East and West – R.I.P.
Thanks to those pilots on the East who have taken the time to email their thoughts and ideas as to how we can end this seniority dispute. First off, we agree that the dispute is harming all of us. There is only one clear winner in this and that is Doug Parker, who continues to harvest hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the East/West strife. Eric Ferguson and I have had enough. Therefore, we built our entire campaign around a platform that will break the impasses between East and West thereby paving the way for a much needed joint contract. Here are the facts.
USAPA was formed in the summer of 2007 with the express purpose of avoiding the Nicolau Arbitration and instead integrating the East and West via DOH. Meanwhile, ALPA’s approach was to facilitate a solution to the East’s objections to the Nicolau through discussions between the separate East and West bargaining agent representatives. What resulted was a competition between ALPA’s plan and USAPA’s “DOH cram-down” plan. As the months wore on, the USAPA plan seemed to hold sway with more and more on the East, which is not surprising given how the plan was being sold by its supporters. The founding legal counsel trumpeted again and again that the law clearly allowed for the majority to force its will onto the minority. It seemed that all the East had to do was to make USAPA the bargaining agent and leave the rest up to Lee Seham. In the confident pronouncement of Scott Theuer, “USAPA doesn’t need a plan B.” What the founders of USAPA didn’t tell you was that they didn’t need a plan B was because they were taking the USAirways pilot groups down a dead-end road with no alternatives.
To cram down DOH on the West, USAPA had to get rid of the separate ratification provision of the Transition Agreement. They could have done that in two ways: (1) propose an amendment to the T/A which eliminated separate ratification and have all parties – East, West, USAPA and the company – sign off; or (2) just eliminate the bargaining agent distinction between East and West which would then eviscerate the separate ratification provision. Choice (1) obviously would have never passed on the West, so USAPA went with (2).
Almost five years later, we now fully feel the effects of that fateful decision. Here is another fact the founders of USAPA never told you – by eliminating separate East and West bargaining agents, USAPA – unlike ALPA – would never be able to negotiate a compromise solution as between East and West. The reason is found in none other than the Rakestraw v. United Airlines decision. Rakestraw was a consolidation of two cases, one being the “539” suit against United and ALPA and the other was a DFR case filed by the Ozark pilots against ALPA. What is relevant in this discussion is the principal fact cited by the 7th Circuit to uphold the dismissal of the Ozark pilots’ case; the Ozark pilots themselves approved by a majority vote the Wraparound Agreement (their name for our Transition Agreement ):
“All of the Ozark pilots’ remaining contentions, variously expressed in terms of the Railway Labor Act, the LMRDA, and the wraparound agreement, founder on their own vote in favor of the merger and the ensuing new collective bargaining agreement. ALPA did not give the consent required by the wraparound agreement until Ozark’s pilots voted in favor of the merger with dovetailed seniority lists.”
We mentioned in a previous blog that it was Lee Seham who filed the application with the National Mediation Board to have the US Airways and America West pilot groups recognized as a Single Transportation System by the NMB. (See 35 NMB 20, 2008.) The company supported the application but ALPA opposed it:
“ALPA asks the Board to undertake a ‘complete analysis of all relevant factors, including the state of operational pilot integration, before making a final determination as to single carrier status’.” 35 NMB 20 at 67.
Think for a moment why ALPA was opposing the application yet USAPA was vying for Single Transportation System (STS) status. In the context of what was happening in the Fall and Winter of 2007, it is easy to see why ALPA and USAPA had divergent views on the matter. USAPA needed STS to eliminate the separate ratification provision of the T/A. ALPA on the other hand, knew that the only path to a negotiated solution would be through separate MECs; what spared ALPA from a DFR from the Ozark pilots was the fact that the Ozark pilots had their own MEC and voted as a separate bargaining unit.
Separate bargaining units provide a buffer between an act and the national union. Any deal on seniority is nothing more than USAPA dealing with itself; there would be zero buffer between the act and the union. By eliminating separate East and West bargaining units, and thus separate ratification, the founders of USAPA effectively strapped a DFR bomb to the chest of the union. ALPA had separate TWA and Ozark MECs for this reason, and it worked for ALPA in defending against the Ozark DFR. Clearly, ALPA was drawing from their experience when they argued to the NMB for keeping East and West as separate units, otherwise there could never be a compromise. This, fellow pilots, is precisely why nobody wants to get close to USAPA – not the Teamsters, not ALPA and definitely not the company. Nobody is going to come anywhere close to the DFR blast radius. This is why there is no “plan B.” Ruminations about what could have been a compromise are nothing more than whispers from the grave. East and West no longer exist.
We are now down to two options: Nicolau and an industry-leading contract, or non-Nicolau and status quo. Eric and I vote for an industry-leading contract containing the Nicolau. What about you?
Sincerely.
Eric and Jeff
Thanks to those pilots on the East who have taken the time to email their thoughts and ideas as to how we can end this seniority dispute. First off, we agree that the dispute is harming all of us. There is only one clear winner in this and that is Doug Parker, who continues to harvest hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the East/West strife. Eric Ferguson and I have had enough. Therefore, we built our entire campaign around a platform that will break the impasses between East and West thereby paving the way for a much needed joint contract. Here are the facts.
USAPA was formed in the summer of 2007 with the express purpose of avoiding the Nicolau Arbitration and instead integrating the East and West via DOH. Meanwhile, ALPA’s approach was to facilitate a solution to the East’s objections to the Nicolau through discussions between the separate East and West bargaining agent representatives. What resulted was a competition between ALPA’s plan and USAPA’s “DOH cram-down” plan. As the months wore on, the USAPA plan seemed to hold sway with more and more on the East, which is not surprising given how the plan was being sold by its supporters. The founding legal counsel trumpeted again and again that the law clearly allowed for the majority to force its will onto the minority. It seemed that all the East had to do was to make USAPA the bargaining agent and leave the rest up to Lee Seham. In the confident pronouncement of Scott Theuer, “USAPA doesn’t need a plan B.” What the founders of USAPA didn’t tell you was that they didn’t need a plan B was because they were taking the USAirways pilot groups down a dead-end road with no alternatives.
To cram down DOH on the West, USAPA had to get rid of the separate ratification provision of the Transition Agreement. They could have done that in two ways: (1) propose an amendment to the T/A which eliminated separate ratification and have all parties – East, West, USAPA and the company – sign off; or (2) just eliminate the bargaining agent distinction between East and West which would then eviscerate the separate ratification provision. Choice (1) obviously would have never passed on the West, so USAPA went with (2).
Almost five years later, we now fully feel the effects of that fateful decision. Here is another fact the founders of USAPA never told you – by eliminating separate East and West bargaining agents, USAPA – unlike ALPA – would never be able to negotiate a compromise solution as between East and West. The reason is found in none other than the Rakestraw v. United Airlines decision. Rakestraw was a consolidation of two cases, one being the “539” suit against United and ALPA and the other was a DFR case filed by the Ozark pilots against ALPA. What is relevant in this discussion is the principal fact cited by the 7th Circuit to uphold the dismissal of the Ozark pilots’ case; the Ozark pilots themselves approved by a majority vote the Wraparound Agreement (their name for our Transition Agreement ):
“All of the Ozark pilots’ remaining contentions, variously expressed in terms of the Railway Labor Act, the LMRDA, and the wraparound agreement, founder on their own vote in favor of the merger and the ensuing new collective bargaining agreement. ALPA did not give the consent required by the wraparound agreement until Ozark’s pilots voted in favor of the merger with dovetailed seniority lists.”
We mentioned in a previous blog that it was Lee Seham who filed the application with the National Mediation Board to have the US Airways and America West pilot groups recognized as a Single Transportation System by the NMB. (See 35 NMB 20, 2008.) The company supported the application but ALPA opposed it:
“ALPA asks the Board to undertake a ‘complete analysis of all relevant factors, including the state of operational pilot integration, before making a final determination as to single carrier status’.” 35 NMB 20 at 67.
Think for a moment why ALPA was opposing the application yet USAPA was vying for Single Transportation System (STS) status. In the context of what was happening in the Fall and Winter of 2007, it is easy to see why ALPA and USAPA had divergent views on the matter. USAPA needed STS to eliminate the separate ratification provision of the T/A. ALPA on the other hand, knew that the only path to a negotiated solution would be through separate MECs; what spared ALPA from a DFR from the Ozark pilots was the fact that the Ozark pilots had their own MEC and voted as a separate bargaining unit.
Separate bargaining units provide a buffer between an act and the national union. Any deal on seniority is nothing more than USAPA dealing with itself; there would be zero buffer between the act and the union. By eliminating separate East and West bargaining units, and thus separate ratification, the founders of USAPA effectively strapped a DFR bomb to the chest of the union. ALPA had separate TWA and Ozark MECs for this reason, and it worked for ALPA in defending against the Ozark DFR. Clearly, ALPA was drawing from their experience when they argued to the NMB for keeping East and West as separate units, otherwise there could never be a compromise. This, fellow pilots, is precisely why nobody wants to get close to USAPA – not the Teamsters, not ALPA and definitely not the company. Nobody is going to come anywhere close to the DFR blast radius. This is why there is no “plan B.” Ruminations about what could have been a compromise are nothing more than whispers from the grave. East and West no longer exist.
We are now down to two options: Nicolau and an industry-leading contract, or non-Nicolau and status quo. Eric and I vote for an industry-leading contract containing the Nicolau. What about you?
Sincerely.
Eric and Jeff
