Due to its length, this post will be in two parts. This is Part 1.
Surplus,
You advise us to "get our facts straight", yet you take yours directly from the rjdc's spin page. If you want facts, I suggest that you read the actual lawsuit, and don't rely on what the rjdc wants people to believe.
FlyDeltaJets, et al,
Thanks for the reply. I enjoy debating with you. I think you are really a reasonable person who is simply not fully informed on the heart of the issues surrounding the RJDC litigation.
What I took from what you call the RJDC “spin page” could not have come from any other source. Braniff (or perhaps it was someone else) made a statement re the RJDC’s alleged desire to eliminate all scope. I simply refuted that by quoting the RJDC’s public views on scope. What better source than the horse’s mouth?
Once before I told you that I had read the lawsuit filed by the RJDC. I now repeat that. I am not relying on what they or anyone else wants me to believe. If you knew me personally you would understand that is completely out of character for me. I know who the principals are, I know what they believe and do not believe and I know what they are trying to do. Not because someone told me, but because I happen to know them all personally. I also consider myself to be fairly good at reading and understanding the English language. I know what the lawsuit says and I also understand what it means, legally as well as otherwise.
You wrote: “ "approving, or imposing those portions of the Scope Clause of the tentative agreement (now our PWA) that would impose restrictions on flying by Comair." Read that again closely. “
An accurate quote. I have read it closely more than once. Your interpretation of what a judge’s granting of that injunction might mean is your interpretation and nothing more. That doesn’t make it so. I know you are an educated person (based on how you write and what you have said). So am I. Yet I do not interpret the potential outcome in the way that you do. I’m not a judge or even an attorney but I do have considerable experience in the field of labor relations that includes dealing with litigation of this type and related judicial decisions. There is little in history that would indicate a judge allowing the extreme broad brush that you envision. In the final analysis, all I can say is this. Your opinion, sir, is not fact. Neither is mine.
While it is true that there are people on my property that paid large sums for a preferential interview, there are also people on your property (perhaps originally from mine or others) that have done the same. There are also people on your property that got their jobs because of who they knew, rather than what they knew. This is truly irrelevant to the debate. It proves nothing and gets us nowhere.
Yes, our inability to negotiate a Scope clause that prevents sub-contracting is a major problem. Your group has also failed to negotiate a Scope clause that prevents sub-contracting. Since your MEC has the unqualified support of the ALPA with respect to your Scope efforts and my MEC has had nothing but opposition from the ALPA on the same issue, why do you seem to imply that we are more responsible for the whipsaw than you are? If we have to blame someone for the current deficiencies in Scope Clauses, that blame rest squarely with the ALPA and the major airline MECs.
You were already experiencing whipsaw prior to your airline’s acquisition of my airline, both in your domestic and international operations. With your 10.000 plus members, the full support of the ALPA’s millions and the support of all other major airline MECs, you have been unable to prevent the code sharing of your international operations or the code sharing and sub-contracting of your domestic operations. Why is this? My friend, when your house is constructed of so much glass you should think twice about throwing stones. When this mess was originally conceived, there were NO regional or commuter pilots in all of the ALPA.
While you may not know it or may be unwilling to admit it, my group tried very hard to negotiate appropriate Scope. The truth is that we got more resistance to our efforts from the union that we pay to represent our interests than we did from the company. While you may find this statement less than credible, due to your lack of direct exposure and much second hand information, I nevertheless know that it is true.
The lawsuit goes on to seek to enjoin ALPA from "negotiating, facilitating or advocating the use of scope clauses in collective bargaining agreements in such a manner as to excercise control over the flying of pilots for a carrier other than the one for which the collective bargaining agreement is being negotiated."
Again you have quoted correctly from the litigation. However, your subsequent theorizing is once more a matter of your opinion as to the potential impact. Additionally, you choose to ignore the negative impact that your efforts to control the flying of pilots at separate carriers will cause. Yes, your contract prohibits Sky West from flying aircraft with more than 70 seats. However, not only does it prohibit SKYW (a sub-contractor) but it also prohibits Comair and ASA which are operating units of the same corporation that employs you. Your Scope is therefore directed against your own company’s assets. Further, your Scope attempts to limit the number of 70-seat aircraft that may be operated by Comair and ASA (as well as the sub-contractors), regardless of the negative economic impact that this may create in the lives of the affected pilots or your own company. Additionally, it does a lot more but there is little point in rehashing all that.
While it may very well be appropriate to restrict the sub-contracting of Delta flying to non-Delta airlines, I have to question the legitimacy of restricting Delta flying within Delta Air Lines. This obviously contradictive application of your Scope raises many questions that remain unanswered. Comair and ASA are not sub-contractors of Delta, Inc. flying. They are integral components of the corporation. One can easily argue that scoping out components of your own company does not make sense, even if it turns out to be legal. At this moment it is creating a negative impact on your own career.
Had you chosen to take the position that the acquired companies became a part of Delta as a result of the acquisition; a reasonable allocation of the pilot work within Delta might have evolved between us. Comair and ASA pilots could have joined forces with you and reached a consensus as to who would do what. Instead you assumed the unilateral right to determine what we could do, when we could do it and how we could do it. Your MEC and OUR (with a grimace) Union, excluded us from all input into these negotiations, thereby neutering our right to represent our own interests in favor of your interests. You and the Union both alleged that we had NO rights, and you and you alone could determine, without limit, what would happen to us. Your own DALPA officials even went so far as to tell us verbally, while carefully avoiding any written record, that you were entitled to this superior right due to the amount of money you pay to ALPA in dues.
Well, we acknowledge that you pay more money in dues than we do. However, we pay in full the dues that we are required to pay by the Constitution. We are therefore entitled to equal representation notwithstanding the fact that you pay more (only because there are more of you).
In so doing, we allege that the Union abrogated its Duty of Fair Representation towards the pilots of Comair and ASA. It further abrogated its fiduciary responsibility to us. It also violated its Constitution & By-Laws.
We sought redress within the Union. We petitioned for the creation of a PID in accordance with ALPA policy. Your MEC, using ALPA paid attorneys, argued against our petition. The Executive Council (on which your group has 2 voting members and we have none), voted it down after determining, in what we argue was an arbitrary and unreasonable manner that, in their opinion, there was “insufficient operational integration”. We filed grievances within the Union. The Union refused to hear our grievances. We did not lose the grievances, we were denied a hearing.
Due to these actions and others, all pilots that remain in the service of Comair and ASA, for as long as it is a part of Delta, Inc., will suffer economic loss, and be denied the benefits of career progression (within Comair and ASA, not on your list) that was planned, provided for and would have occurred, had we not been artificially restricted by the actions of our mutual bargaining agent, the ALPA.
In that all efforts to resolve the issues within the ALPA have been denied or frustrated by the actions of ALPA officials, we have no choice other than to seek legal redress from the courts. It is unfortunate that offends you, but regardless of the outcome that is our right. It has been exercised and we intend to pursue it until the case is settled finally. No amount of rhetoric from any source will alter that reality. This will either be settled to our satisfaction outside of a court room or it will be settled in a court room.
Please go to Part 2.