See article below.
American Pilot Leader: 'America West Pilots Should Join Seniority Talks'
Two unions and a series of federal judges have tried unsuccessfully to fix the problems unleashed by a controversial arbitrator?s pilot seniority ruling following the 2005 merger of America West and US Airways.
Now the Allied Pilots Association, which represents the 15,000 pilots at American Airlines, will have its turn.
The first step, said APA President Keith Wilson, is to give the America West pilots a seat at the table, allowing them to present a list and argue in its favor in seniority integration discussions.
We will make sure everybody gets a shot, Wilson said, in an interview. We have a duty of fair representation, to be sure all the members are equally represented. We will remain neutral in a lot of ways, but we will sure all members are represented in the arbitration process.
Wilson understands the difficulty of the eight-year battle over seniority integration at US Airways, and during an hour-long interview he scrupulously avoided providing any indication of his feelings on the controversial 2007 Nicolau seniority arbitration ruling, which has divided pilots ever since.
The flawed ruling, which resulted from binding arbitration, has never been implemented resulting in separate seniority lists within the pilot ranks at US Airways, nine years after the merger.
The arbitration was conducted under the aegis of the Air Line Pilots Association. Afterwards, US Airways pilots voted to leave ALPA and create the US Airline Pilots Association. America West pilots, who represented about a third of the pilot group, were dragged along.
The APA process will likely involve two arbitrations. In the first, three arbitrators will decide whether America West pilots should be involved in merger discussions. Wilson said he helps that process will be completed by the end of the year.
The second arbitration will proceed if, as seems likely, the pilot groups fail to develop a list in merger discussions. Wilson wants America West pilots involved in those discussions.
As a model for seniority integration, Wilson said he looks to the Delta/Northwest integration.
In that case, he said, the list was developed in such a way that ten years down the road it will be fair and equitable. He noted that pilots? career expectations were generally met. Now, he said, Delta is running on all cylinders. That is what we want to do.
Among the problems arbitrators confronted was that many senior Delta pilots retired before the bankruptcy, which ?put younger guys at Delta on a higher level, Wilson said. But the final list generally met the goal of satisfying pilots who had widebody expectations when they were hired.
It is the arbitrators, not pilot leaders, who make the final determinations, Wilson noted. But he said that what he wants, in the end, is a list that American pilots generally view as fair.
APA already has collected 3,400 applications from US Airways pilots, the vast majority of active pilots.
Wilson declined to comment specifically on the other major recent pilot seniority ruling, which followed the United/Continental Continental merger. In that case, arbitrators decided that a proposal from Continental pilots was overly ambitious and therefore generally accepted a proposal from United pilots leaving some pilots unhappy.
Some pilot sources say that in the American/US Airways seniority discussions, all three likely parties will take the lesson of the United/Continental case to mean they should seek moderate solutions.
That could help to provide arbitrators in the APA process with a situation where they can craft a broadly acceptable seniority list an outcome that so far has eluded everybody else.
Link below:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed...should-join-seniority-talks/?partner=yahootix
American Pilot Leader: 'America West Pilots Should Join Seniority Talks'
Two unions and a series of federal judges have tried unsuccessfully to fix the problems unleashed by a controversial arbitrator?s pilot seniority ruling following the 2005 merger of America West and US Airways.
Now the Allied Pilots Association, which represents the 15,000 pilots at American Airlines, will have its turn.
The first step, said APA President Keith Wilson, is to give the America West pilots a seat at the table, allowing them to present a list and argue in its favor in seniority integration discussions.
We will make sure everybody gets a shot, Wilson said, in an interview. We have a duty of fair representation, to be sure all the members are equally represented. We will remain neutral in a lot of ways, but we will sure all members are represented in the arbitration process.
Wilson understands the difficulty of the eight-year battle over seniority integration at US Airways, and during an hour-long interview he scrupulously avoided providing any indication of his feelings on the controversial 2007 Nicolau seniority arbitration ruling, which has divided pilots ever since.
The flawed ruling, which resulted from binding arbitration, has never been implemented resulting in separate seniority lists within the pilot ranks at US Airways, nine years after the merger.
The arbitration was conducted under the aegis of the Air Line Pilots Association. Afterwards, US Airways pilots voted to leave ALPA and create the US Airline Pilots Association. America West pilots, who represented about a third of the pilot group, were dragged along.
The APA process will likely involve two arbitrations. In the first, three arbitrators will decide whether America West pilots should be involved in merger discussions. Wilson said he helps that process will be completed by the end of the year.
The second arbitration will proceed if, as seems likely, the pilot groups fail to develop a list in merger discussions. Wilson wants America West pilots involved in those discussions.
As a model for seniority integration, Wilson said he looks to the Delta/Northwest integration.
In that case, he said, the list was developed in such a way that ten years down the road it will be fair and equitable. He noted that pilots? career expectations were generally met. Now, he said, Delta is running on all cylinders. That is what we want to do.
Among the problems arbitrators confronted was that many senior Delta pilots retired before the bankruptcy, which ?put younger guys at Delta on a higher level, Wilson said. But the final list generally met the goal of satisfying pilots who had widebody expectations when they were hired.
It is the arbitrators, not pilot leaders, who make the final determinations, Wilson noted. But he said that what he wants, in the end, is a list that American pilots generally view as fair.
APA already has collected 3,400 applications from US Airways pilots, the vast majority of active pilots.
Wilson declined to comment specifically on the other major recent pilot seniority ruling, which followed the United/Continental Continental merger. In that case, arbitrators decided that a proposal from Continental pilots was overly ambitious and therefore generally accepted a proposal from United pilots leaving some pilots unhappy.
Some pilot sources say that in the American/US Airways seniority discussions, all three likely parties will take the lesson of the United/Continental case to mean they should seek moderate solutions.
That could help to provide arbitrators in the APA process with a situation where they can craft a broadly acceptable seniority list an outcome that so far has eluded everybody else.
Link below:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tedreed...should-join-seniority-talks/?partner=yahootix
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