As I see it, if SL-10 is not honored by SWA, then the SLI is not valid at the day it is violated. On January 2, 2015, all AAI pilot not SWA pilots will have to be renegotiated into the SWA seniority list. Why would the SLI still be used once it is violated?
Because I designed it that way.
No, seriously.
We had just come back from reaching the Agreement In Principle and we were hammering out small details in the union office over the phone with SWA and SWAPA just two days before the MEC meeting to announce the deal specifics and it occurred to me that, with the ORIGINAL wording of the Seniority Integration Agreement, on 1/1/15, EVERYTHING dropped dead, including the non-furlough clause, no probation for AAI pilots, all of it.
Like I've said before, I always thought the transition schedule was optimistic given then international piece of the equation and Southwest's reluctance to use an outside vendor, and questioned the feasibility of a 1/1/15 completion date from the beginning with the way they wanted to do the transition.
I immediately went in to the Merger Committee's room (the NC and MC were working separately on our pieces of the presentation) and pointed out the glaring flaw in the language and quickly wrote the extra piece that says "on 1/1/15 OR WHEN THE LAST AIRTRAN PILOT TRANSITIONS TO SOUTHWEST, whichever happens LATER". Jack then conference called with Russ McCrady who then called SWAPA. They talked among themselves while we were on hold, then came back and agreed to it; it was the last piece of the puzzle before final documents were signed and faxed back and forth and originals FedEx'd.
As a result, we now have an agreement with an inviolability clause that says several things, but among them:
1. If one piece of the agreement is found by arbitration or lawsuit to be illegal, the rest of the agreement will still stand. One successfully-challenged issue doesn't negate the rest of the agreement, which is standard legalese in almost every contract across all industries and segments these days.
2. The items that were mutually-agreed by all three parties cannot be modified by any later negotiations solely between SWA and SWAPA or SWA and AAI ALPA; it takes all 3 parties to change ANYTHING in the Agreement unless very SPECIFICALLY stated otherwise (like the extension of the 1/1/15 date - SWA and SWAPA control that alone, AAI ALPA isn't a party to EXTEND that date).
3. On 1/1/15, if the transition isn't done, the Agreement remains in force until the last AAI pilot transitions, which includes a no-furlough clause, and the ability to transition as a CA if their seniority can then hold it since SL10 has a specific expiration date attached to that preclusion.
The Agreement is what the Agreement is. By all means, enforce your Scope language, but you won't harm any AAI pilots in the process. We specifically designed it that way as much as we possibly could. I'm still a little shocked that the "ideas" being offered by SWA pilots still hammer AAI pilots again and again rather than coming up with ideas that require management to fix the issue THEY created.
We're going to have to work together for a long, long time to come. How about coming up with ideas that don't screw the other group?
Just a thought.
