Thanks for that response. The tone is much more conversational which I appreciate. Hopefully I can return the same kind of tone/sentiment back.
Seems to me, based only on your posts rather than knowing you personally, that you fall into the optimistic category of problem solving whereas I certainly fall into the realistic category. Where you see a chance for mitigation and reconciliation, I see near-certain failure based on the RLA and the level of distrust and vitriol that has gone back and forth for nearly seven years.
To me, the NIC has less than a 1% chance of being overturned or re-written (arbitrary percentage, but based on my best understanding of the law). As long a a judge can interpret and establish policy from the bench, then anything can happen in a courtroom, but by and large judges still adhere to the federal code far more than they deviate from it, especially in something so black and white as a collective bargaining agreement (TA) and the successor union's rights and responsibilities to the same. So absent an activist, agenda-driven liberal judge or judges, the only way for the NIC to be changed now would be for Congress to pass a bill that specifically allows USAPA to freely negotiate despite the provisions of the TA and the DFR statutes. So, whatever Congress does, it would have to permit the TA signed in 2005 to be subject to the new law in 2012(?) which is no small challenge all on its own. I suppose the DFR statutes could be modified going forward, but again that seems highly unlikely that a majority of 535 representatives would care enough about US pilots to pass such a provision.
On the mitigation front, that certainly has more of a chance, but would enough east pilots recognize the value of those mitigation benefits to get over their hatred for the NIC? Conversely, would enough west pilots, after all the east pilots have done or tried to do to them, be willing to accept the mitigations that greatly benefit the east with little or no direct or current benefit to the majority of the west? That too seems unrealistic given the fact that many west pilots don't view the NIC as being unfair to the east at all. So if the west believe NIC split the pie as near to center as he could (or perhaps even a bit more going east than west), then what could possibly compel a majority of west pilots to accept the financial sections of the JCBA to be split even more in the east's favor than what any standard (non-mitigation) contract would already do given the pay scale disparity between east and west that will have to be made up predominately to the east just to get everyone to parity. Those are some very big pills to swallow for the west given the fact that some of the east have treated the west like criminals or with complete disdain for something the west really had very little to do with (construction of the NIC and entering into binding arbitration).
Given the circumstances, I don't see much success or optimism for brokering a new fair and equitable solution with this group. To me the most likely outcome is that Silver rules on Count 1, the NMB compels USAPA to return to the table in good faith to get a TA out to the pilots. There is a chance that a TA with the NIC will pass, but if it doesn't or if USAPA fails to produce a TA through negotiations, then the self-help will eventually be enacted and Management will give everyone the NIC+Kirby that could have or should have been put in place in 2007. That's a long and arduous road to get right back to where this whole thing started, but no one ever said this process involved rational thinking people. Anyway, that's my position as a realist rather than an optimist.
