Your buddy Occam said that a single carrier petition is the first step in merging carriers and that the NWA MEC was persuing it with NWA/Compass/Mesaba. Others, including ALPA national, have pointed out that a single carrier petition is only for determining the bargaining agent, and that if all carriers are already represented by the same agent, a single carrier petition does no good.
Enlighten us.... what is a single carrier petition for? Does it do any good for the NWA MEC to file one if NWA, Compass, and Mesaba are already represented by ALPA?
Occam has many more years of ALPA experience than I do, so I tend to defer to him on these matters. To answer your question, though, I have always had the impression that you were correct about the purpose of a single-carrier petition. That understanding wasn't based on a briefing from ALPA legal, however. That was just my personal understanding as a layman. I asked Occam about this a few weeks ago, and he's told me that my understanding is incorrect. I haven't had a chance to talk with legal about this yet, so I still don't have an "official" answer, but I tend to trust Occam's information. I'll be in Herndon next week, so hopefully I'll have some spare time to stop by and talk with someone from legal about this.