing to know that most UAL F/A's find AA's slotting TWA F/A's at the bottom of their list to be disgusting and unethical. (It's also impossible at UAL under either union.) The F/A's have no control over who buys or merges with whom. The employees of the acquired airline didn't try to destroy their company any more than those of the buying airline. (Our mechanics may be a notable exception. Okay, our pilots, too. Let's be safe and just stick with F/A's.) Most UAL F/A's believe that in a merger it's a coin-toss which side of the deal we would be on. Our Pac-Day (Pan Am acquisition) merger was so contentious that deep, painful rifts among us lasted over a decade. We are now over that, but we remember how destructive that was and will generally avoid weakening ourselves that way again. We realize now that hurt feelings over perceived shoulda, coulda, woulda seniority were nothing campared to the tangible weakness the resultant mistrust and animosity caused us at the negotiating table.
Please don't think you guys are alone in holding your breath waiting to see what happens next. None of us are in any substantially different boat, except maybe at Jet Blue or SWA.
(PS- Light years: You used "USAir" yourself! I already have to play nurse, nanny, psychiatrist, blahblahblah, do I really have to pronounce all my syllables, too? Even if I should, I don't wanna.)
Hey, jim,
How's things at AA? Do I understand correctly that there are rumblings of switching from APFA?
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