APA Pilots Reject TA

[caseyd]

Wrong. There is case law on this. Read up on the Northwest flight attendants case. Rulings were made on virtually every important area that had previously been untested.

The very best AA pilots might expect is to see is AMR seeking 1113 relief to impose their best and final. That would be good. Alternatively, if AA had a more harsh (read less expensive) idea it would enhance Horton's stand alone business plan compared to alternate scenarios thereby harming APA's hope to merge. While there are many other pieces to this pie APA and all others will just have to wait and see.

Wishing AA pilots the best...

 

[caseyd]

The Pilots of AA have chosen to not give in to a concessionary contract. If it is forced on us, at least we will die standing on our feet rather than stay living on our knees.

Thanks for all the support.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely classic "self interest confusion". It feels good for a while, and hurts a lot longer.

But I love the hutzpa. And I wish you the best but....those who think like aa73 may well suffer a harsh self-inflicted wound.

Wishing AA pilots the very best......

 

[aa73]

CaseyD, you just don't get it. Are you management? Here, I've outlined in bold many of the reasons we took a stand.

Analysis: As pilots stand firm, AMR's restructuring vision takes hit

7:55pm EDT
By Nick Brown and Soyoung Kim

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The overwhelming rejection by AMR Corp pilots of the airline's latest contract offer, which several labor sources attributed to their lack of confidence in company management, raises doubts about whether the carrier can garner support to exit bankruptcy as a stand-alone company.

Members of the Allied Pilots Association, the airline's most powerful employee group, on Wednesday voted 61 percent to 39 percent to reject a contract offer that would have imposed about $315 million in cost cuts. The deal would still have been preferable to the potential alternative: AMR exercising its right in bankruptcy to impose even stricter terms unilaterally.
People close to AMR's restructuring say many pilots understood that risk but treated the vote as a referendum on AMR Chief Executive Tom Horton. The pilots, along with AMR's two other key labor groups, have already declared their support for a proposal by US Airways Group to merge with AMR and its management team.
AMR's unions are members of its unsecured creditors' committee, with three of the committee's nine seats, and have a big say in how the airline restructures, either as a stand-alone entity or through a merger.

"There was great concern" that a 'yes' vote on AMR's latest contract offer "would be seen as an affirmation of management, which wasn't reflective of where some of these pilots stood," said one of the people close to the matter.

Union leadership, led by outgoing president David Bates, lobbied members to support AMR's offer, visiting the airline's major hubs, sometimes more than once. But the most common problem they ran into was pilots' hesitance to embrace a deal seen as supportive of management, said a person familiar with the voting process.

Bates, who had supported signing the labor deal, resigned on Thursday at the request of the union's board of directors after membership shot the deal down. He was replaced by Keith Wilson, who ran against Bates for the union's presidency in 2010 and lost.

The rejection of AMR's offer by such a wide margin - which can be seen as a "vote of no confidence in AMR management by AMR pilots," according to UBS analysts - comes against the backdrop of an aggressive merger push from US Airways. The airline has already reached a tentative labor agreement with AMR pilots in the event of a takeover, featuring work terms similar to those of AMR's last offer.

US Airways has received a non-disclosure agreement from AMR, which has agreed to explore the possibility of a merger.
AMR has said it would prefer to emerge from bankruptcy as an independent company and consider consolidation later. But no large airline has exited bankruptcy without a labor deal in place, and creditors may prefer a US Airways merger if they see it as providing more stable labor relations.

"The argument for doing a merger later is a lot weaker today because AMR lost labor and you don't have a clear path ... to getting labor done," said a person involved in the restructuring.

A lawyer for AMR did not return calls seeking comment. The company declined to comment. US Airways declined to comment.
A spokesman for the pilots' union said the "no" vote does not change the union's support for the US Airways merger.
"We are eager to see all strategic alternatives reviewed," spokesman Dennis Tajer said.

But the pilots' vote could have the effect of slowing down the process. Judge Sean Lane, overseeing AMR's bankruptcy, on Wednesday of next week is slated to rule on whether AMR can abandon its current labor deals and unilaterally impose temporary work terms as the sides continue to negotiate a long-term deal. Such a scenario could further sour an already-damaged relationship between AMR and its pilots, and in an attempt to avoid it, the sides may shift focus back to negotiating a labor deal and away from merger discussions.

Hunter Keay, an analyst at Wolfe Trahan, said AMR will have to resume negotiations with a pilot community that has "little else to lose" once unilateral terms are imposed.

"We can easily see those negotiations going nowhere, pushing AMR close to the end" of its window to exclusively file a restructuring plan, and "open the door for US Airways to file its own plan of reorganization," Keay said.

He added that he does "not envision AMR successfully pitching an exit strategy" without labor certainty. <----- edit: This sums it up!

AMR's bankruptcy is In re AMR Corp et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-15463.
(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

 

[PCL_128]

The very best AA pilots might expect is to see is AMR seeking 1113 relief to impose their best and final. That would be good. Alternatively, if AA had a more harsh (read less expensive) idea it would enhance Horton's stand alone business plan compared to alternate scenarios thereby harming APA's hope to merge. While there are many other pieces to this pie APA and all others will just have to wait and see.

Wishing AA pilots the best...

The only case law on the books for 1113(c) approvals is from the NWA FA case. In that case, the judge ruled that a company has no right beyond imposing it's last offer, or the last TA if one existed. Granted, a judge in another district can easily come up with his own interpretation, but they generally back each other up.

 

[aa73]

PCL,

Again... The NWA F/As case is a very poor example to go with when comparing a major airline pilot group. F/A groups have nowhere near the leverage a pilot group has.

73

 

[PCL_128]

I'm not talking about leverage, I'm talking about the law. In either case, I think you guys are in a good position, relatively speaking.

 

[waveflyer]

Casey-
Who do you work for?
Bc you should try and get a kickback from ford & Harrison-

But your comments are insulting considering the concessionary contract AA already signed and have lived with was supposed to prevent BK. instead it went out of pilots' pockets and into managements' in incredibly irresponsible bonuses.

It's not "feel good" balls that AA expressed- it's self respect of not taking concessions from an already competitively inferior contract when mgmt has already been so inept and unscrupulous.
what would you have them do?
The pilots are giving AA a huge competitive advantage already.
Their 777 capts make less than swa 737 capts. Aa's 737-800 captains make $50/hour less than swa. They make $30/hr less than delta- and are on par with UAL who ought to get an enormous raise.
Sorry- give back all bonuses and then try.
Great job AA. It was the only vote to make. There was no choice.

 

[Dizel8]

Dizel,

If threatened by a robber with a gun who wanted wallet, watch and wife I would be thrilled to negotiate the security of one or more.

Indeed, however, AMR was not open to negotiations, the wanted the wallet, the watch, the wife and just for good measures, the kids as well.

The APA pilots were not shown anything even remotely reasonable, if what I have read is correct. They were already operating under what is a concessionary contract compared to where they were.

Before USAirways merged, they agreed to a concession, first bankruptcy, in order to retain their retirement. That worked for less than a year, Airways went back into bankruptcy again and stripped the pilots of their pensions, without returning any of the previous given concessions.

The APA pilots have, despite your misgivings, done us all a huge favor.

 

[caseyd]

I guess we just disagree. Good luck to all.

 

[Always deferred]

AA73 - I don't have all the facts, but why would AA Pilots want a merger with USAirways, when they haven't even gotten the mess settled between them and America West? I'm just curious. Is it more of wanting to get a new management team, or is there something genuinely appealing about what USAirways can offer?

I mean this as a serious question because I don't know the facts. In talking with several retired AA pilots, they seem to think it's a horrible idea to merge the airlines. Are AA pilots worried at all about getting shafted in the deal? USAirways brings few wide bodies, and has a lot of very senior pilots...have agreements been talked about that would protect AA Pilots' relative seniority in the event of a DOH type SLI?

Educate me please.