An open letter to USAPA Members

[TWA Dude]

DOH is not ludicrous. DOH is objective. It is a measure of the day you were hired. Anything else that you throw into the mix is subjective.

While I can appreciate a different point of view for how seniority integrations should be effected it seems the only major defense of DOH is it's objectivity. While that certainly makes things more straightforward it does nothing to address the fact that every merger is different and pilot demographics vary wildly. My interest is purely fairness and if necessary fairness is defined by a neutral party. I don't understand your aversion to arbitration. I get that you don't like what Nicolau came up with but nobody can make a legitimate accusation that he wasn't neutral.

Reading the APA's message board and stuff like Easties write reveals a very interesting parallel: both sides think their seniority should improve as a result of a merger. Both sides feel they've made sacrifices to their respective companies and it's payback time. Of course, neither side has a problem with that payback coming at the expense of the other side's seniority.

Me, I just want a fair integration process that's settled, if necessary, by arbitration. I said it before Nicolau and I'll say it again: I'll accept the result and move on.

 

[charlie2]

While I can appreciate a different point of view for how seniority integrations should be effected it seems the only major defense of DOH is it's objectivity. While that certainly makes things more straightforward it does nothing to address the fact that every merger is different and pilot demographics vary wildly. My interest is purely fairness and if necessary fairness is defined by a neutral party. I don't understand your aversion to arbitration. I get that you don't like what Nicolau came up with but nobody can make a legitimate accusation that he wasn't neutral.

Reading the APA's message board and stuff like Easties write reveals a very interesting parallel: both sides think their seniority should improve as a result of a merger. Both sides feel they've made sacrifices to their respective companies and it's payback time. Of course, neither side has a problem with that payback coming at the expense of the other side's seniority.

Me, I just want a fair integration process that's settled, if necessary, by arbitration. I said it before Nicolau and I'll say it again: I'll accept the result and move on.

Hi TWA Dude! I don't think seniorty should ever "improve" due to our so respected managements decisions.

 

[TWA Dude]

Damages? You don't seem to understand the Transition Agreement.

No, you just have poor reading comprehension. I don't expect any damages from the court. If there truly was justice, however, you and your fellow treacherous Easties would pay dearly for the following damage you've done to me and my brethren:

1) Lost money and benefits from pulling out of contract negotiations in 2007
2) Furloughs/downgrades we've suffered that we wouldn't have under Nicolau list
3) Inability to bid on captain seats on growth aircraft awarded us by TA arbitrations (25% captain seats on 757/190)
4) Weaker bargaining position in front of arbitration panel if AA merger goes through

You have no defense for your behavior, you can only deflect and obfuscate the argument. My 2013 truly be year of justice for all USAirways pilots. I know you want the opposite.

 

[TWA Dude]

Hi TWA Dude! I don't think seniorty should ever "improve" due to our so respected managements decisions.

That doesn't make sense. Due to management's decisions and USAPA's treachery I'm more junior today than I was when our merger was announced.

 

[Superbird]

Hi TWA Dude! I don't think seniorty should ever "improve" due to our so respected managements decisions.

Chaz,

When were you hired? How long were you on property (LOS) before you were furloughed? Do you expect to be placed in front of active pilots with more LOS?

It's sounds like you want your seniority to "improve" at the expense of others.

 

[Superbird]

DOH is not ludicrous. DOH is objective. It is a measure of the day you were hired. Anything else that you throw into the mix is subjective. If you want to tie somebody's career to the day they got hired via a seniority system, which is ludicrous, then in all fairness DOH SHOULD be the determining factor with regard to a merger. Fences, then can determine the subjective nature of what somebody's career expectations.

The one thing you can count on in all of this is that pilots will do everything in their power to get ahead, at the expense of anyone necessary. DAL/NWA did it. They have 747 rates equal to that of the 777. Similarly, the A330 is equivalent to that of a 767-400. Being as DAL pilots basically drove the merger, it is they who took this brilliant initiative in order to secure better spots in the seniority battle. Arguments were made that certain aircraft were going away, and a few did. Others survived, and they are still flying today. Europe has tanked, while the Orient has thrived. Yet the DAL pilots made out better than DOH in the seniority list, and guys will let it affect them for the rest of their lives. Had the award gone DOH, and fences resembling ANYTHING more than a handful of airplanes been erected, both pilot groups would then truly be experiencing their near to mid term career expectations.

Same with East/West. If you put a 4 month pilot above me in a seniority list, I will do everything in my power to prevent the implementation of that list. Never mind that you granted him immediate access to widebody flying which were outside of his career expectations, while his pilot group and the SWA pilot group were leading chargers of changing age 60. The East is rightfully pissed, and it is justified because they have done something about it which is very hard to do. They voted another union onto the property. To get that many pilots unified into one corner is akin to making mountains. Much has been said about suffering low pay rates to do it. That makes a very large assumption that better rates could have been negotiated in a very poor environment. Much like Comair pilots being absolutely sure that filing a PID would have magically transformed DAL management into combining the two groups and giving up an enormous cost advantage, the LOA 93 argument is a red herring. Nobody knows where they would be today. You are where you are, and any other opinion is just that-opinion.

The funny thing is that the AWA pilots are the big finger pointers at USAirs crappy rates. A cursory check of a few rates shows that USAir leads AWA in A330s, non-existent at AWA, and 757 aircraft. So that is one point, and another is that those are AWA regular rates, whereas the USAir rates are BK rates. AWA has never brought anything to the table in the form of compensation or retirement. They have been the anchor around the neck of unionized pilots since their inception.

Career Expectations are in the eye of the beholder, and it changes with the cancellation of a route, or an aircraft order, or a pay rate, or some other situation which has nothing to do with individual pilot choices. You want to criticize a pilot's choice of employer, then unsaddle that pilot from the burden of seniority and open up a true Pandora's Box of fairness. We are all just one bad CEO from bankruptcy. We can go from industry leading to bk in the snap of our fingers, just as crummy airline out in the desert, substantially propped up by the government, can buy a global operator and have a windfall list fall into their lap. I would cling to it like grim death as well.

It will now get even more interesting as AA joins the fray. The West side now has pilots on furlough, surprise surprise. Additionally, their flying consists of flying east into the former USAir system. You just gotta laugh at career expectations and where they end up. Where do you stick the junior AWA pilot relative to the AA pilots? He is senior to active East pilots, so you can't put him down with the furloughed AA pilots. At the same time, how do you place a furloughed AWA pilot ahead of active AA pilots, which will have to happen if the NIC award is used and you slot active USAir pilots in appropriately. History since the USAir/AWA merger has proven just how inaccurate the NIC award was with regard to career expectations, and I believe to some degree as well with NWA/DAL. AA will have better pay rates than USAirways pilots, yet they are in BK? Is the "you are in bk, so that is a strike against you" argument dead? Does the fact that USAPA can't convince anybody of anything mean that they deserve less consideration in a seniority arbitration hearing while being tied to a seniority system? Should being stupid punish you in a seniority based system arbitration? Should an arbitrator "punish" your career, a seniority, based career for clinging to traditional values? Why are arguments even being made at a seniority arbitration hearing? Both sides of the argument are going to to try and jade the mediator into their idea of fairness, and their idea of their career expectations.

Seniority list arbitration is a joke, and will become even more so as newer airlines such as Jblue and spirit get thrown into the mix, as well as nice operators like Hawaiian and Alaska. Guys will argue, fights will occur, and permanent division will pull yet another Jenga piece out from beneath the already shaky tower that is pilot unity.

And so it goes.

Do you believe AA pilots will welcome you with open arms and embrace your Date of Hire?

Why do you think usapa is afraid to 1) get a contract to vote on? 2) allow the membership to vote ? Is usapa afraid of how the vote may go against the dreams of the hard core supporters who are holding the rest of the pilots hostage?

Wake up. Usapa is has failed you.

 

[PuffDriver]

While I can appreciate a different point of view for how seniority integrations should be effected it seems the only major defense of DOH is it's objectivity. While that certainly makes things more straightforward it does nothing to address the fact that every merger is different and pilot demographics vary wildly. My interest is purely fairness and if necessary fairness is defined by a neutral party. I don't understand your aversion to arbitration. I get that you don't like what Nicolau came up with but nobody can make a legitimate accusation that he wasn't neutral.

Reading the APA's message board and stuff like Easties write reveals a very interesting parallel: both sides think their seniority should improve as a result of a merger. Both sides feel they've made sacrifices to their respective companies and it's payback time. Of course, neither side has a problem with that payback coming at the expense of the other side's seniority.

Me, I just want a fair integration process that's settled, if necessary, by arbitration. I said it before Nicolau and I'll say it again: I'll accept the result and move on.

I actually have no dog in this fight, other than to say that future seniority integrations may be affected.

Not only does DOH make it more straight forward, but it also saves money. You can temper the "career expectations" via fences. Eventually the fences drop after the "career expectations" are mitigated to the point where reality takes over, synergies are recognized, and the process evolves the new airline into what it really is--not what either side in an arbitration convince a mediator what they think it will be.

I can honestly say that i want fairness as well. Your definition and my definition are different. A mediator's definition is altogether different, and based on two flawed premised, what would have happened and what will happen. There was a point where Delta's future looked pretty bleak, but look where they are now? While USAir was "certainly going to die", little mention was made of the propping up AWA had from the federal government in order to avoid the same dire fate. It's ALL conjecture. Maybe AWA was going to turn into a world dominator, and they really got hosed in the arbitration. Nobody knows. That's why it is even more imperative to use an objective measure, or else relieve the aviation world of the seniority system,so that pilots may take their skills elsewhere. Of course, you and I know how dangerous that would be. Make the fence the accumulator, heck, maybe just fence everything for a few years and then set up a realistic fence to buffer the inequity, or perceived inequities. Delta and NWA were actually lucky in that they were somewhat similar companies.

With AWA/USA we have actually had the luxury to be able to look back at a seniority list and critique its evolution, with what has happened since with regard to two separate pilot groups operating under two separate agreements, and what has happened to the airline since from a business standpoint. Of course, the events have not been completely pure, but nonetheless it is a first and valuable lessons can be learned from it, IMO.

I'll admit, I haven't been reading all of the boards on this subject, mostly because the parties who really know what is going on are not or should not be participating in open discussion. i would venture a guess that it is mostly blather.

Again, I am not on anybody's side. I don't necessarily agree that an accepted NIC list would have resulted in a contract any sooner--reference how long it took American. I don't expect to see USAir pilots flocking into PHX immediately, and I certainly don't think that any kind of justice was served by the dropping of the fence two months after the list came out. But those are my opinions, and they are admittedly jaded by experiences from my past and thoughts of the future. We are saddled with seniority, which decouples our skill set from the portability of the same. Otherwise, this wouldn't even be an issue, and others would crop up. Pick your poison, I guess.

 

[charlie2]

That doesn't make sense. Due to management's decisions and USAPA's treachery I'm more junior today than I was when our merger was announced.

You seriously don't think that your guy who was still in training as a new hire, I think his name was Dave O., really wouldn't get an "improvement" by being the Captain to a 17 year guy. Come on at least say the truth it was a "windfall for AWA". If it wasn't why do you want it so badly and why are us eastholes fighting it so badly?

 

[charlie2]

Do you believe AA pilots will welcome you with open arms and embrace your Date of Hire?

Why do you think usapa is afraid to 1) get a contract to vote on? 2) allow the membership to vote ? Is usapa afraid of how the vote may go against the dreams of the hard core supporters who are holding the rest of the pilots hostage?

Wake up. Usapa is has failed you.

Vote on what? You don't think that our AWA management has offered us anything respectable do you?

 

[PuffDriver]

Do you believe AA pilots will welcome you with open arms and embrace your Date of Hire?

Why do you think usapa is afraid to 1) get a contract to vote on? 2) allow the membership to vote ? Is usapa afraid of how the vote may go against the dreams of the hard core supporters who are holding the rest of the pilots hostage?

Wake up. Usapa is has failed you.

1) I don't think you or I have an idea of why there hasn't been a contract to vote on, save the fact that USAirways will not even negotiate because of the threat of lawsuit from the West. American only recently got an agreement due to hardcore line in the sand for industry leading and scope. How do you know that this would NOT be the case for the next impediment to a joint contract, even with NIC concurrence. You don't

2) USAPA has not failed me. I am not a member. I did see the results of their last bid, and there was dramatic movement upward. Were it not for self interest legislation in the form of age 65, a whole other argument, I imagine the East side, and their min fleet and block rules would have had dramatic forward movement 5 years ago. But that is conjecture, as is your entire post.