US Pilots Labor Discussion

[CallawayGolf]

I thought it was a rather creative attempt to find a solution to what ultimately turned out to be an intractable problem. Had it worked, I believe some of you would have moved2clt by now and some of us would not still be commuting2clt.

I f ALPA had the authority to explore an innovative approach, regardless of ALPA's ulterior motives, USAPA should be able to do likewise.

For those who argue it has never been done, I would respond that our mutual predicament is unprecedented.

You know how outgoing presidents, in the last days of their administration, allow pardons to certain individuals? If Cleary had the cooperation and support of the majority of the BPR, and granted the PHX domicile the kind of autonomy I have described (and received a green light from the NMB apparently), it would put the Nic in play again, place Ferguson on the hot seat and constitute perhaps the most constructive, progressive and boldest act that he would have done as president. Remember that Cleary attempted a watered down version of this late last year. No surprise that Ferguson wanted no part of it.

Let's consider what ALPA was free to do and not free to do subsequent to the Nicolau award being issued. ALPA was free to request a meeting with the two MECs to determine if there was any willingness to amend the TA and thus pave the way for a modification of the NIC or possibly a total redo, but only if both MECs and the Company all agreed to modify the TA. Even with full agreement by all three (or seven) parties to the TA, neither ALPA nor Management would be guaranteed to be free from a DFR liability. The risks would be substantially lower than what USAPA faces now, but a DFR might still have negated any post-award agreements.

What ALPA was clearly not free to do was to change ALPA merger policy and have that policy change invalidate the Nicolau award retroactively. That would certainly have pegged ALPA with a DFR and it is just as doubtful that Management would have accepted such a retroactive redo anymore than they have accepted USAPA's attempt at the same.

So, ALPA was free to ask if all parties wanted a redo, knowing that there was some risk involved, but they did not have the authority to force a change to the results of binding arbitration.

IMO the NMB wouldn't touch your proposed solution with a ten foot pole, but that doesn't mean Cleary can't ask. His legacy is one of total failure so adding one more major point of failure won't change much of how he is viewed when he returns to the line.

 

[Move2CLT]

I thought it was a rather creative attempt to find a solution to what ultimately turned out to be an intractable problem. Had it worked, I believe some of you would have moved2clt by now and some of us would not still be commuting2clt.

I f ALPA had the authority to explore an innovative approach, regardless of ALPA's ulterior motives, USAPA should be able to do likewise.

For those who argue it has never been done, I would respond that our mutual predicament is unprecedented.

You know how outgoing presidents, in the last days of their administration, allow pardons to certain individuals? If Cleary had the cooperation and support of the majority of the BPR, and granted the PHX domicile the kind of autonomy I have described (and received a green light from the NMB apparently), it would put the Nic in play again, place Ferguson on the hot seat and constitute perhaps the most constructive, progressive and boldest act that he would have done as president. Remember that Cleary attempted a watered down version of this late last year. No surprise that Ferguson wanted no part of it.

Had it worked KV, we out west would have been screwed. How many times do you have to be told that Wye River went behind mitigating the Nic and was more or less a DOH list.

You have no clue just what exactly your side proposed.

Wye should never have happened. Because Prater was new and such a weak delta, he called for Wye to calm you down.

Wye was never going to produce anything.

 

[prechilill]

Bottom line: Bradford lied and most of the east pilots followed him like lemmings. After USAPA was created and the west MEC went away, there is now only one way out.

 

[USA320Pilot]

Compass Correction Coalition Update( PIC Assessment Audit - Another Witch-Hunt!) February 16, 2012

Fellow Pilots,

Below you will find an Update from Jamie Weidner, PHL Vice Chairman/DDR for Eric Jordan. Jamie recently wrote an update explaining why he voted against yet another audit of the financing for the PIC (Pension Investigation Committee). To date neither USAPA Communications nor PHL Chairman Steve Szpyrka has allowed Weidner's update to reach the Pilots.

At the last PHL Domicile meeting we listened in person to Jamie's explanation of his vote. When he'd finished, not one Pilot in attendance questioned his facts or logic. Predictably, certain Pilots in attendance still told him that he should, “just vote the way the other two PHL reps vote." Blind loyalty to political allies over factual evidence, open debate, and critical thinking is SOP for USAPA these days.

Bill McKee, CLT Chairman / USAPA Presidential Candidate was also in attendance. From his seat of honor at the PHL head table, Bill McKee stated that with $5 million dollars in the bank, if a committee chairman wants an audit, I will give it to him! This is typical of Bill McKee; never think deeply and when frustrated, throw money at the problem.

At any rate, we want to thank Jamie for his perseverance and rational thinking.

Fraternally,

Dave Ciabattoni
PHL AB 320

Eric Rowe
PHL AB 330

_____________

Fellow PHL Pilots,

There seems to be a lot of what I would call misinformation going out to the pilot group these days concerning some of the actions of the BPR. The latest controversy involves the Pension Investigation Committee (PIC). During the PHL Domicile meeting of January 25, 2012, I gave my reasons for voting No on the proposed contract for a forensic audit of the Pension Investigation Committee Fund that was requested by the Co-Chairmen of the PIC. In case you were not able to attend, following is a summary of what I relayed at the meeting.

First a little background information. The Committee is attempting to compute the amount of financial resources they have going forward as the assessment will be ending this summer and they need to make sure they do not spend more than they have coming in. The revenue side is being questioned by the Co-Chairmen as they do not agree with the numbers provided by the Secretary Treasurer. The reason for some of the confusion is the fact that we have a single billing system in place. All of our money goes to one location and is assigned by a priority system to our various accounts. The priority order is USAPA Dues, Medical Assessment, and finally the PIC Assessment. For various reasons the monies coming into the PIC fund change from month to month, i.e. number of contributors change, late payments, medicals, etc..This is perhaps one area where they seem to have problems reconciling their estimated numbers with the Secretary Treasurer’s actual numbers.

The Secretary Treasurer has tried to work with the Committee but is unable to satisfy them as they think they are missing funds. The Secretary Treasurer continues to be willing to work with anyone to help get the matter resolved but no one from the committee is willing to work with him at this point. The Committee has requested the BPR to approve an audit of the fund. However, it should be noted that this is not a regular audit but a forensic audit, one that is much more expensive to perform.

Twenty minutes prior to the January 23 BPR meeting a copy of the proposed Consulting Agreement for a forensic audit was emailed to the BPR to be voted on. Anyone that has been involved in business knows better than to enter into an agreement with only twenty minutes review. Too many times in my short tenure on the BPR, as Eric Jordan’s DDR, I have seen attempts by some to rush the Board into making decisions. Needless to say, the red flag went up for me.

The agreement was to be approved by the BPR to investigate the PIC expenses and income from July 1, 2009 to present under the direction of the USAPA President and the two PIC Co-Chairmen.

The cost of the agreement was $3,500 to begin work for an initial review and preliminary work. Once the initial review was complete the Consultant was to report the expected cost of the full engagement. There was no hourly rate mentioned anywhere in the agreement, it only referred to standard billing rates which could mean anything. We would also be responsible for all reasonable expenses as a result of work performed.

The agreement came up during the Presidents’ report and a motion was made to accept the agreement without any mention as to where the funds would come from to pay for it. Prior board discussions had indicated that the PIC should pay for any audit that they requested, however, it was clear that this was coming out of the general funds. The motion to accept the agreement failed with a vote of 6-5. I voted with the majority and now I will give you the reasons.

First, USAPA has an annual audit performed on all of its funds on an annual basis. In fact this audit is already underway and will be completed in April for FY 2012. The PIC funds will be and have been part of this annual audit that is required by the USAPA CB&L’s. If we were to perform another audit, it would be duplicating work already done.

Second, the BPR has previously approved an audit of all legal billing to the association. If the PIC wants their legal bills audited they don’t need to ask the BPR. They need to ask the President and Secretary Treasurer who control that audit and it will be done. So again, we would be putting our PIC legal billing through a triple audit process if we were to approve this agreement.

Third, this audit would be very expensive. $3,500, or the monthly assessment of 77 pilots, just to find out what it was really going to cost.

Fourth, I believe as do others, that if the PIC wants an audit then it should come out of their funds. Not all of our pilots are included in the assessment, so what would be the justification for them being responsible for expenses related to it. I also believe it to be a waste of money and would prefer my PIC assessment be spent on investigating what happened to my pension and attempting to get more money from the PBGC for our pilots.

And last but not least, an audit deals with financial history only and will not bring in any new money. It will also not help project how much money the committee has to work with going forward. Those numbers will never be more than a best guess, but I see no reason why they should not be able to come up with an estimate within $20,000 of what the total income should be projected to the end of the assessment. Right now after reviewing the fund accounting my preliminary numbers show the fund averaging approximately $105,000/month in income looking back nine months.

So as you can see, my vote was a simple business decision after looking at the facts. When the Secretary Treasurer is willing to work with anyone to resolve an issue, we don’t need to start another witch hunt. I personally volunteered to work with the Secretary Treasurer and a member of the PIC to get this resolved but my offer was turned down by one of the Co-Chairmen. So one has to wonder, what is the real motive at play in requesting an audit?

I hope this leaves you with a better understanding of what occurred concerning the Pension Investigation Committee audit request. And you should also know that they are trying to bring it back to the BPR for reconsideration.

Respectfully,

Jamie A. Weidner

PHL Vice Chair DDR

Jweidner@usairlinepilot.org

PHL@usairlinepilots.org

 

[lynyrdskynyrd]

I thought it was a rather creative attempt to find a solution to what ultimately turned out to be an intractable problem. Had it worked, I believe some of you would have moved2clt by now and some of us would not still be commuting2clt.

I disagree that it was creative. Creative would have been continuing in JNC in earnest, and seeing what it would take to A) get a TA out, and B] get a TA ratified. With the seperate ratification, the process would have eventually resulted in something that would have worked for all of us.

By pulling out of JNC in an attempt to maintain a leveraged position, the east simply poisoned the process. It's not rocket science. It was not creative on alpa or Prater's part to sanction that by placing the onus on the west to get the process back on track, while under duress. It wasn't creative, and it wasn't right.

Alpa and Prater should have proclaimed that we were equal parties, and we are standing down and no one is doing anything until you get your asses back into JNC.

 

[Pi brat]

I disagree that it was creative. Creative would have been continuing in JNC in earnest, and seeing what it would take to A) get a TA out, and B) get a TA ratified. With the seperate ratification, the process would have eventually resulted in something that would have worked for all of us.

By pulling out of JNC in an attempt to maintain a leveraged position, the east simply poisoned the process. It's not rocket science. It was not creative on alpa or Prater's part to sanction that by placing the onus on the west to get the process back on track, while under duress. It wasn't creative, and it wasn't right.

Alpa and Prater should have proclaimed that we were equal parties, and we are standing down and no one is doing anything until you get your asses back into JNC.

I agree about the JNC. I thought then that it was a huge mistake and told my reps. They were smarter than those of us that disagreed.........

As far as the rest of the ALPA national actions go I thought that Prater had good intentions, he thought this was going to lead to where it has and was trying to avoid it. I just think he was in over his head and made a lot of missteps. It probably cost him his ALPA job, because he ended up pissing everyone off.

 

[Move2CLT]

I agree about the JNC. I thought then that it was a huge mistake and told my reps. They were smarter than those of us that disagreed.........

As far as the rest of the ALPA national actions go I thought that Prater had good intentions, he thought this was going to lead to where it has and was trying to avoid it. I just think he was in over his head and made a lot of missteps. It probably cost him his ALPA job, because he ended up pissing everyone off.

He did misstep. And not because he had good intentions, but because he was a coward and weak.

I spoke with Duane Woerth after all this went down and asked him what he would have done I'd he we're still in office. His reply was "nothing.". The list would have gone in and thats would have been that. Trying to mollycoddle the east with committees and meetings would have done nothing to keep the east from leaving ALPA if they wanted to. Prater gave you guys the momentum you needed to barely vote USAPA onto the property.

He tried so hard to keep from losing you that he actually helped you leave. How ironic.

 

[Piedmont1984]

Fine....I'm taking my idea back down the flagpole. But I claim royalties if someone else uses it - and it ends up working.

A vote for Ferguson/Koontz is a vote to capitulate on the Nic before Judge Silver has even answered the legal question before her court.

A vote for Hummel/Bradford is a vote to stay the course, wait and see what the DJ reveals, and then decide how to proceed on the basis of heavy pilot polling (see the latest Hummel/Bradford blog).

Bill McKee is a good pilot advocate and needs to remain in his position serving the pilots in CLT.

I believe that either team, aside from their differences on the SLI dispute, would do a good job of leading the union, building consensus on other issues and repairing the union's broken relationship with LCC management.

I think the more mature team is the better choice 🙂

 

[Pi brat]

He did misstep. And not because he had good intentions, but because he was a coward and weak.

I spoke with Duane Woerth after all this went down and asked him what he would have done I'd he we're still in office. His reply was "nothing.". The list would have gone in and thats would have been that. Trying to mollycoddle the east with committees and meetings would have done nothing to keep the east from leaving ALPA if they wanted to. Prater gave you guys the momentum you needed to barely vote USAPA onto the property.

He tried so hard to keep from losing you that he actually helped you leave. How ironic.

You say he was a coward and weak because he didn't tell you what you wanted to hear. I say he had good intentions because I took the time to listen to why he didn't tell me what I wanted to hear.

I think all your conversation shows is that Woerth was a better politician than Prater.

 

[CallawayGolf]

<snip>
A vote for Ferguson/Koontz is a vote to capitulate on the Nic before Judge Silver has even answered the legal question before her court.
<snip>

Another way of saying "capitulate" would be to say "Honor our agreements, accept the consequences for not negotiating a solution before the binding arbitration phase, and to move the process towards a long-overdue conclusion." Do you call it capitulation when you pay your mortgage each month just as you previously agree to?

 

[Move2CLT]

You say he was a coward and weak because he didn't tell you what you wanted to hear. I say he had good intentions because I took the time to listen to why he didn't tell me what I wanted to hear.

I think all your conversation shows is that Woerth was a better politician than Prater.

No Pi, it wasn't because he didn't say what I wanted to hear. Nice job trying to put words into my mouth. Help him here Jim.

Prater was weak because he didnt't follow the union's own rules. The rules that he, as President, was supposed to enforce.

The steps were followed, the company accepted the list, and the list goes in.

His intentions were political. Nothing more and nothing less.

Wow, I thought you a bit less naive. Perception adjusted.

 

[Piedmont1984]

Another way of saying "capitulate" would be to say "Honor our agreements, accept the consequences for not negotiating a solution before the binding arbitration phase, and to move the process towards a long-overdue conclusion." Do you call it capitulation when you pay your mortgage each month just as you previously agree to?

Don't neglect the final step in the process - ratification. In today's environment, many speculate the Nic would pass. But I'm sure even you would concede that 4/5 years ago, with what Kirby offered, it would not have and so the process was destined to stall.

 

[Move2CLT]

It may have passed 4-5 years ago as well.

 

[lynyrdskynyrd]

FWIW, if you type a capital B, followed by a rounded paranthesis bracket, the web board server thinks you wanted a wink with sunglasses similie.

 

[CallawayGolf]

Don't neglect the final step in the process - ratification. In today's environment, many speculate the Nic would pass. But I'm sure even you would concede that 4/5 years ago, with what Kirby offered, it would not have and so the process was destined to stall.

I will certainly concede that I have no idea what would have happened 4-5 years ago with a NIC+Kirby. I also don't know if S22 wasn't being contested what better offers than Kirby ALPA or USAPA might have been able to negotiate with a more unified group of pilots back in 2007/8.

What there should be no doubt about, however, is that NIC+Kirby ratified in 2008 would have translated to several hundred million more in pilot paychecks than LOA93/C2004 from 2008-2011/12. The pilots could be gearing up for the second negotiated contract by now rather than still sitting at the starting line for the first JCBA with an injunction and no leverage to realistically demand more than the Kirby proposal in 2012.

What is your best guess on 1) retroactive pay for east pilot parity from 4Q2005 till now, and/or 2) USAPA negotiating pay rates better today than Kirby if Silver removes all doubt about the union and company's responsibility regarding S22? My guess is that a snowball would have a better shot sitting on the tarmac in PHX in mid-July than USAPA (under east control) has of getting anyone a better contract, especially one that contains a retroactive pay component for the east.