US Pilots' Labor Discussion 11/17-11/30..ALL Pilot Labor Issues Discussed HERE

[HPDriver]

Are you suggesting that there are labor agreements which would survive the decertified bargaining agent that created them? Who would the company or the courts consider the other party?

Labor agreements? Please. We'd be "at-will" employees subject to whatever work rules the company decides on.

And if you think Parker would continue separate ops, you're naive. He's got a list in his desk and he'd use it to put the pilot group together.

They're not in the seniority list business. They've publicly stated the Nic list is it and they'd use it.

 

[Reed Richards]

No doubt a system would be required for crew & equipment scheduling. The binding arbitration NIC award addressing pilot seniority however would be unenforceable on any party which makes my original statement correct.

The role of management would be to determine how to best implement an equipment assignment and crew resources model that functions properly while not undermining the trust placed in them by their unrepresented employees.

Callaway, your approach is unique, but I don't think you understand. What do you mean "unenforceable?" With a union, the seniority lives only in the contract. The very existence of said union perpetuates it. When management runs the show, with no union on the property, they indeed ......run the show, and create/and or change the list at will. I can only guess Nic would be the list de jour. Who knows. I have not figured out what makes this management tick. With no union, there is no enforcement, simply implementation.

As to the idea of no union on the property, and I realize this is not possible in an Agency Shop..all I can say is... you first!

RR

 

[HPDriver]

Authored by another former America West employee. Shocking!

That's irrelevant.

It was a pretty stupid press release.

 

[CallawayGolf]

Callaway, your approach is unique, but I don't think you understand. What do you mean "unenforceable?" With a union, the seniority lives only in the contract. The very existence of said union perpetuates it. When management runs the show, with no union on the property, they indeed ......run the show, and create/and or change the list at will. I can only guess Nic would be the list de jour. Who knows. I have not figured out what makes this management tick. With no union, there is no enforcement, simply implementation.

As to the idea of no union on the property, and I realize this is not possible in an Agency Shop..all I can say is... you first!

RR

A union shop requires employees to join the union on property; it does not force a union to be on property if the majority of employees chose to be unrepresented.

Management may very well use the NIC and they almost certainly wouldn't implement a straight DOH system. However, I don't believe the NIC would be the list as-is. Doing so would entice the majority to re-form/re-join a union which would not be in the best interest of the company or it's employees. I strongly suspect that management would lean more towards a system that would be palatable to the east since they hold the majority of representational votes.

 

[lynyrdskynyrd]

There's another crew news in Clt tomorrow. Is Cleary gonna go make another attempt to show up Parker, fresh on the heels of usapa's latest cork gun shot?

 

[Reed Richards]

A union shop requires employees to join the union on property; it does not force a union to be on property if the majority of employees chose to be unrepresented.

Management may very well use the NIC and they almost certainly wouldn't implement a straight DOH system. However, I don't believe the NIC would be the list as-is. Doing so would entice the majority to re-form/re-join a union which would not be in the best interest of the company or it's employees. I strongly suspect that management would lean more towards a system that would be palatable to the east since they hold the majority of representational votes.

My "you first" was tongue in cheek..thus the reference to agency shop. Of course a single pilot cannot opt out in the current situation. But you bring up an interesting, yet strangely familiar situation. In our case it was the previous bargaining agent, and not the company, that brought on itself the ire of the East pilots. They ended up choosing to replace the current bargaining agent (ALPA), which I find no different than going from "no" union a new union.

And here we are, waiting to see if the bargaining agent chosen by the majority of pilots has the ability to implement a pilot list based on the gold standard of labor law in this country.

Just a side note, the easiest way to get rid of a union on the property is to collect enough cards for an election, and then have less than half of the eligible voters participate. Don't know how long that will remain true, as it appears the rules are about to change..with the NMB soon only using the total number of votes to decide an election, rather than eligible voters.

RR

 

[HPDriver]

A union shop requires employees to join the union on property; it does not force a union to be on property if the majority of employees chose to be unrepresented.

Management may very well use the NIC and they almost certainly wouldn't implement a straight DOH system. However, I don't believe the NIC would be the list as-is. Doing so would entice the majority to re-form/re-join a union which would not be in the best interest of the company or it's employees. I strongly suspect that management would lean more towards a system that would be palatable to the east since they hold the majority of representational votes.

They would implement the list as is. As I've posted before, they've got a list and have no need to shuffle it. Its backed by the Federal govt and messing with it would open up a can of worms that they don't want to deal with.

Its easier to implement the Nic.

And what would putting another union on property do regarding the list? Nothing, because the list would already be in place.

Just accept it, the Nic is never going away. Just a matter of when, not if.

 

[Phoenix]

Interesting. The founders were continuously skewered by the west here for the entire time they held office. Now, suddenly, what the founders think is so very important to the west.

It's mathematically impossible for USAPA to bat a thousand in "shooting itself in the foot." They've been very successful on a few counts (block hours grievance, fuel school fiasco, just to name two.) Once there has been at least one success, the "batting average" cannot be 1.000 (now matter how you cut it.)

The founders are each and everyone that voted "yes". Don't the ALPA lifers remember the ALPA mantra, "You are the union. Quit bitxhing.", when they were ignoring the members. Now that ALPA learned it was true, the minority want to inflate their own opinion by ascribing it to some "founder status", as if founders are bigger. Yet they fail to see that the "founders"(if you must single some out) believed that each pilot gets only one vote. It was ALPA that believed in inflated authority that wasn't subject to voters. The "founders" which they now attempt to invoke for special authority are the very ones who opposed such attempts, and quite successfully so.

 

[BLT]

Is it possible to have "no union" as a choice on the ballot, or do you submit your ballot with no choices selected. I don't know how it works. Surely there is a way to say I don't want a union, as there certainly is no requirement to have one.

As to the seniority issue. If the bargaining agents disappear then I would think that so do the prior agreements. You would have no contracts, no TA, and no Nic. I say hand it to management and let them do with it what they will. I would think they would find some middle ground to make all the pilots upset. It is blatantly obvious that we have failed to achieve a combined seniority list with the help of our unions, and never will. Both sides maintain their point of view as correct . Both sides have their heels dug in and won't budge. It is a no win situation. I would like to stop enriching the lawyers and emptying my pockets for this futility. Not to mention an immediate 1.95% pay raise.

Companies will go to great lengths to keep their employees from organizing. What would they do if we chose to disorganize. I don't see that we have much to lose.

Another poster said "For many years USAir and Piedmont had some of the highest wages and benefits in the industry. Take any industry leading contract today, and whether the union is in-house or national, you must give credit to the union - not the benevolence of management."

If unions were responsible for the glorious past then who is to blame for the present. I'm afraid you can't take a small sample of good years and say unions are great.

Unions take more than their fair share in the good times and they give more than their fair share in the bad. I would rather have an industry average wage that rose and fell with a much smaller degree than the shoot for the moon, lets go on strike and take all we can get and then give it all back plus some with interest and all my integrity too option.

Someone else said to ask the non-union 30 year LGA base manager how he feels. 30 years? Nobody has a job for 30 years these days. That guy is luckier than I think I will ever be. 30 years of continuous employment. Do any of us know how that would feel? And I would hope that after 30 years you might just have enough stashed away to either retire or at least buy you a hell of a lot of time to figure out what else to do. Most of us watch our savings go up and then disappear with a furlough or bankruptcy every few years.

Unions used to be about forcing companies to do sensible things like not kill their employees with dangerous work or lack of protections. It used to be about forcing companies not to abuse their employees. Well most of this is covered by federal law now. So where does that leave the modern day union? What is its true purpose? To extract as much money from the company as possible for those it represents. A job it fails miserably at. Not to mention that its a job that our current union is not even focused on. We currently have the worst pay by far. A320 pilots on the east make a couple bucks more than pilots flying rj's at Horizon. The work rules are atrocious. The west work rules are better, but the pay is seriously behind the average.

Unions cannot be applauded for the good times and they can't be blamed for the bad. I honestly can't think of a single improvement in my airline career that I can thank my union for. Can you? What are we paying for? We seem to be buying cars and hotel rooms and meals and stipends and lawyers and videos and stickers and badge backers and turkeys so some guys and gals who think they are actually doing something can continue this exercise in futility. What kind of fools are we to support this? Why do we wear those badge backers? Why do we put that dumb sticker on the jetway or the crew room door or your flight kit?

We have put our faith and hopes into an institution which is no longer relevant in our industry. An institution which is completely powerless to improve our careers, save our jobs, define what seniority means or protect our pensions.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Is it possible to have "no union" as a choice on the ballot, or do you submit your ballot with no choices selected. I don't know how it works. Surely there is a way to say I don't want a union, as there certainly is no requirement to have one.

Under current NMB rules, it is impossible to decertify a union because there is no official mechanism to do so - and that is straight from the NMB.

If a union is already representing an employee group there is an unofficial workaround. Another organization or individual indicates their desire to become the bargaining agent by submitting an "Application for Investigation of Representational Dispute" along with a sufficient number of authorization cards signed by members of the employee group (which is what USAPA did to have an election and replace ALPA). If the new organization or individual wins the election, they can then voluntarily surrender their authority to represent the employee group and the group becomes unrepresented. In other words, a "strawman" opponent to the incumbent union is used to get a representational election and if the "strawman" wins it relinquished it's role as CBA.

Jim

 

[Metroyet]

And here we are, waiting to see if the bargaining agent chosen by the majority of pilots has the ability to implement a pilot list based on the gold standard of labor law in this country.


RR

Do you realize that the magical "Gold Standard" doesn't exist? Do you know that phrase was made up by Lee Seham....A guy who already has a problem with the truth?

 

[john john]

Does anyone else think unions are worthless, I think that soon we will be able to vote for a new union. I vote for no union.

Just ask the agents of HP what Parker pay them before they came in under USAirways agent’s union contract. The agents of US had to take a strike vote and negotiate and bargain with management just not to be lowered to HP bottom of the industry agent pay. Thank God we had a union or agents would be making $10.00 an hour and work rules of Wal-Mart



**********And a thanks to the union of CWA the agents of USAirway will get a 4% increases in pay on 1/1/2010************

 

[john john]

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[john john]

Contrary to popular organized labor thinking, corporations will go to great lengths to ensure that unrepresented employees are treated better than they could hope for if they were organized. In my experience the company will take every rational step (bend over backwards) to ensure that the employees are more satisfied with being unrepresented than they would be if they were collectively represented and under contract. As such, an unrepresented group should have every reasonable expectation that they would receive:
o Higher lifetime pay than a represented group would receive
o Better work rules (vacations, sick time, etc.)
o A more rational method of recognizing individual contribution

Think of it this way:

If you are original HP you need a history lesson on your airline and management bottom of the industry pay and work rules of HP

 

[john john]

Under current NMB rules, - Jim

What happens if 50%+1 don’t vote at all?