It's Official: USAirways Wants American

[Flybywire44]

Time will tell, but there is no incentive for APA to embrace Nicolai.

It's very easy. US positions to aquire AA, and tells the East and West that if they don't merge the lists the way the NIC award was supposed to do, then they will operate AA seperately, (just like the East and West are done now---staying on their own planes), and only give the AA guys the raise. Take it or leave it. If they want a 30% raise, they will do it. If not and they want to continue to be babies and stubborn, then they can vote no. Then, when the APA tries to get a vote for a union, and the Westies overwhelmingly agree to vote USAPA out, the East guys will be left holding the bag.

Judge Silver will be issuing a ruling shortly, and everyone knows the Easties went around a binding award. It's just obvious. So, a lot is also riding on Judge Silver. I suspect there will be another round of Binding Arbitration, but after the NIC award is presented as the US list.


Godspeed!


The OYSter

OYS, it seems your position is that US Air management will leverage "a take it or leave it" 30% pay raise in order to impose Nic on the whole company. What is management's incentive in leveraging Nic on APA in this way? What if APA does not want it? I ask because APA has not mentioned CLI specifics yet. Is this what Leo is advertising or is this your personal aside?

APA has not commented on Nic at all. Notes from recent APA/AAA meetings and an APA email have only stated:

Russ stated that the integration would be painful but then went on to
say that McCaskill-Bond would apply and the retirement demographics
would be favorable to us. (I guess the US Air guys are older than us)

As far as representation goes it will be APA, the NMB is ready to move
on that as soon as we get approval and there most likely won’t be a
vote because it will be a “friendly” takeover from USAPA.

Dave went on to talk about how badly the AW-LCC seniority merger was
done and said that this will be the opportunity to fix this for once
and for all. It will fall under McCaskill-Bond which means it will be
a 3 member board that decides if we can’t negotiate a deal and it will
stick. There will be some kind of hard fence for wide body pilots.

Expedited arbitration for seniority (DAL/NWA percentile)

Seniority may go to expedited arbitration. Expect percentile in type over any DOH (aka DAL/NWA)

Time will tell, but there may not be any incentive for APA to embrace Nicolai. AAA management may not care about what SLI process is chosen; Parker need only understand the liability of recognizing any SLI outcome.

 

[ASADFW7]

Historically we all know there are unresolved legal matters regarding US Airways, please keep the hit and run type posts to a minimum as this process plays out. Please no excessive personal sideways discussion on current news and industry events. This is hard to moderate, but the intent is to keep good information and discussion going, and sideways conversations from taking over hot topics. Thank you for your consideration.

 

[IBNAV8R]

It's very easy. US positions to aquire AA, and tells the East and West that if they don't merge the lists the way the NIC award was supposed to do, then they will operate AA seperately, (just like the East and West are done now---staying on their own planes), and only give the AA guys the raise. Take it or leave it. If they want a 30% raise, they will do it. If not and they want to continue to be babies and stubborn, then they can vote no. Then, when the APA tries to get a vote for a union, and the Westies overwhelmingly agree to vote USAPA out, the East guys will be left holding the bag.

Judge Silver will be issuing a ruling shortly, and everyone knows the Easties went around a binding award. It's just obvious. So, a lot is also riding on Judge Silver. I suspect there will be another round of Binding Arbitration, but after the NIC award is presented as the US list.

Even if they are operated separately (like west/east), the much larger APA (along with the Westies) will push for a single bargaining agent. In this case, the Nic award could be forced. It is also quite plausible that the new majority of voters might view Nic as unfairly favorable to the easties.

Methinks poetic justice is about to be served.

 

[B-atch]

Even if they are operated separately (like west/east), the much larger APA (along with the Westies) will push for a single bargaining agent. In this case, the Nic award could be forced. It is also quite plausible that the new majority of voters might view Nic as unfairly favorable to the easties.

Methinks poetic justice is about to be served.

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[abefly]

All US Airways management cares about is getting the American deal done. They have said from they begining they will remain neutral on the seniority issue (even though we know thats not true). Doug Parker doesn't care what list is used. He just wants the mess to be over with.

That being said, Apa will vote on their contract in less than 60 days. That contract will be a significant improvement over what we have here on the east and west. We will have the same contract given to USAPA. Now USAPA can either agree to the contract, with NIC as section 22. Or they can continue their D.O.H. conquest.

Now I know you are saying,why will section 22 contain the NIC and not D.O.H. Answer is, it's the path of least resistance. If Parker uses the nic, there is no law suit from the west. East is not happy,but what can they do?

1. Cause a work action? ( no , sorry, federal injunction already in place to prevent that non-sense again)

2. Vote no on the contract

3. Vote yes and move on to get good wages for all and work with the West on the next seniority integration against a bigger more funded union.


So let's say that USAPA says hell no and tries to fight till the end.

Well here is a porttion of the TA from US Air and APA.

" APA agrees to file a single carrier petition with the National Mediation Board as soon as practicable after the effective date of the agreement."

So the day the APA pilots vote in the contract they petition the NMB for single carrier status. Given how many more APA pilots there are to US Air, they wouold simply rule with no vote.

And just like that POOOFFF, USAPA is gone.

Now do you really think the APA is going to continue to fund defending lawsuits to get the East pilots their DOH?

I think not. There will be no vote, we will all be on the same contract and we will go to mckaskill/bond 20 days mediation, then arbitration with a list in 90 days.

All I can say to the East pilots is for once in your career, do some research. Besides what USAPA tells you.

 

[ackattacker]

Flybywire above so far has one of the only *factual* posts on this thread. Most everything else is speculation driven by large doses of hope and dreams.

A few facts:

USAPA is constitutionally directed to seek DOH in any merger.
APA is constitutionally directed to seek a staple in any merger.

Both positions are likely at odds with McCaskill-Bond any hence basically irrelevant. Neither will happen, and it appears from the APA notes that management agrees.

The notes also point to an APA takeover, no surprise, but takeover does not imply or even permit APA imposed list. This talk about "forcing" the nic or any other method through force of numbers is thoroughly misinformed. McCaskill-bond legally requires negotiation between the affected groups followed by arbitration. ALPA TA remains in effect for LCC until new negotiated or arbitrated contract is ratified. Whether an arbitrator would use or discard the nic is a separate issue and lies in the realm of speculation at this point, I'm trying to deal with facts here.

CoC language in the old ALPA contract may be a big incentive for management to expedite the process and help ensure the new, joint contract is acceptable and ratifiable by US Air pilots. If no new contract there's a very strong legal argument that LCC pay reverts to pre-bankruptcy levels.

 

[abefly]

Flybywire above so far has one of the only *factual* posts on this thread. Most everything else is speculation driven by large doses of hope and dreams.

A few facts:

USAPA is constitutionally directed to seek DOH in any merger.
APA is constitutionally directed to seek a staple in any merger.

Both positions are likely at odds with McCaskill-Bond any hence basically irrelevant. Neither will happen, and it appears from the APA notes that management agrees.

The notes also point to an APA takeover, no surprise, but takeover does not imply or even permit APA imposed list. This talk about "forcing" the nic or any other method through force of numbers is thoroughly misinformed. McCaskill-bond legally requires negotiation between the affected groups followed by arbitration. APA notes point to 3-way negotiations. ALPA TA remains in effect for LCC until new negotiated or arbitrated contract is ratified. Whether an arbitrator would use or discard the nic is a separate issue and lies in the realm of speculation at this point, I'm trying to deal with facts here.

CoC language in the old ALPA contract may be a big incentive for management to expedite the process and help ensure the new, joint contract is acceptable and ratifiable by US Air pilots. If no new contract there's a very strong legal argument that LCC pay reverts to pre-bankruptcy levels.

WRONG...... APA notes talk about a 3 person arbitration panel. Not the three pilot groups. There are only two pilot groups. USAPA VS. APA.

When you voted in USAPA you took away the three pilot group option. We are all represented by USAPA.

and change of control won't matter. Given the amount of APA pilots over US Air pilots. They will simply use their numbers to vote in the contract for us. In essance they will USAPA, USAPA. Oh except they will be successful at it because USAPA has no grounds for a DFR.

I could see the lawsuit now. USAPA Sues apa over DFR. HAHA.

Good luck telling a judge that story when you just got a 60k dollar raise and all apa did was use a arbitrated agreed upon seniority list.

 

[ackattacker]

I changed my post above to reflect, you are correct I misread the notes regarding the 3 member arbitration.

However APA could impose a contract but they can't impose a list. The list used has to be negotiated or arbitrated. So they sit down and negotiate, and can't come to an agreement. It goes to arbitration. The new 3 member arbitration panel gets to decide the new list. I agree it is *likely* they would incorporate the nic since it was previously arbitrated. However that's still little more than an educated guess, it puts the ball entirely in their court.

 

[abefly]

I changed my post above to reflect, you are correct I misread the notes regarding the 3 member arbitration.

However APA could impose a contract but they can't impose a list. The list used has to be negotiated or arbitrated. So they sit down and negotiate, and can't come to an agreement. It goes to arbitration. The new 3 member arbitration panel gets to decide the new list. I agree it is *likely* they would incorporate the nic since it was previously arbitrated. However that's still little more than an educated guess, it puts the ball entirely in their court.

Once the contract is either voted in or imposed on the EAST/WEST, there will only be two lists. The nic and APA's list. This will not go to mediation or arbitration until we are all on one contract.

Doug learned from the last merger. It will go down just like DAL/NWA.

 

[ackattacker]

Also, I wonder what happens if USAPA and APA sit down to negotiate a new list, and USAPA presents a DOH list which puts AWA pilots on the bottom but protects the AA pilots relative seniority. AA has no incentive to use the nic so they agree. If USAPA and APA agree to a list, it never goes back to arbitration, and all that's left is a DFR lawsuit.