Originally posted by Deltoid
I wrote: "The USAir MEC, supported and aided by ALPA, has consistently prevented the USAir WO's from operating ANY regional jets, thereby forcing the Company to sub-contract the flying. "
You replied:
Not true. Having come from Allegheny I can speak about this. There scope did not force Mainline to go to sub contractors. There was no language to that fact. So in a nut shell there was nothing preventing jets from going to the Wholly owned just the fact cheaper labor and no need to spend capital since someone else will buy the A/C is what screwed us.
What follows is the exact language from the USAirways CBA (from Section 1. B.), with emphasis (bold italics) provided by me.
3. Sections 1(B)1 and 1(B)2 above shall not apply to a carrier that (i) is owned, controlled or operated by the Company or US Airways Group, whether directly or indirectly, or (ii) utilizes the name, designator code, logo, marks or marketing identity currently or in the future used by the Company, if and only if such carrier:
a. Does not operate any aircraft with a maximum certificated seating capacity in excess of 69 seats; and
b. Does not operate any F-28 aircraft; and
c. Does not operate any freight aircraft that carry freight on or above the cabin floor and that have a maximum certificated gross take-off weight of greater than 70,000 or fewer pounds, and
d. Does not operate any aircraft that utilizes a turbine-driven engine without an external propeller (“Jet Aircraft”) under the Company’s designator code, name, logo or marketing identity, except that Commuter Carriers may operate Jet Aircraft (other than F-28 aircraft) under the following limits:
Those "limits" are 12, for the 1st 12 months, increase to 25 during the 25th through 36th month (from effective date) and finally reach 35 regional jets after all USAir furloughed pilots are recalled (and event that occurred already and does not include the present furloughs).
While the language does not specify the wholly owned subsidiaries as differentiated from the sub contractors, the fact remains that the contract prevents the operation of any jet by the wholly owned subsidiaries initially and directly resulted in the subcontracting of the 35 RJs ultimately permitted under the exemption.
The cause of USAirways inability to effectively use regional jets is the ALPA scope clause in the USAirways CBA. That same scope clause has also de facto prevented the operation of jets by the USAir Group subsidiaries and literally forced the subcontracting of their work.
The most recent LOA 81 exacerbates that condition and further coerces the pilots of ALG, PDT and PSA, to either accept its onerous conditions, plus concessions to their CBA, or face increasing terminations, furloughs and perhaps even liquidation. Do I even have to mention that ALPA utilizes the dues of these pilots to negotiate contracts that will eliminate their work? It will be nothing short of miraculous if ALPA doesn't face multiple new litigation as a consequence.
I am quite confident that the cost structure of the WO's (negotiated by ALPA) was not lost on ALPA's attorneys or the USAir MEC when this contract was negotiated. Therefore, they had to be cognizant that the conditions they created would preclude the operation of regional jets by the wholly owned subsidiaries and literally force the subcontracting of their work to other "lowest bidder" carriers. That is exactly what happened in the past and is being repeated today.
While ALPA preaches to the high heavens its alleged effort to "raise the bar" and create higher compensation for regional pilots, ALPA (at the same time) writes mainline contractual provisions that make it impossible to do so. ALPA's efforts in fact operate to encourage subcontracting, create bidding wars among the small airlines, and force the lowering of regional pilot's compensation packages. All the while ALPA allegedly "represents" those regional pilots and collects their dues.
In 1999, ALPA sued Delta to prevent Comair pilots from flying certain routes, thereby attempting to deprive Comair pilots of a portion of their work. (Air Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l v. Delta Air Lines, Inc, 1999 U.S. LEXIS 13196, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. 1999). [The suit was dismissed and deferred to the System Board]. This later resulted in the loss of work for Comair pilots.
In 2001 ALPA apparently "found religion" in it's public rhetoric with respect to Comair pilots. "Billed by ALPA president Duane Woerth as a crusade to recognize regional pilots as “real airline pilots” rather than de-facto trainees for the major airlines, the Comair negotiations were to become a “watershed event in reshaping how people think about and compensate pilots,” according to Woerth."
Industry Braces for Fallout from Comair Strike Settlement, Aviation Int’l News, Aug. 2001.
Yet, with respect to the Comair strike, there is little doubt "the Air Line Pilots Association failed to achieve its ultimate goal in the minds of pilots and union officials alike." While ALPA fronted with the politically correct façade of support for the strike, in fact ALPA did nothing more than the absolute minimum legally required in backing the Comair pilots.
ALPA lawyers openly opposed the efforts of Comair pilot negotiators to achieve improved Scope of their own, more than once arguing (at the bargaining table) with management and against their own client. ALPA's Executive Administrator, I presume acting on behalf of ALPA's president, attempted to circumvent the Comair MEC by sending direct mailgrams to individual Comair pilots urging them to accept a contract that their own MEC had voted against recommending.
So, while the Association's President makes highly publicized statements (such as those made during the Comair Strike, see above) about ALPA's efforts on behalf of regional pilots, the union quietly negotiates, behind the scenes, to achieve the exact opposite.
The hypocrisy manifest in the difference between ALPA's rhetoric pro regional pilots and ALPA's overt actions against regional pilots is legendary.
(The) …. "Union may be likened to that serpent of the fables who on one body had two heads that fighting each other with poisoned fangs, killed themselves. [ Peter F. Drucker, The New Society: The Anatomy of the Industrial Order 14 (1951).]
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