2015 Pilot Discussion.

[Claxon]

Taking Responsibility

“A recession is when you have to tighten your belt; depression is when you have no belt to tighten. When you've lost your trousers - you're in the airline business.” Sir Adam Thomson

Over the past few U-Turns, we’ve noticed a change in the tone of comments we’ve received. Maybe the reality of what we are up against is finally sinking in. Some accused us of taking the quotes from the Freund rebuttal out of context. We didn’t. We’ve had requests for copies of Jeff Freund’s actual East Vs West court documents. The file is too big to be directly cut and pasted. We can forward it in a scanned PDF-ZIP/Scan format. Just email us. Remember, we have no website, no budget and receive no donations. Maybe someone will paste it as an attachment on the AWAPPA web board for all to view. We would do it ourselves, but we’ve all been banned from the AWAPPA web board since May.

We have also received additional comments on what happened at Wye River from both sides. While our initial reporting appears to be correct and consistent with the latest accounts, it was incomplete. Here’s additional information from both sides.

According to our reports, on Day One of Wye River, Jeff Freund warned the West MEC that if USAPA won, the West risked losing everything. He urged reaching an agreement. He was gone on Day Two. We won’t address his motivation for leaving.
As Jeff Freund observed in his rebuttal to the East MEC lawsuit, the NIC was not in stone. And the loss of ALPA put it in real trouble. At least ALPA had the obligation, through the ALPA Merger Policy, to attempt to get the company to use the NIC Award.

ALPA’s lawyers knew the list was negotiable, but they never told either rank and file. We attended last summer’s ALPA road shows in PHX, starring Paul Rice and a cast of ALPA attorneys. Did ALPA ever hint that the NIC was negotiable? We believe it was for fear of fanning the flames and drawing more support for USAPA that Herndon kept that from us. They did tell all the Wye River attendees the reality. One side listened, the other didn’t.

In last summer’s East Vs West lawsuit, the East used ALPA DUES MONEY and an ALPA-Approved attorney, Roland Wilder, to pursue the case. As far as we can determine, we had to use our own Merger Fund money to defend ourselves. Thanks for choosing sides, ALPA! In the likely event that the NIC will be trashed in a single contract, it will be our own voluntary contributions that will have to be raised for a DFR lawsuit. USAPA expects it, so we shouldn’t disappoint them. This could be an extremely costly effort that could drag on for years. U-Turn is not discouraging filing a DFR, and we need closure.

Jeff Freund is a top-notch lawyer. We have no doubt that he told our MEC the truth about how negotiable the NIC really was. The question is: why didn’t CJ, Bendett, et al, listen? We figure that they either didn’t believe him or after all their hairy-chested resolutions and hotlines, they were afraid to back down. What good are attorneys if you don’t take their advice?

There is one other possibility. We mentioned it in a previous U-Turn. Our union leaders believed that the USAPA vote would be close (razor’s edge, to quote one of them) and that it was worth holding out and rolling the dice, figuring that if ALPA survived, so would the NIC. Too bad ALPA didn’t explain the importance of the 30% of East pilots who refused to participate in the Wilson Polling.

We now have a better picture what the East MEC had on the table: an 8 year fence, furloughs by longevity (LOS), MDA time not counting for longevity, Dave O’Dell having 400 pilots below him, and the Nic surviving as THE LIST. Yes, the East offered the NIC. They just wanted to protect their retirement attrition, which stalled by the change in Age-60. Looking back, that offer must look like a home run to any West pilot right now, but last February the EAST MEC and ALPA couldn’t get to first base with it.

Our former MEC and our union leadership played a very high stakes game of poker by not dealing at Wye River. Freund was right, we were risking everything…..and right now, it looks like we lost. They need to take responsibility for that.

U-Turn

 

[luvthe9]

Oh how they forget..........




Project Zanzibar
At the May 9 session of the Joint Negotiating Committee, Scott Kirby, President of the Company, revealed to the assembled representatives of both pilot groups and ALPA National that he had headed a project code-named “Project Zanzibar” for AW in 2005 and that the legal papers for a Chapter 11 filing had been prepared and a plan developed for AW’s bankruptcy in the event that the merger failed to come to fruition. Project Zanzibar was AW’s only Plan B. It is now beyond dispute that the junior AW pilot, Dave Odell, and 300-400 other AW F/Os hired in 2002-05 would have been furloughed absent the US merger, as AW went into Chapter 11, perhaps never to emerge. In light of this new disclosure from the carrier’s President, there is clearly no support for the explicit premise of the Nicolau Award that these AW pilots had more job security and better promotional prospects than US pilots hired in 1988, including hundreds who had never been furloughed for a single day.




"It is now beyond dispute that the junior AW pilot, Dave Odell, and 300-400 other AW F/Os hired in 2002-05 would have been furloughed absent the US merger, as AW went into Chapter 11, perhaps never to emerge."

 

[Claxon]

Taking Responsibility

“A recession is when you have to tighten your belt; depression is when you have no belt to tighten. When you've lost your trousers - you're in the airline business.” Sir Adam Thomson

Over the past few U-Turns, we’ve noticed a change in the tone of comments we’ve received. Maybe the reality of what we are up against is finally sinking in. Some accused us of taking the quotes from the Freund rebuttal out of context. We didn’t. We’ve had requests for copies of Jeff Freund’s actual East Vs West court documents. The file is too big to be directly cut and pasted. We can forward it in a scanned PDF-ZIP/Scan format. Just email us. Remember, we have no website, no budget and receive no donations. Maybe someone will paste it as an attachment on the AWAPPA web board for all to view. We would do it ourselves, but we’ve all been banned from the AWAPPA web board since May.

We have also received additional comments on what happened at Wye River from both sides. While our initial reporting appears to be correct and consistent with the latest accounts, it was incomplete. Here’s additional information from both sides.

According to our reports, on Day One of Wye River, Jeff Freund warned the West MEC that if USAPA won, the West risked losing everything. He urged reaching an agreement. He was gone on Day Two. We won’t address his motivation for leaving.
As Jeff Freund observed in his rebuttal to the East MEC lawsuit, the NIC was not in stone. And the loss of ALPA put it in real trouble. At least ALPA had the obligation, through the ALPA Merger Policy, to attempt to get the company to use the NIC Award.

ALPA’s lawyers knew the list was negotiable, but they never told either rank and file. We attended last summer’s ALPA road shows in PHX, starring Paul Rice and a cast of ALPA attorneys. Did ALPA ever hint that the NIC was negotiable? We believe it was for fear of fanning the flames and drawing more support for USAPA that Herndon kept that from us. They did tell all the Wye River attendees the reality. One side listened, the other didn’t.

In last summer’s East Vs West lawsuit, the East used ALPA DUES MONEY and an ALPA-Approved attorney, Roland Wilder, to pursue the case. As far as we can determine, we had to use our own Merger Fund money to defend ourselves. Thanks for choosing sides, ALPA! In the likely event that the NIC will be trashed in a single contract, it will be our own voluntary contributions that will have to be raised for a DFR lawsuit. USAPA expects it, so we shouldn’t disappoint them. This could be an extremely costly effort that could drag on for years. U-Turn is not discouraging filing a DFR, and we need closure.

Jeff Freund is a top-notch lawyer. We have no doubt that he told our MEC the truth about how negotiable the NIC really was. The question is: why didn’t CJ, Bendett, et al, listen? We figure that they either didn’t believe him or after all their hairy-chested resolutions and hotlines, they were afraid to back down. What good are attorneys if you don’t take their advice?

There is one other possibility. We mentioned it in a previous U-Turn. Our union leaders believed that the USAPA vote would be close (razor’s edge, to quote one of them) and that it was worth holding out and rolling the dice, figuring that if ALPA survived, so would the NIC. Too bad ALPA didn’t explain the importance of the 30% of East pilots who refused to participate in the Wilson Polling.

We now have a better picture what the East MEC had on the table: an 8 year fence, furloughs by longevity (LOS), MDA time not counting for longevity, Dave O’Dell having 400 pilots below him, and the Nic surviving as THE LIST. Yes, the East offered the NIC. They just wanted to protect their retirement attrition, which stalled by the change in Age-60. Looking back, that offer must look like a home run to any West pilot right now, but last February the EAST MEC and ALPA couldn’t get to first base with it.

Our former MEC and our union leadership played a very high stakes game of poker by not dealing at Wye River. Freund was right, we were risking everything…..and right now, it looks like we lost. They need to take responsibility for that.

U-Turn

 

[Claxon]

So, why didn’t Bradford testify? It’s because Marty Harper simply screwed up! He caused the delay. When the Addington plaintiffs filed an amended class action complaint they caused a delay. Bradford was then out of Office and therefore not subject to subpoena.

Next letter - “Why didn’t Bradford Testify anyway?”

“OK, So what; the subpoena was no good.” “Why didn’t Bradford testify anyway?”

 

[Claxon]

U Turn and The NAC

FINALLY, a breath of fresh air, after 4 Years of Doug Dotter give backs and stalling (all under ALPA). FINALLY we have a member of the USAPA Negotiating Advisory Committee who represents US. FINALLY someone who can explain 8:30 rest, our NO-FLY list, and all the West-specific issues. Remember after Frank Helton and I placed Captain Mark Burdick in the Chairman of the Negotiating Committee? We were the first and only Reps in AWA history to bring improvements without being in Section 6 Negotiations.

FINALLY the company suck-ups that caused ALPA to be removed from the property are finally gone and we can move forward with some real gains.

David Blomgren

 

[Claxon]

U-Turn Nation, by popular demand, WE’RE BAAACK! From the responses we received to our last two articles, it looks like we stirred up a hornet’s nest. One East subscriber took issue with AOL’s article. He wanted to respond, but didn’t want to use his name. His logic was that since the writer of the AOL article didn’t identify himself, why should he? Fair enough. We’ll accept that. We do know this is a real USAPA member and we have exchanged emails to verify that. We do not edit, but his response was long and some of the references made it hard to tell who was speaking. We reached a compromise with him. His reply will be split into two separate emails. There is no editing of his words, but by agreement, we added some itals, bolds and “quotes” so our readers can tell who is saying what. As with all U-Turns, any subscriber receiving this has our permission to reprint it.



Without comment, Part 1:

The recent declaration by AOL requires a response. I don’t want to get into a paragraph by paragraph debate on AOL’s declared victory. We will appeal this and I’ll give you some reasons why. This is what the Jury did and did not hear:

Judge Wake –Court Transcript May 12, 2009- “In this case, the union violated its duty if it adopted and submitted its seniority proposal for a reason or reasons that are not union objectives.”

What the Jury didn’t hear.

U.S. Supreme Court Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U.S. 335 (1964)

The power of the Joint Conference Committee over seniority gave it power over jobs. It was entitled under § 5 to integrate the seniority lists upon some rational basis, and its decision to integrate lists upon the basis of length of service at either company was neither unique nor arbitrary. On the contrary, it is a familiar and frequently equitable solution to the inevitably conflicting interests which arise in the wake of a merger or an absorption such as occurred here.

Judge Wake: “Even if the union's conduct could be rationally related to a legitimate union objective, the union could still be liable for violating its duty of fair representation if its actions are shown to be solely motivated by objectives that are not legitimate union objectives…However, a union may not make seniority decisions solely to benefit a stronger, more politically favored group over a minority group. In other words, the union may not pursue seniority-related bargaining objectives solely on the basis of political expediency. Preferential representation of the numerically larger number of voters is not in and of itself a legitimate union objective.”

What the Jury didn’t hear:

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. - 981 F.2d 1524

Lee Rakestraw, et al., v. Air Line Pilots Association …..a ‘bad’ motive does not spoil a collective bargaining agreement that rationally serves the interests of workers as a whole, ALPA's "merger policy" could not compel TWA to agree to anything, and it did not seem likely, under the circumstances, to produce agreement within the union either. So ALPA experimented, emphasizing negotiations between representatives of the two groups rather than what Duffy feared would be premature intra-union litigation. Perhaps Duffy was wrong, but a mistake in judgment does not violate the duty of fair representation. Beyond these limits, workers generally may decide by majority vote where their interests lie.

A rational person could conclude that dovetailing seniority lists in a merger, treating service at either firm as of equal weight, without quotas or other preferences for either group of employees, serves the interests of labor as a whole.

The propriety of dovetailing, treating the two groups identically, follows directly. If the union's leaders took account of the fact that the workers at the larger firm preferred this outcome, so what? Majority rule is the norm. Equal treatment does not become forbidden because the majority prefers equality, even if formal equality bears more harshly on the minority. Cf. Employment Division v. Smith, 494U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990).

Judge Wake: “However, in general, it is not a legitimate union objective merely to change the outcome of a conflict that was already resolved by a procedure agreed upon by the pilot representatives.”

What the Jury didn’t hear:

The 7th Circuit court in Rakestraw:…Yet seniority does not "belong" to an employee, any more than he "owns" the prospect of receiving a given wage next year or flying the St. Louis-Paris route rather than the leg from Minneapolis to Duluth. Seniority is a creation of collective bargaining agreements and equivalent contracts between unions and employers. When these expire, employers are free to use other criteria, such as merit, to assign jobs and decide who will be let go in hard times. Like wages and fringe benefits, seniority is a legitimate subject of discussion and compromise in collective bargaining. Schick v. NLRB, 409 F.2d 39, 398 (7th Cir.1969); Food Workers Local 7 v. Gold Star Sausage Co.,897F.2d 1002, 1026 (10th Cir.1990).

Judge Wake: “In this case, a general preference for any particular seniority system other than the Nicolau Award is not, standing alone, a legitimate union objective.”

Please re-read all the above citations from the various courts and see if that fits.

END, Part I

 

[Claxon]

Refer to the above letter when Eastcheats posts as if the rulings of Wake had any standing.
SNAPTHIS/Eastcheats routinely cite overturned verdicts as if the have any present standing/ merit. All of his quoted court cases were overturned. Spinthis /Metroyet cite recent west pilot legal filings as if they were judicial rulings. They are merely filings, yet to even pass through the door of a courtroom. We all know the abysmal track record of west pilot court attempts.........

Standing by to add the recent west pilot threats to THE LIST.....

 

[luvthe9]

Oh how they forget..........
Project Zanzibar



"It is now beyond dispute that the junior AW pilot, Dave Odell, and 300-400 other AW F/Os hired in 2002-05 would have been furloughed absent the US merger, as AW went into Chapter 11, perhaps never to emerge."

You westies should thank the east group for saving your arses!!

 

[Claxon]

Love how Marty effed up and missed Bradford. Too funny. Just one more shining example of his legal prowess.......

 

[EastCheats]

Love how Marty effed up and missed Bradford. Too funny. Just one more shining example of his legal prowess.......

Did you miss the video depositions?

http://leonidas.cactuspilots.us/West_Pilot_DFR_DJ/Steve_Bradford_Video_Deposition_Part_One.mpg

http://leonidas.cactuspilots.us/West_Pilot_DFR_DJ/Steve_Bradford_Video_Deposition_Part_Two.mpg

Transcripts:

http://leonidas.cactuspilots.us/West_Pilot_DFR_DJ/Stephen%20Bradford%2009-18-2013_full.pdf

 

[Claxon]

U-Turn answers questions from the line

There have been many questions lately from pilots asking how did we get here and where do we go next. This and future U-Turns will try to put some of the more divisive issues to rest.

Question One: Why did Dave Blomgren and Frank Helton force Misty Winkler to vote for the Transition agreement?

That never happened. We could not get Misty to vote no, we begged her to vote no. We made our best case why this agreement was not good for the AWA pilots, but we could not get her or the other three Reps to change their minds.

Question two: Did Brice LeCarre recall David Blomgren and Frank Helton?

Yes he did, the reason for the recall was very specific. He said we voted no for the Best Transition agreement that ALPA had ever seen, therefore we were not acting in the best interest of the pilots. That was the only reason he gave for his recall.

Question three: Why did Dave Blomgren and Frank Helton vote against the agreement?

David Blomgren: “we did not have furlough protection, and we had 20 plus A/C that were coming to AWA that in the agreement were changed to east A/C.”

Frank Helton did not like some of the loose language in the agreement. He felt we should not vote before the east did. He also wanted to put it out for a pilot vote. That’s where the decision to modify our contract (the TA was a modification, no matter how you look at it) belongs.

Question four: Why did we vote against the B-757 side letter for the Hawaii trips?

The Merger Attorney and Merger committee Chair Ken Stravers, Said we needed to hold out to get differential pay to help in the seniority fight. I find it funny the reason we did not continually the fight with the new Reps was they said it was unfair to give the B-757 guys a pay raise. Now we have 500 plus east guys on top of the nick list because of their short sightedness. When they did finally get the B-757 Hawaii side letter (just before ALPA left the property) they gave away key stuff on our current contract. All they had to do was sign the agreement we had with the company, which gave us everything they got without any give backs. See the copy of the agreement at the bottom of this e-mail.

Question five: Why did David Blomgren and Frank Helton force the Negotiating Committee to vote for this Transition agreement.

I find this one to be the best one floating around. First, NCs don’t “vote.” They only recommend. We voted no because of the reasons in question three. We felt if we held out we could get extra protection for the AWA pilot like we did in the ATA agreement (no furlough for three years or a single agreement). This is what we told our C-62 members:

C-62 Pilots,

I feel that you should have a reason why Frank Helton and I voted no on the Transition Agreement. If you go back to the number one demand we required in our letter to Mr. Parker signed by all the LEC Reps, MEC, Merger and Negotiating Committee which said,” Job Security- Not one America West Pilot will lose his/her job as a result of this transaction or result of the effects of this transaction” we feel we have let down the lower half of the seniority (Save Odell). Without a no furlough agreement this transition agreement will not protect AWA pilots. You will hear from everyone else that we had no furlough protection in contract 2004 so we did not lose anything in this transition agreement. But we gained EMB 190 flying in 2008; the problem with this is Dave Odell will be on the street. I was elected to fight for AWA pilots even the most Junior ones.

For two senior guys like Frank and Myself, we will not be affected by this merger, but we seem to be the only ones fighting for our Junior Pilots at AWA.

Our future brothers and sisters at USair are standing strong, they just filed an objection to the BK court over the loss of their board seat. At this time, they are standing strong in the fight risking all for what is right. I hope they exceed where we have failed. I will be glad to welcome pilots that will stand by for what is right and just. With the influx of their strength we may finally out number the spineless group here at AWA. You have your 190s in 2008, (unless they cancel the order, that has never happened before) sorry Dave Odell, 190s are more important than you.



David Blomgren

 

[Claxon]

"TO THE OTHER 1500"

Followed by this introduction:

U-Turn realizes that all 80-some PHX/LAS members in good standing have already received the campaign email below, but we have 1500 other active pilots who have not. There will be another election as soon as we get over 100 members in good standing. Unfortunately the deck was stacked against Ken in this round by AWAPPA, which is supporting its puppet-in-training, Brice Le Carre. Anyone who thinks Brice wrote those attack messages hasn't read any of Brice's resolutions in the old ALPA days.

If we are ever going to have representation that the rest of USAPA will take seriously, we need calm and firm leadership, not the shrill voices of AWAPPA manipulating our only Rep. As Mark Burdick said, the NIC is going to be resolved in the court house, not on the Jumpseat. We all know Ken's track record. It speaks for itself. And Brice's?

U-Turn

 

[Claxon]

Dispatcher Decision Arbitrator Richard Bloch Award April 26, 2007
However, West’s claim that U.S. Airways emerged from bankruptcy “only because it [was] acquired by a stronger enterprise”10 is reflected neither in the KPMG audit report (cited by West) nor in any other portion of the evidence. Instead, each carrier had something to contribute. Airways, for example, was much larger. It served almost twice as many destinations as AWA and carried twice the number of passengers. Airways has substantially more cash on hand, following the merger agreement.
West characterizes the merger decision on AWA’s part as a one-way economic bailout. But there is no support for this in the record; surely, the respective companies did not endorse that view. AWA concluded, according to the statements of its CEO, that “…when we looked out at our future, what we saw wasn’t good…. Assuming we couldn’t go out and restructure or raise cash, it is possible that AWA would have been facing its own Chapter 11 at some point. Employees may like to think we “saved” US but the fact is we saved each other…
Much of West’s claimed superiority over East, in terms of what it brought to the merger, is speculative.
Finally, one must consider, in terms of fairness and equity, the resulting shape and impact of the merged seniority list. The equities, in this regard, favor the East group. As indicated earlier, the U.S. Airways Dispatchers are considerably more senior then their West counterparts. The arithmetic placement proposed by Local 542 would devitalize the existing Airways seniority list by granting substantial, and in some cases monumental seniority leaps that cannot be justified by the record in this case.
That the date of hire approach has been adopted by other unionized groups in both companies is, in and of itself, by no means dispositive ; the facts and relative equities of each of the affected groups ultimately are what will determine a given outcome. In this case, those elements favor the East group, for the reasons set forth above. Accordingly, the finding is that the date of hire method is more fair and equitable and it is hereby awarded.

 

[Claxon]

News you can use:

W.A.R. Item 810

QRH A320, Severe Weather/Windshear
“Use TOGA Thrust” is the first item when applying wind shear precautions

Educate to Vacate:
Myth buster. Undisputable financial facts: Source LCC, Form10Q

Shared operating expenses:
Shared costs have been allocated based on AWA’s and US Airways’ statistics, including revenue passenger miles (“RPMs”) and passenger sales revenues.

First six months 2007, merger related transition expenses:
America West…………. 23 million

US Airways…………… 44 million



Now that we have the merger related expenses, here is the breakdown of operating income, 2Q 2007:



US Airways…………… $320 million dollar Operating Income
America West…………. ($25) million Operating Loss

 

[Claxon]

Subject: Brucia...return of furloughees ...FAQs: At some point in the future, recalls for the E190, coupled with further age 60 attrition, will cause us to hire off the street when the 1,500 pilot furlough list is exhausted.



US Airways MEC Presentation to ALPA Executive Council May 21, 2007

In view of the analysis set forth above, we believe the following quotation from Captain Jim Brucia’s Opinion at p. 3 is apt and accurate:
"As a consequence of the Boards decision, America West pilot Odell, who was hired less than 2 months before the merger was announced, has been placed immediately senior to US Airways pilot Colello who was hired more than 16 years earlier and who had over 16 years of credited length of service. I disagree with this placement, which disregards Colello’s substantial service time.…


"The Board did not adequately take into account the realities of the “new” airline, the return of furloughees that has already taken place and the much greater rate of age-based attrition at US Airways as compared to the rate at America West. The vast amount of age related attrition that has occurred within the US Airways pilot group caused the recall of over 300 US Airways pilots between March 2006 and the first week of January of this year. The pace of recalls is brisk and has continued. During the hearings we learned that additional recalls were taking place and there was testimony that stated at the current pace it was possible that all US Airways pilots would receive recall notices before the end of 2007."