trigeek said:
Surplus,
Trans States may have been a bad example. I was refering to the argument that your scope is legal but ours is not based on ownership. The last time I asked the question, I was answewred that ours was illegal because Delta owned both airlines and yours was not because your scope referenced carriers not owned by Delta.
From what you say there I don't recognize that as my argument. Perhaps it will help if I just state why I think the pretinent sections of your Scope (not all of it) is not valid. I pointedly use the word valid as opposed to illegal, because one refers to internal ALPA proceedings and the other imputes law.
It is possible that your pertinent scope contravenes the RLA's intent. I'm not a lawyer. It certainly violates the traditional purpose of scope and that may relate. The lawyers will have to argue those technical points.
Basically, you have written provisions in your scope that affect the employess of a separate airline that is not a subcontractor of your airline. If that is valid, it would mean you could write scope limiting the number of 747's that UAL can fly. There is no precedent for that type of scope and on that basis, it would be invalid.
I'm sure you will allege that Comair IS a subcontractor. I argue the opposite. Before Delta purchased CMR, it was a subcontractor. That contract died on the vine when the acquisition was completed. Unless you can produce a new subcontract entered into between Delta Air Lines, Inc. and Comair, Inc., we are not subcontractors. I don't believe that such a contract exists.
The queston of ownership is not particularly relevean, in my opinion. In any case, unless I'm mistaken, Delta Air Lines, Inc. does not own Comair, Inc. Delta, Inc., owns DAL. Inc., ASA, Inc. and CMR, Inc.. ASA and Comair are therefore both Alter Egos of Delta. They are separate airlines. Is that not what the ALPA Executive Council confirmed. Did they not also dictate that it should so remain. Where do Delta pilots get the right to impose thier will on the pilots of a separate airline, without their consent, and particularly when they are not subcontractors?
The fact is Delta, Inc. owns 3 different and separate airlines. They think it's a good idea and ALPA has agreed.
The corporate structure is very complex and involves multiple shell corporations. Legally, that is quite significant and will have much to do with the arguments.
I don't think we can establish one set of rules and then apply those rules differently based exclusively on the type or size of airlines involved and in particular, not based on the type of aircraft they choose to operate. In other words, what you cannot do to the separate airline UAL, you also cannot do to the separate airline CMR. The rules of the game don't change legally because we are a "regional". (Which arguably we are not anyway.) They aslo do not change because we happen to have the same owner.
With respect to the internal (ALPA) side. We belive that the ALPA has violated its C&BL with respect to the method by which the relevant portion of your scope was negotiated. We also believe that ALPA's decisions in that respect were arbitrary, discriminatory and in violation of ALPA's fiduciary responsibility to Comair pilots. If that is so, ALPA acted in bad faith and therefore, the Duty of Fair Representation implicit in the RLA (a Federal law) has been violated. If the court finds that the ALPA did do all or any of those things. they could (jointly and severally) render the contract resulting from those violations equally invalid and vacated. The remainder of your scope would be untouched.
Finally, there is an overwhelming body of evidence that this type of Scope that the ALPA is pushing, is deliberately directed at limiting the introduction and operation of a specific category of aircraf called "the RJ". It has little if anything to do with protecting the work of Delta pilots or any other mainline pilot. "Stop the RJ" any way you can, is virtually an ALPA crusade. The problem with that is that the ALPA happens to represent thousands of ALPA members who fly this equipment. Therefore, the ALPA is destroying the jobs of some of its members to satisfy the perceptions of others of its members. That is illegal.
Again, these are complex legal issues. The average person knows what they believe but that is seldom accurate in the context of the legal system. What you meant to do or thought you were doing with your scope may be quite different from what you actually did and from what is permissable under the law .
Unfortunately, this mess isn't about niceties. Millions of dollars could be lost to Comair pilots. You can't expect us to just "grin and bear it". This action (lawsuit) is NOT about animosity towards Delta pilots. It is about our job security, our career expectations and our livelihood. It has absolutely nothing to do with your seniority list.
That is not true. No one wanted you to win more than we did. If you won, we won in a way. The higher your pay and compensation the better. That reduces managements desire to whipsaw groups and replace mainline flying with DCI flying..
OK, I'll accept your word. That may be what you as an individual feel. What "our" union and your elected leaders have done, does not match your words. Even your defense raises question for it illustrates the motivation as self interest, not genuine support of our efforts or desires.
If in fact your group thinks as you say you do, why are you continuously throwing in our faces reminders of what ever money you may have contributed? Are we expected to disregard our beliefs and acquiese to your whims because you paid a strike assessment? Candidly, you can forget that.
As an aside, I want to thank those who donated to our family fund. Did you know that the American pilots were the largest single contributors? Did you know that what we got from the APA was almost as much as we got from ALL ALPA airlines combined? Thanks AA pilots and Kudos to you.
I'm not sure I understand this. DALPA went to great lengths to ensure we didn't fly struck work. We literally manned a "Command Post" if you will to answer any questions pilots had about reroutes or additional flying. There was NO increase of frequency or guage on ANY route Comair flew.
Yes, you did do ALL of those things. Thank you. Now, while Delta pilots were doing all of those things, behind the scenes at the national level, Delta leaders were arguing and pressuring to get the Comair MEC to relax its definition of struck work.
If your activities (that you outline) were done because you wanted to support us instead of because you wanted to avoid being called the "S" word (as I suggested), why the pressure to change the definition? I would think that true support would produce an argument from you to tighten the definition, not loosen it.
Truth is trigeek, there were a lot of things that our union and your pilot group could have done to support us that were NOT done. I don't want to belabor the point but the fact is both the ALPA and the Delta MEC did what they were required to do. Nothing more. I thank my MEC for the wisdom of anticipating just that.
You know what, I'll bet that very few if any Delta line pilots had a clue about what was happening behind the scenes. I'm not surprised that you find what I say incredible. The unfortunate fact is that most MEC's never tell line pilots 90% of what they really do. Politicians are not noted for candidly revealing the details of their behavior to their constituents. Delta is a big airline with 10,000 pilots. It's hard for you to know much. Comair is a small airline with 1400 pilots. Much easier for us to find out what our MEC is up to.
A lot of the squabbling we have between line pilots over these issues and this lawsuit, is directly related to how much who knows about what really happened. I wish it wasn't so, but it is.
Oh we know we have his support...For baseball arbitration, for dismantling the contract he just signed, for many things that benefit him. I don't think ANYONE flying the line at Delta or DCI thinks he's looking out for us. That we can all agree on (I hope...)
Yes, we can agree on that. Hurrah!! There IS a Pony in the pile.
I wonder if you know where this baseball arbitration idea for pilot contracts originated? (It wasn't Leo). What if I told you that it originated in a proposal to the APA from an AA VP of Labor Relations. What if I told you that VP was a former MEC Chairman in ALPA and was also a former official in the ALPA's Representation Department (before he went to AA)?
Tell you what, there are a lot of unionists among us. There are also a lot of opportunists politicians running our union under the guise of unionism. That I learned the hard way.
Sorry if I get a little heated at times but Comair pilots are my family and a lot of them will be hurt badly if something isn't done to correct what ALPA is tryin to do to us. That is why there's a lawsuit and it is why I support it. I used to be a believer and among the faithful. Now I'm a full fledged heretic. As they say, even a rat will fight if you corner him.
