With the rumored UAL merger, who do you think ALPA will be protecting? ALPA may pay for UAL, but under McCaskill-Bond, they cant meddle or stall presenting the arbitration award to the company. The only merger under M-B (two different unions) was East-West ground handlers. That one went straight DOH. Not our deal and Im not trying to resurrect the current NIC debate. The courts will decide that. Weve already seen ALPA merger policy in action and Idont think East or West wants to deal with it on the next merger.
Assuming there is a next merger the seniority integration will go one of two ways; 1. If ALPA is back - ALPA merger policy - negotiations ending in arbitration or 2. Negotiations between the two unions leading to an arbitration (the bottom line of the new law).
Therefore, I see little difference in the next merger between ALPA/ALPA and ALPA/USAPA.
With Ex-ALPA President Babbitt heading the FAA, maybe inexperienced Colgan crews wont be killing passengers. Without decent career pay, you end up with low quality/low hour JuCo graduates flying the public around under the guise of being mainline. Anyone who read the NMBs prelim on the Buffalo crash knows how that accident happened. BTW, good points, civil debate. El Snoopo
It's easy to be civil when we all agree with each other.
The Nicolau award is the rock upon which our marriage may founder. We are going to have to find a way to deal with each other if we ever want to get out from under our current contracts.
(BTW: I am not a bling guy. Though I do donate to AOL I never wore a lanyard and no stickers adorn my flight bags. I never believed that kind of crap had any upside.)
At the moment I am not concerned because in this economic environment I don't see us getting anything in a new contract unless we are willing to fund it ourselves. (I am worried about how much USAPA negotiators might be willing to give away in an attempt to gain C&Rs that mitigate the seniority list.)
With respect to that toxic topic I will say this; I do think the widebody flying associated with the fleet that was present at the PID should have been reserved for east pilots. The problem is that the time for reaching agreement was prior to arbitration. All that we on the west heard during "negotiations" was DOH ad infinitum.
Easters always cite the fact that west pilots were not horrified by the Nic award as proof of a windfall. It all comes down to expectations. Speaking for myself, I was braced for a DOH award. Though I did not think it the most likely list our merger committee was very upfront that it certainly was a possibility and that we had better be prepared for such an outcome.
The primary difference is that it appears east pilots had only one expectation and that was for a DOH award. Bad surprises are never pleasant.
