ALPA threw themselves under that bus and several others. As far as getting sued goes; one would think that if you have enough intelligence to get your airline job you have enough intelligence to know when you are breaking the law. I don’t feel sorry for them.
it amazes me how many people actually think ALPA is the party to blame for the situation of East pilots. ALPA is NOT an organization that runs via a central power telling individual airlines what to do. Each airline's MEC makes their own decisions and simply rely on ALPA National for legal, economic, etc advice.
Here's how things played out for USAirways East pilots:
They elected their own representatives out of their own pilot group to make their decisions.
East pilots, not ALPA, went into this merger asking for DOH.
When told that DOH is a pipe dream and will not happen, East pilots, not ALPA, kept their current DOH "strategy" and let their members expect the same.
When it came to select an arbitrator, East and West pilots, not ALPA, selected an arbitrator.
When told by the arbitrator to bring to the table a position other than DOH, East pilots, not ALPA, came back to the table with nothing more than DOH.
There is no "nic was the straw that broke the camel's back" argument for getting rid of ALPA, because Nic was a result of the East's negotiating positions, NOT ALPA. Could Nic have been more fair to the east pilots? Sure, but that would have probably required the bunch of east pilots making their own decisions to bring something other than DOH when the freaking arbitrator says, "bring me something other than DOH".
East pilots need to stop blaming someone else for decisions that THEY made.
