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AirTran Pilot Reinstated

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He was fired about 4.5 years ago after the company claimed that he was engaged in an illegal job action during contract negotiations. When he went to arbitration, the moron arbitrator ruled in the company's favor. The OSHA claim has been sitting on the books all this time. Thank God they finally ruled in the pilot's favor.
 
Glad to see he's back!
How many "hostages" did AT mgmt take during that time?
(and I don't know if I'd call $1m for 4.5 years out of work in the worst economy since the depression "winning the lottery". I don't know if this was a good guy or a fool getting too zealous in a mgmt fight, but that amount seems like he'll just about break even-
I'd have rather been employed w/ health ins than get a $Mil almost 5 years later-
Worst savings plan ever:)
 
waveflyer said:
Glad to see he's back!
How many "hostages" did AT mgmt take during that time?
(and I don't know if I'd call $1m for 4.5 years out of work in the worst economy since the depression "winning the lottery". I don't know if this was a good guy or a fool getting too zealous in a mgmt fight, but that amount seems like he'll just about break even-
I'd have rather been employed w/ health ins than get a $Mil almost 5 years later-
Worst savings plan ever:)
Click to expand...

I'm glad he got his job back finally. If the company thought he was being overzealous, they could have given him a week off. But no. They wanted to make an example out of him for the rest of us. Bought them a 98% percent strike vote amongst other reasons. Welcome back.

- 2 hostages; Lear and this pilot.
 
waveflyer said:
Glad to see he's back!
How many "hostages" did AT mgmt take during that time?
Click to expand...

In 2007 it was just two, him and Lear70. During the next few years, they fired two more (both got their jobs back), suspended a few others, and almost fired a few more, but the Association managed to prevent them. It was pretty ugly.

I don't know if this was a good guy or a fool getting too zealous in a mgmt fight
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He's a good guy. Most professional captain you'll ever meet, and not at all the kind of guy who would get wrapped up in some one-man illegal job action. He got screwed, and it's good to see him back.

Crash Pad said:
Lawyer gets 1/3 usually.
Click to expand...

His lawyer was provided by ALPA and is paid a salary, so he doesn't get anything from the award.
 
so any specific details on the osha claim? I'm having trouble seeing how osha has any claim to anything in a jet, flightline yes, aircraft no.
 
scoreboardII said:
so any specific details on the osha claim? I'm having trouble seeing how osha has any claim to anything in a jet, flightline yes, aircraft no.
Click to expand...

The whistleblower law that pilots can use falls under OSHA. Seems silly, I know, but that's how it's done.
 
ultrarunner said:
Lear70, whta's the scoop now that this is public-record?
Click to expand...
PCL covered it pretty well.

The company fully expected to LOSE his arbitration, and they expected to WIN mine, so imagine their surprise when it went the other way around, and now he has his job back anyway.

The arbitrator was an idiot; he used the American Airlines arbitrator ruling as a "precedent"... hundreds of pilots in a known, broadcast illegal slowdown versus one guy who wrote up airplanes and didn't carry open writeups around like many do to "just get the airplane home". Yeah, that's the same thing, right? :rolleyes:

FWIW, this guy is a retired USAF Lt Col (maybe full bird but I don't think so), so he had his full pension and was working part-time as a tax consultant for H&R Block I believe, as well as flying here and there to stay current, so he survived OK while he was out, but yeah, a little over $1 Million for almost 5 years out of work isn't exactly a "windfall" for a senior line Captain, but it's better than nothing, and the important thing is that he was ALSO ordered REINSTATED to his position by the OSHA ruling.

The previous SWAPA administration along with Chase from this board took a look at trying to get SWA management to intervene and give the guy his job back when we all started this journey in late 2010 (Chase, Don and I had more than a few phone conversations about it), but it never went anywhere, don't know where it stopped at over there. Might have cost the company a lot less money if it had...

At this point, I think that covers all the contract hostages. All of them have been reinstated in one way or another, thank God.
 
Well, I certainly expect that to be an awful history and nothing you guys have to deal with again
 
pilotgolfer said:
Wow...ordered to pay a million dollars in back pay and compensatory damages. He hit the lottery twice.
Click to expand...

That hardly covers the damage to reputation, the family life, lost peace of mind and health issues that he presumably faced during the ordeal.
 
Lear and PCL,

I heard from a well placed source that AirTran Management will be required by OSHA to inform all employees of this award. Is this SOP in this type of case?
 
Yes, DonV.

I'm not sure how they'll distribute the information though. It may just be on an obscured bulletin board in ops. I don't think they're required to mail notices to everyone's homes or put it on Crew Trac or FliCA as a required read, but don't quote me on that.

Right now we're just trying to figure out how to place him on the list for AAI and SWA and how he's going to fit back into the pipeline. His slot was never accounted for since he lost his arbitration, and to properly put him back in the system according to the rules "as if he was never gone", he'll be allowed to bid whatever his seniority can hold, come back on the AAI side as a CA on whatever he wants to bid, then transition to whatever he wants to hold (he's senior enough to hold whatever slot he wanted of the 3 choices).

Still some work to be done until he's back online.
 
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