I have come to the conclusion that pilots, as a whole, would hit their grandmothers over the head with a shovel if they thought it would help them make captain sooner, or make an extra buck, or have another day off, or get the holidays off. Then, they would try and justify it somehow. So, union or not, the best the B6 pilots could hope for would be a staple job.
Seniority integration, like pay, days off, respect, and (sometimes) nookie on the overnights, you don't always get what you deserve, but rather what you negotiate.
The TWA pilots didn't "deserve" to have a large percentage of their pilots stapled, but with negotiated away merger language, that was all they got. The furloughed USAir pilots didn't "deserve" to be stapled but what they negotiated was a certain process with binding arbitration at the end and the arbitrator rules that since they didn't bring an active job to the table they should be on the bottom. Both those groups were ALPA.
One of the things I heard USAPA is trying to put in its bylaws and all future contracts is DOH as the only possible merger outcome. But that has to first ne negotiated (and paid for) with management and my guess is that will be severely expensive, if possible at all, to negotiate because it stands to tie manaement's hands by potentially making "the next" merger (and we all know there will be one) even that more difficult to make reality.
It doesn't matter what one "deserves" so while you may feel the JetBlue pilots "deserve" to be stapled as either punishment or sacrificed in tribute at the altar of almighty ALPA, in the end it will come down to the contractual language of either the individual JetBlue pilots (who do have contractual merger language, more on that later) or the structure and content of the JBPA merger language, if ratified and a CBA is negotiated.
But even now, the JetBlue pilots are non union, but they all have contracts. While I would prefer a CBA than individual contracts, some pilots (the same ones spearheading the potential future in house union) did take our contracts to a very experienced airline labor law firm and they were told that its good language that will most likely hold up, that there is no legal reason why it wouldn't, but since no court has seen the exact example of a contracted non union pilot group merge with a unionized pilot group with a CBA, the final outcome of an arbitrator's ruling could not be predicted with any certainty. The contracts have a similar end result, Allegheney Mohawk language in them, the ability for JB pilots to be furloughed but if so a lump sum 1 year's furlough pay and full recall rights and language dealing with that kind of scenario.
Some will argue that just because they are individual contracts they will automatically be vaporized by the mighty ALPA vortex generator double super laser cannon, but they are incorrect. A contract is a contract is a contract. If violated, the JetBlue pilots would have to seek legal redress either individually or collectively via class action, and yes that may take a while. But there is no reason why any judge would invalidate the contracts just to stroke off and validate mighty ALPA.
The longer any settlement took, the bigger and more expensive the payout for the company, and the more painful the resulting seniority integration would be since it would be retroactive, especially for future new hires at the offending airline in question. And I don't really see any company gifting ALPA the courtessy, respect, money or fear in the first place of intentionally violating legal contracts just to quench their beloved ALPA pilot's thirst for merger blood.
If anything, the two companies would be operated seperately until a common list/contract which would not bode well for any ALPA group in any position to buy, take over, acquire or merge with JetBlue, so most likely any ALPA group would be pushing just as hard as the JetBlue pilots (probably harder) for a quick resolution.
Again, I would rather have a CBA for a billion reasons, 999 million, 999 thousand and 999 of them being stand alone airline related. If a takeover situation were to happen, it would be far more simple to have one CBA than 2000 contracts, but if it meant defending one's entire career, simple is convienient, but not at all necessary.
