RJDC update (4/4/04) part 1

[surplus1]

As far as i'm concerned job security should be our first priority in contract 2006.

I fully agree that job security should be our first priority but not in 2006 .... right now.

The only one's actively pursuing that in our group happens to be the RJDC. They have not yet achieved security, but there is little doubt that they have prevented job loss from programs like J4J, which would surely have been tried here but for their efforts.

A program similar to J4J would not have affected me, but would be devestating to my fellows in your category, many of whom don't seem to fully grasp that.

I recommend you explore the true activities of the group. It is much more realistic than the "brand scope" being pandered by ALPA and certain elements of our MEC.

 

[surplus1]

It is my opinion that the RJDC aims to bring mainline sized airplane salaries down to regional levels by trying to bid for that service.

General,

If that is your true opinion and not just your rhetoric, then it demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of the issues or their import and makes discussing them with you more than difficult. I think better of you so don't force me to change my mind.

Scope protects salary levels, and with out it there would be just one lower level pay scale, and a lot of happy management types.

That statement reflects the flawed concepts that have rendered ALPA's use and application of scope against "regional carriers" particularly ineffective.

That is what the union has been trying to do, i.e., use the Scope clause as an attempt to control the salary levels of mainline pilots by limiting the Company's ability to select and place appropriate aircraft types as indicated by marketing conditions.

Your definition (which echoes ALPA's misapplication of scope) is a flagrant and erroneous perversion of the intended purpose of Scope. Scope is a mechanism designed to protect the security of jobs for union members and nothing more. Control of salary levels has no place in Section 1 of the CBA.

This perversion of Scope is precisely why the union has created divisions within its own house and is the cause of the conflict of interest that now threatens the union's very survival.

The continued pursuit of this flawed application of Scope has far reaching consequences, including in the extreme the elimination of the true purpose of Scope.

In its proper application Scope protects our jobs by preventing the Company from allocating our work to units outside of the Company's control. The immediate result of ALPA's misapplication of Scope has been the proliferation of outsourcing. In the effort to use scope as a support mechanism for salaries, which should be negotiated in a separate section of the CBA, ALPA has in fact lost a significant portion of the work of the very pilots whose salaries it was trying to protect.

UAL pilots cannot retain or improve their salaries by futile attempts to limit the work performed by DAL pilots. Interestingly, they do not try. Likewise, DAL pilots do not attempt to retain or improve their salaries by limiting the work performed by UAL pilots. Each protects its job security by requiring the Company to use its own pilots in the operation of all of its services. ALPA however, believes that legitimate Scope should not apply to "regional" carriers.

For some reason, the leaders of all the major airline pilot groups, who are also the leaders of the ALPA, made the collective decision that they did not wish to do certain types of flying. Rather than negotiate appropriate compensation for the types of equipment their respective companies desired to operate, they instead erroneously believed that they would somehow "keep their salaries high" by excluding thousands of jobs from their previous sphere of control. They gave away the work that they did not want and in the process, perverted the true purpose of Scope to a degree that has been especially damaging to every airline pilot, including themselves.

That's what happens when greed replaces good judgement and all of us are today paying the price of these past errors.

The concept that "we won't fly anything that pays less than X", but will instead permit our Company to do so with pilots that are not a part of our group, is the cause of the problem. You gave away your job security for a few pieces of silver; fools gold.

Once you opened that door, management was more than willing to use it. Their exploitation of your lack of judgement has grown ever since. On numerous occasions they (management) too made mistakes and gave you more than one opportunity to close the door and regain control of what you lost. You rejected every one of those opportunities, blinded by even greater greed. It is now highly unlikely they will allow you to close that door.

If you (as a group) had failed to recognize the potential impact of your original error, I would not blame you. However, you did recognize it. Nevertheless, you would not admit to yourselves that your boat was taking water. Instead of bailing and making a permanent repair, you began a process of justifying your actions to yourselves, and attempted to patch the holes in the hull of your job security with a series of band aids (scope against aircraft types).

First you admitted the non-entities (in your view) that your error had created in to the union, believing that you could manipulate and control them with your glitter. In the process you created a second class cadre within the union itself and a system of apartheid. With the belief that a series of promises you never intended to keep would keep them at bay, you ignored again the real danger. For a while it appeared to work for they (the pilots) were amateurs without the ability to recognize your true intent. It was easy to take advantage of them and you did it. When I say "it worked" I mean that it worked on the "commuter pilots" awed by your big birds and the false promise of eventual access to the "upper class". It never worked on management, which was the only place that really mattered. The subs continued to grow in number and size.

Second, when they had grown to the extent that gave them the ability to change their equipment, and technology provided the means whereby they could do it, you failed again to seize the opportunity to repair the breach in your hull. Your lack of vision, once more blinded by your greed, kept you from acknowledging that while you could survive the error of giving away the work in propeller driven airplanes by perverting your Scope even further, you could not do the same with the new small jets. The evidence now shows that management fully understood what it was doing, while ALPA and the major airline units did not. You thought that your perverted Scope clause would save the day for you believed by now that Scope was the protector of salaries and not the protector of jobs. You were wrong again.

Third, when your Company decided that it was more advantageous to own and operate these small jets itself, rather than subcontract with their operators, it purchased two airlines immediately converting two subcontractors into two alter egos. ALPA had a policy on its books with respect to alter ego airlines. ALPA had an opportunity to attempt to enforce this policy and perhaps regain the initiative. ALPA did not do this. Why not? Because only a few months before the MEC's of the controlling major airlines intentionally neutered that policy and simultaneously altered the merger policy in a way deliberately designed to prevent the possibility of any integration between a major airline pilot group and a regional pilot group. You are paying the price of that blunder today.

Did they (the major MEC's) foresee or were they forewarned of Delta's intent to acquire ASA and later Comair? I do not know the answer, but it is a remarkable coincidence that the timing of this policy change so closely preceded the corporate decision to acquire not one, but two alter ego airlines, and that the change just happened to be sponsored by the Delta MEC.

ALPA was not new to alter egos. There were three in existence on the property of USAirways, all represented by the ALPA. There was another on the property of American Airlines (Eagle) also represented by the ALPA. One on the property of NWA represented by ALPA (Express 1 - now PCL) and yet another on the property of Continental, not represented by ALPA. The decision to keep them separate and to prepare for the perpetuation of that status if a major ALPA carrier should acquire others, is difficult to regard as an "accident". It is far more likely that these "decisions" were in furtherance of the already flawed policy of using Scope to protect salaries.

Fourth, after the acquisition of ASA and Comair by Delta you had yet another opportunity to solve the problem by attempting to integrate the pilot groups. You rejected that opportunity by pulling out all the stops that could preclude the application of merger policy. Instead you negotiated further restriction in your Scope clause with the same flawed intent. It did nothing to protect you as evidenced by the number of furloughs you have.

Now that your carrier is in financial difficulty you seek, as others have done, to demand employment of your pilots by the same carriers that you formally rejected previously and you complain loudly that those of us who seek to correct the errors of ALPA are trying to lower your salaries so that we can bid on your airplanes. This while the major airline pilots at USAirways have already agreed to undercut the wages of every regional carrier by entering the lowest bid of all for the work that we already do.

The hypocrisy of your words is manifest in your actions. What you really want is the jobs that we have so that you can compensate for the jobs that you chose to give away when times were, in your opinion, great. You regret your past decisions and you regret the loss of jobs that resulted from your own perversion of Scope. You are using your Scope not to protect your salaries or your jobs but in the attempt to take our jobs, restrict our growth, and remove our future.


Continued >>>

 

[surplus1]

General, Part 2

You would now like to return Scope to its original and true purpose, protection of jobs, but it is too late. The jobs that we have are no longer yours. They now belong to us and we will not allow you to take them without a fight the likes of which you've never experienced.

Our jobs must be protected by our Scope, not yours. Sorry, if that upsets you but our jobs just don't belong to you any more and we do not intend to give them to you at our expense. You can stomp your feet, roll on the floor and shout whatever nonsense suits you fancy. Your flying ends in the 737's or their equivalent. The rest belongs to us. We will not give it up and we will overturn, in the courts, your efforts to restrict it.

To date we have placed no "bid" for any of your flying. You however, have actively sought to transfer our best equipment to yourselves and your peers at USAirways, who follow the same policies that you advocate, have bid for the flying that we (regionals) do and have agreed to rates far below our own (as much as 50% lower). I have little doubt that you will do the same if you get the chance. There are predators in the stew General, but they reside at the major airlines, not the regionals. You failed to protect your work on numerous occasions and now that you are hurting, you seek to remedy the hurt by taking our work.

You are free to "bid" for any equipment that we do not already operate and we are equally free to bid for any equipment that you do not operate. Whether you like that or whether you do not is no longer relevant. You are also free to bid for the equipment that we currently operate. If you make that choice, you can expect that we will reciprocate. We will not fire the first shot but if you fire on us again, we will return the fire. It's your call. You had your chance to be our friends and you made it clear that you want no part of us. That is your right and we accept it. You got exactly what you wanted, now live with it and stop asking for more.

I think if you guys aren't happy with ALPA representation, you should get your own union.(But then you wouldn't have the resources available to you from the current ALPA thanks to all of the dues from the larger airlines--like larger strike funds etc....---it goes both ways)

We choose not to leave the ALPA. We choose instead to legally force the ALPA to represent our interests fairly, which is required of it by Federal law. If ALPA will not do so voluntarily, then the courts will, hopefully, order it to do so. If the courts do so, the impact of the decision will not adversely affect you nearly as much as the impact of ALPA's violation of our rights on your behalf is currently affecting us. You will lose nothing that is rightfully yours but you will lose the ability to restrict our careers. If you are not happy with the potential outcome then take action to prevent it. That will require the ALPA and you to change your ways. You have the ability to resolve the conflict, especially since you are the one's that created it in the first instance. I suggest you do it before the court renders its final decision. If you do not, then you will have to live with that final decision. So will we.

I say the same to you my friend. If you are not happy with ALPA you too are free to leave. Go ahead and start the ball rolling; I'm sure you're familiar with the process. We certainly can't prevent you and I promise we will not try. If you believe that will somehow allow you to take from us with impunity then be my guest. I think you'll be in for a rude awakening.

Surplus1

 

[michael707767]

Re: General, Part 2

You would now like to return Scope to its original and true Your flying ends in the 737's or their equivalent. The rest belongs to us. We will not give it up and we will overturn, in the courts, your efforts to restrict it.

Really? So I guess you were lying when you told me that you were not against scope and that you had no problem with the 70 seat limit, just the restrictions of the number of 70 seaters and below. You also said that the RJDC was not trying to eliminate our scope clause, just that once we allow outsourcing on a certain aircraft we cannot restrict the numbers of them. Which is it? Our biggest aircraft is the 777. I guess that means we don't have rights to the 747 either?

CMR's smaller aircraft is the 40 seat CRJ. So I guess your flying ends there even though your scope says that you will do all flying above 20 seats. I guess it would be OK for CMR to buy the EMB-135 and staff them with pilots other than those on the CMR pilot list?

Funny how your rhetoric is starting to match perfectly with the new EMB -170-195, which fit in perfectly below a 737.

 

[surplus1]

Re: Re: General, Part 2

Really? So I guess you were lying when you told me that you were not against scope and that you had no problem with the 70 seat limit, just the restrictions of the number of 70 seaters and below. You also said that the RJDC was not trying to eliminate our scope clause, just that once we allow outsourcing on a certain aircraft we cannot restrict the numbers of them. Which is it? Our biggest aircraft is the 777. I guess that means we don't have rights to the 747 either?

Two pages of rhetoric, yet you choose to quote out of context. How convenient, but more importantly how revealing.

I am still not against scope. Nothing that I have said before has changed. Efforts to twist it are fruitless.

When your MEC stops its efforts to take the 70-seaters and removes the restriction on their number, together with the restrictions on the 50-seater, we will react accordingly.

Meanwhile, you have declared war on our assets and you have acted directely to prevent our growth within our own sphere of operation.

If you expect us to sit quietly and endure your hegemony, you've made yet another mistake. Sometimes it becomes necessary to fight fire with fire. You started the fire. Put it out and we will have no need to light back fires. Capiche?

For the record, we have no objection to your acquiring as many aircraft equal or greater in size to those you already operate. If you can get the company to buy them, have at it. That is your territory and we have no intent to invade it. You have already invaded ours.

If you would like 747's get them. If you would like to fly them between Atlanta and Macon, or Cincinnati and Lexington, be my guest. We have no claims to that and will make none.

Just stay out of our business and we'll stay out of yours.

CMR's smaller aircraft is the 40 seat CRJ. So I guess your flying ends there even though your scope says that you will do all flying above 20 seats. I guess it would be OK for CMR to buy the EMB-135 and staff them with pilots other than those on the CMR pilot list?

Yes, regretably our contract does contain that little ALPA ditty. No, it would not be OK for CMR to operate the EMB-135 or the 328J with pilots from another list. However, we will not attempt to prevent the company from operating more than 10 328J or 500 EMB-135, nor will we attempt to force the company to operate them between only CVG and DAY. That would be the equivalent of what YOU have attempted. We are not as smart as you are, but we are too smart to attempt such nonesense.

We have no problem emulating the good things you do, nor rejecting the stupid ideas you come up with. The latter seems to bother you a great deal.

Funny how your rhetoric is starting to match perfectly with the new EMB -170-195, which fit in perfectly below a 737.

I have said in previous posts that I would not have a problem if the Company should buy the EMB-195 and give it to you. If you continue to "bid" for the CRJ-700 you will cause me to change my mind.

It is not likely that the Company will purchase the EMB-170. If it did, that aircraft would become a replacement for the CRJ-700. In that circumstance, it should go to us. Incidentally, that is how I see the EMB-195 -- a 737 replacement. I doubt that you would be willing to accept that, however.

Don't take what I wrote out of context. The bottom line is simple. Get out of our territory and remove the unrealistic restrictions you have placed on it. Stop negotiating behind the scenes in an effort to transfer the CRJ-700's to yourselves, and don't tell me that you haven't done that for I know that you have and that you are still trying.

I repeat what I said before. Do not bid on the equipment that we operate. If you make that choice, you can expect that we will reciprocate.

Understand also that as long as we are both owned and controlled by the same corporation and maintain separate lists and contracts, we are alter egos to each other. In that circumstance, you do not possess the unilateral right to determine the location of the fence between us. Neither do we. The fence, if any, must be established by mutual consent.

We will not attempt to move the fence into your traditional territory. You, in turn, must refrain from attempts to move the fence into our territory. To date you have not done so. What you are experiencing is the consequence of your own behavior, not of ours.

If you continue your past practice you open the door to territory that so far has not been in dispute, e.g., the EMB-190/195. From my perspective, that is not in your best interest. Govern youselves accordingly.

I'm not telling you what to do for I recognize you will do as you please. You just need to get it clear in your mind that we will do the same.

It's your call.