US Pilots Thread for the week 9/14-9/21.

[ableoneable]

OK..that's the supposed "meat"? Fair enough then.

"The east ALPA unit signed an agreement and walked away from said agreement. You cheer their decision." I don't care in the slightest what Alpa did there, or ever does anywhere else...Is that much at all clear? If you've taken time to "listen"..rather than idiotically pretend to know what my thoughts were/are...you would know that.

If I am wrong here I will apologise but I have seen no evidence to support your position here.

Where is it, specifically, that you disagree with the former east ALPA positions with respect to the seniority negotiations leading up to the arbitration. It must be your continued defense of DOH/LOS as the only fair way to integrate that has me confused. Was not this the same position as the east APLA unit, where is it that you disagreed with their position?

"I asked;
"Individual intititive should mean nothing. If you decided to take a chance and go to JetBlue and are number ten on the list and we merge with you, too bad, DOH at JetBlue is the only acceptable measure of your value. Still waiting."

Yes. DOH and time worked is just exactly that. I gave up time worked when resigning from a previous company, and do not believe myself entitled to such as a result. A true, national seniority list, predicated on honest union principles, would be much to be desired, but hasn't been, nor likely will be established. With that said; I expect any and all to keep their time worked, whenever any merger/combination occurs. Personal initiative's one thing. uncontrolled events are another.

So to clarify, you do believe that should a legacy carrier merge with someone like JetBlue their number one pilot should go on the combined list where his/her eight years of LOS puts him regardless of what that seniority can hold.

This is because said pilot's initiative in going to work for JetBlue, and perhaps even materialy contributing to it's success, is insignificant when measured against your twenty two years of marking time at FailureAirlines.

If I have misunderstood please clarify.

"Your response: More ranting that this is just the west saying that the are "special" Can't much help that...you folks make such an exceptionally vocal case for just exactly that 😉 the only other possible, slight variantions are: "We saved you!!"..and/or "We won the lottery!!" 😉 Pretty much the same BS, regardless of how you wish to flavor it....

I don't recall feeling I had won the lottery when the merger with USAir was announced as much as I felt the weight of the albatross strapped to my ass. I don't recall any poster here thus characterizing it that way either.

"West pilots don't think we are special but we are not going to pay for your misfortune." Part one = Total BS. Part two = No one's asking you to do so. You're the one's seeking to take east work, not the reverse.

Ah the blatant hypocrisy! Currently west pilots who had jobs before the merger are slated for furlough and east pilots who were on the street with absolutely no chance of recall are employed.

This is precisely the scenario that the east pilot group has wished to perpetuate from the beginning with their DOH/LOS land grab.

Not only does the east wish to steal jobs they have already begun to do so.

BTW Notice how I address all of your points and not just one out of six. Still waiting to hear from you on the rest.

 

[EastUS]

If I am wrong here I will apologise but I have seen no evidence to support your
.

"Where is it, specifically, that you disagree with the former east ALPA positions with respect to the seniority negotiations leading up to the arbitration. It must be your continued defense of DOH/LOS as the only fair way to integrate that has me confused. Was not this the same position as the east APLA unit, where is it that you disagreed with their position?" Can't say for certain, as I wasn't there, and I've heard far too many variations from both sides as to what supposedly happened. I fully agree with a DOH/LOS formatting...obviously, and it's quite sad that Alpa had so very much lost their way entirely on such principles.

"Ah the blatant hypocrisy! Currently west pilot who had jobs before the merger are slated for furlough and east pilots who were on the street with absolutely no chance of recall are employed. " No hypocrisy from me, in that I believe such furloughs should have been done via LOS, which, had your "Nic or Nothing" mighty "ARMY" of "Spartans" seen the wisdom of..we'd not have this sorry issue today.

"So to clarify, you do believe that should a legacy carrier merge with someone like JetBlue their number one pilot should go on the combined list where his/her eight years of LOS puts him regardless of what that seniority can hold. " = Yes. Appropriate fences/etc would be fair so as to prevent anyone from losing their position....although I realize that even the very mention of the word "fences" throws the would-be conquerors/looters-of-all the-east into a tantrum state....

"I don't recall feeling I had one the lottery when the merger with USAir was announced as much as I felt the weight of the albatross strapped to my ass. I don't recall any poster here thus characterizing it that way either." Your memory's remarkable by it's selective malfunctioning then. I'd hate to bore you excessively with the virtually countless numbers of westie variants on "Booyooshaka!".."Final and Binding!"..."It's OVER...Get used to it!!"/etc. Should you feel the need for some reality checking therein..check the post-nic archives...One such posting was, vebatim. "I won the lottery" BTW 😉

In any case; It's clear that we'll never see eye-to-eye. Early business tomorrow. Have a good evening.

 

[ableoneable]

Can't say for certain, as I wasn't there, and I've heard far too many variations from both sides as to what supposedly happened. I fully agree with a DOH/LOS formatting...obviously, and it's quite sad that Alpa had so very much lost their way entirely on such principles.

The point here is that you did and do agree with the methodology east ALPA employed during "negotiations";
1. Steadfastly maintaining DOH/LOS as the only way with a one year furlough fence.
2. Deciding to maintain this stance during the arbitration process.
3. Sticking with this position when the arbitrator gave them a last chance and told them to get real and actually negotiate before it was taken completely out of their hands.
4. Walking away from the written agreements they had sighned when the decision did not go their way.

If your views diverged with theirs anywhere in this timeline please let me know where and how.

No hypocrisy from me, in that I believe such furloughs should have been done via LOS, which, had your "Nic or Nothing" mighty "ARMY" of "Spartans" seen the wisdom of..we'd not have this sorry issue today.

So you wish to have just a slight variation on the theme. If a furloughed east pilot had three years of LOS and had been furloughed for five years he should have a job over the pilot who had gone to AWA 18 months before the merger and advanced continuously.

In your world view this is fair. We disagree.

"So to clarify, you do believe that should a legacy carrier merge with someone like JetBlue their number one pilot should go on the combined list where his/her eight years of LOS puts him regardless of what that seniority can hold. " = Yes. Appropriate fences/etc would be fair so as to prevent anyone from losing their position....although I realize that even the very mention of the word "fences" throws the would-be conquerors/looters-of-all the-east into a tantrum state....

Here again we disagree as fences are usually not capable of stopping a pilots seniority from seeking its natural place on the list. This is especially true when it comes to a downsizing. The #1 JB pilot had zero chance of downgrade/furlough prior to the merger but suddenly he is in danger because someone else accrued seniority at a different company i.e they are older and therefore more deserving.

"I don't recall feeling I had one the lottery when the merger with USAir was announced as much as I felt the weight of the albatross strapped to my ass. I don't recall any poster here thus characterizing it that way either." Your memory's remarkable by it's selective malfunctioning then. I'd hate to bore you excessively with the virtually countless numbers of westie variants on "Booyooshaka!".."Final and Binding!"..."It's OVER...Get used to it!!"/etc. Should you feel the need for some reality checking therein..check the post-nic archives.

I will not propose to defend that kind of behavior but I defy you to find any of it in any of my posts. If you can disavow the agreements of your elected reps than certainly I should not be held accountable for the anonymous postings of others.

 

[Res Judicata]

ABLE,


This guy is a lost cause. 3k plus posts and still nothing better to do than piss in the judicial wind. Let it Go. The USAPA house of cards is already falling. The company now refuses to do it's illegal dirty work for them...despite all the pseudo tough guy rantings and delusional promises of Heir Mark King and his micro pee-pee. It's the tip of the empty promise iceberg. Sit back and enjoy the humiliating failure we all knew was coming.

 

[tazz]

Unionism is entitlement and that entitlement is based off the only quantitatively objective criteria, longevity. Again if you want subjectivity, you need to exit the union world. Subjectivity doesn't apply.

WTFO?

Herein lies the problem.

The east entitlement mentality.

Things will never improve at this company.

 

[ableoneable]

ABLE,


This guy is a lost cause. 3k plus posts and still nothing better to do than piss in the judicial wind. Let it Go. The USAPA house of cards is already falling. The company now refuses to do it's illegal dirty work for them...despite all the pseudo tough guy rantings and delusional promises of Heir Mark King and his micro pee-pee. It's the tip of the empty promise iceberg. Sit back and enjoy the humiliating failure we all knew was coming.

Though I find most of East's positions obtuse at best there is one area where we agree, at least in principle.

I am a great believer in Hubris and would never deign to assume that USAPA has a certain humiliating failure ahead any more than I assumed that ALPA would surely triumph in the election.

The courts do not mete out justice, they settle cases. Do not assume that because your cause if righteous that victory follows by default.

Murderers go free every day and once in a while the innocent man does serve time.

Hope and work for the best but be prepared to live with the worst.

 

[tazz]

Why don't you read the arbitrator's award in the case of the dispatchers?

Maybe because we're discussing pilots?

 

[tazz]

It seems there were two other possibilities outside of HP for a merger. Given that, I think HP was on the ropes and US, while possibly suffering downsizing, would certainly have survived. Spare us your silly platitudes and fantastical imaginings that HP "saved" US. Even Warren thinks you are silly.

Please do tell. What other possibilities existed one week before US Airways was to file for Chapter 7?

 

[Richard]

Moderator Note:

The post containing the entire legal complaint against USAPA has been removed from view because simply speaking it is just too long.

A message has been sent to the original poster informing him that it can be re-posted either in edited form or with a link to the document residing on another site.

Posts of that length affect readability of the boards and and use excessive bandwidth.

 

[nycbusdriver]

Do not assume that because your cause if righteous that victory follows by default.

In the case of any and all human court systems, truer words have never been spoken.

I agree that anyone who, at this point, thinks that it's a lock on any of the competing sides prevailing is deluding him/herself.

Before the NMB vote, one of the mantra's being chanted on the east was that if ALPA were to win, Nicolau would be a certainty. If USAPA were to win, MAYBE Nicolau could be mitigated or eliminated. Many east pilots voted for USAPA based on that premise. Those of us in that frame of mind fully expected this to get very messy and it has.

Personally, I hope Nicolau goes into the dustbin of history along with the reputation of its author. But I am not naive enough to think that the new bargaining agent would ever be able to guarantee that outcome. In fact, even USAPA never made that guarantee.

Simply put, we were faced with Nicolau, or maybe not Nicolau.

With that in mind, I think this entire discussion is much waste of bandwidth, and I must admit that I have been guilty of the same on occasion.

 

[EastUS]

The point here is that you did and do agree with the methodology east ALPA employed during "negotiations";
1. Steadfastly maintaining DOH/LOS as the only way with a one year furlough fence.

So you wish to have just a slight variation on the theme. If a furloughed east pilot had three years of LOS and had been furloughed for five years he should have a job over the pilot who had gone to AWA 18 months before the merger and advanced continuously.

In your world view this is fair. We disagree.

Here again we disagree as fences are usually not capable of stopping a pilots seniority from seeking its natural place on the list.

1) I'd think that fences would have to do much better than just offer up a single year's protection for west workers.
2) 18 months work, imo, cannot be reasonably and successfully argued as anything that should trump three years of the same...regardless of any "advancement" involved. Both workers made their respective contributions..but one clearly made measurably less of such than the other.
3) We disagree = yes.
4) How does one truly and accurately define what any worker's "natural place' is on any seniority list?..by any given moment/micro-second's "snapshot" in time?...I think not. There's simply nothing within any "relative" perspective that ever defines any "natural place", but rather more of a brief moment's window of opportunity, which passes into history in less time than it took to type this sentence.

ableoneable: "So to clarify, you do believe that should a legacy carrier merge with someone like JetBlue their number one pilot should go on the combined list where his/her eight years of LOS puts him regardless of what that seniority can hold. "

This is because said pilot's initiative in going to work for JetBlue, and perhaps even materialy contributing to it's success, is insignificant when measured against your twenty two years of marking time at FailureAirlines."

1) = Yes, although again, I believe that protective fencing would be perfectly appropriate and necessary, via no bumping.
2) Saluting "said pilot's initiative", imho, presupposes some inherently "special" qualities attendant to that worker, and has nothing at all to do with union principles of any kind. As for "your twenty two years of marking time at FailureAirlines"? ..One might wish to hold off on that untill two decades plus show just where "said pilot's initiative" would place him/her within the JetBlue example..assuming that it even exists at that time.......and here we again run into the absurd and insane notions of presuming to predict the future, based upon nonsensical "expectations". Did any of you truly and honestly "expect" this merger?...How about all the furor over the often predicted United one?..What were your "expectations" when Delta was in play?.....and it just continues onto and over the viewable horizon..as always in life. The bottom line is that whenever any craft workers are valued and placed based purely on some moment's projections..there exists no unionism, and the counterproductive type of acrimonious strife that we see here prevails instead.

 

[EastUS]

.....his micro pee-pee. It's the tip of the empty promise iceberg.

That sounds both uncomfortable ....and downright cold for all concerned. Please tell me that you're part of the legal brain trust out there?

 

[EastUS]

Please do tell. What other possibilities existed one week before US Airways was to file for Chapter 7?

Yes, Yes ..we all know = We saved you!!..so you OWE us everything!! Pay no attention to that CEO/management behind the curtain,whos repeatedly told you all just exactly what a load of utter horse crap that AWA=Entitlement fantasy is......

 

[BoeingBoy]

1) I'd think that fences would have to do much better than just offer up a single year's protection for west workers.

1 - If DOH/LOS is such a fundamental principle of trade unionism, aren't fences a violation of that fundamental principle? Must be a fluid principle if it's so easily modified by "offering up" fences.

2 - If DOH/LOS is the only fair method of integrating lists, and doesn't harm the West, what are any supposed fences protecting the West from?

3 - By offering fences as protection for the West, aren't you admitting that the West would be harmed by a DOH/LOS integration? If DOH/LOS is so eminently fair, as you continually claim, why "offer up" any protection at all?

Jim

 

[ussnark]

The east pilots worked for a poorly run carrier that did in fact not treat them fairly.

The west pilots feel bad about this but don't feel that they should pay the price for your misfortune.

In essence you are trying to recoup your losses on the backs of west pilots. We are not interested.

Wrong headed thinking, on so many levels. Just one:

The west pilots worked for a poorly run carrier that did not treat them fairly. I don't think anyone disputes that.

The east pilots feel bad about this, but don't feel that they should pay the price for your misfortune.

In essence, the west pilots are trying to recoup their losses on the backs of the east pilots. The east pilots are not interested.

See how that works? BTW, no one can treat anyone "unfairly" unless that person lets them, hence, USAPA.

Also, since Tempe's incompetence will always keep US a bottom-feeder, much like HP, you will lurch from one rumor to another about being bought by every Tom, Dick and Harry out there. For the rest of your career.

Long term, would it not be far better to establish DOH as merger policy now. You have a little leverage now to get the conditions and restrictions to protect yourself. Later, in addition to lacking youth and marketability, you may not have that leverage.