AA/APFA Negotiations
- Thread starter damajagua
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The standard of "fair and equitable" was established by the Civil Aeronautics Board in the case of the Allegheny-Mohawk Merger (59 CAB 22).
The board held that:
Insofar as the merger affects the seniority rights of the carriers employees, provisions shall be made for the integration of seniority lists in a fair and equitable manner, including, where applicable, agreement through collective bargaining between the carriers and the representatives of the employees affected. In the event of failure to agree, the dispute may be submitted by either party for adjustment in accordance with section 13.
Section 13 provides for binding arbitration.
The McCaskill/Bond amendment codified the CAB ruling.
The last of the TWA flight attendants was furloughed back in July 2003, well in advance of the closure of the STL hub.
Since TWA LLC, at that time, was still operating on a separate operating certificate, American had to train hundreds of its own flight attendants to crew planes operating under the TWA certificate.
There were no former TWA flight attendants employed by AA anywhere (as flight attendants) between the summer of 2003 and the time recalls began in the summer of 2007. The STL hub wasy staffed exclusivel by originally AA hired flight attendants after July 2003.
Most of the former TWA flight attendants who were recalled in 2007 and 2008 were based away from STL, primarily in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. A a dozen or so managed to transfer back to STL, a few more to ORD and a handful to SFO. However, all but 27 of them were furloughed once again in 2009.
The flight attendants who were just recalled in December are based in New York and Miami (mostly French speakers in the latter, to staff YUL flights). Two or three of the recently recalled managed to obtain mutual transfers to STL effective the end of January. The ones being recalled at the end of the January and on April Fools Day will be based in New York and Miami.
E, not to rehash an old argument, but the CAB ruling the the Allegheny-Mohawk Merger case, which was codified by the McCaskill/Bond amendment, defined a merger as follows:
Section 2. (a) The term "merger" as used herein means to join action by the two carriers whereby the unify, consolidate, merge, or pool in whole or in part their separate airline facilities or any of the operations or services previously performed by them through such separate facilities.
The acquisition of TWA was structured by AMR as an "Assets Purchase" in order to get rid of Carl Icahn's onerous Karabu Ticket Agreement. AMR bought substantially all of TWA assets and offered employment to just about all its U.S. based employees. That transaction was a merger as defined by the CAB and current law.
eolesen
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Since it's not relevent to negotiations, let's hold off on discussing McC/B until after it has actually been used (which IIRC it hasn't yet). And as you know, just because something is codified doesn't mean it will stand up to a challenge...
The TLV route was a drop in the bucket and was not a factor in AMR's demand that TWA file for bankruptcy protection as a condition of the purchase agreement.
The Karabu Ticketing Agreement enabled Icahn to buy an unlimited number of TWA tickets at a 55% discount which he then turned around and sold on www.Lowestfare.com for less than TWA was charging for the same tickets.
Karabu was costing TWA upwards of $150 million a year. The Karabu agreement bound any airline that bought or merged with TWA and applied to the entire route system of the combined airline. Obviously, AMR would not have gone ahead with the TWA purchase had the Bankruptcy Court not rejected Icahn's ticketing deal.
Riverfront Times - Gremlin on the Wing: Why TWA keeps losing money and how Carl Icahn keeps cashing in at the airline's expense
So naive and uninformed. Talk about rehashing the untruth. So what did "Two great airlines, one great future" mean to you? Fire sale?
eolesen
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I had a front row seat, so believe what you want. It's a known fact that during 2000, Bill Compton approached every other airline in the US (including AA) and was turned down for a merger, largely because of Karibu as Veritas noted, but also because of the crushing debt payments due in January 2001. This was in no way a merger of equals. It was a classic example of a failing firm getting a lifeline.
Eric,
Did US Air/ Am West not fall under Bond McCaskill? One could cite MO/Allegheny as embraced by ALPA and these were 2 ALPA carriers. Or, do you mean a situation where one or both are not unionized? I know I am watching for the Rep/Frontier/Midwest reusults this month.
Did US Air/ Am West not fall under Bond McCaskill? One could cite MO/Allegheny as embraced by ALPA and these were 2 ALPA carriers. Or, do you mean a situation where one or both are not unionized? I know I am watching for the Rep/Frontier/Midwest reusults this month.
eolesen
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McC/B came after the HP/US merger, and has been cited in the current battle between US West and US East... There's actually an argument being made by USAPA that since ALPA represented both US and HP at the time of the merger, McC/B *AS WRITTEN* wouldn't apply because ALPA wouldn't request binding arbitration against itself.... Ironic, if as you point out, both AL and MO were represented by ALPA...
Correction.
That should have read "The Karabu Ticketing Agreement enabled Icahn to buy an unlimited number of TWA tickets for 55¢ on the dollar or a 45% discount..."
Sorry about that error.
Not so fast, Paul.
Everything AA is printing is definitely skewed. You don't even have to look closely to notice some things that aren't quite right. Under pay rates they list Southwest as the highest rate per hour as of May 2010 and then show AA being second but the wording says "AA proposed pay rates as of 2015". So, by 2015 we can make 11 bucks an hour less than what Southwest currently makes hmm? Lucky us. By 2015 Southwest will surely have surpassed their current amount.
Then you look at scheduling. The company puts the proposed scheduling max for international and domestic at 89 but in the scheduling proposal they list the scheduling max for 20% of the lines as 92.
Those are just a few of the discrepencies I see with their pretty charts and I glanced over them for two seconds. I'm sure if I look further I will notice a lot of other hinky things designed to fool the unwary.
The proposed increase for the cost of healthcare alone is staggering. It offsets our pay raises and makes them negligible. I noticed they didn't include our current healthcare costs in the chart.
They also pit those who work their minimums, those who work their schedules, those who work high time, and those who practically sleep on the airplane, against each other. I disagree with anyone earning more vacation, sick time, or uniform points than those who work the mandated schedule. Overtime is a choice and those who do it earn more money. Rewarding those who do it with more benefits makes a mockery of those who work their schedules. I think it will also open up a whole can of worms in terms of people fighting with each other for more trips. It will also probably only serve to make the trips cost more to obtain from trip trade services. Those who never worked high time before will be scrambling to do it. My warning for that one is like unlimited PVDs; be careful what you wish for.
It is interesting to see what the company is proposing and what has been agreed upon, especially since APFA has not released anything similar. If you don't know what each thing actually means in practice than it all doesn't appear to be as negative as much of it is.
While the site contains factual information it is delivered in a purely public relations format. If you are familiar with the way the company does business with its employees, as all employees at AA are, you can immediately pinpoint the negatives. If I am seeing these things in the bullet points, you can bet your life that the language contains some more items that will really sock it to us. Even if you are not familiar with our contract you just need to look for the tricky presentation to see the benefits and detriments are not genuinely portrayed. It is a little harder to do if you aren't predisposed to be suspicious of their claims of knowing what flight attendants want and need or if you are an avowed hater of unions.
I don't envy Glading. It is clear that the company is stopping at nothing to ensure more concessions while they wage their PR campaign to make it seem as though we are trying to milk the company dry.
I think we got the gist of what you were saying. At least those of us who knew about the agreement understood it. As for everything else you've stated about the seniority agreement, the IAM's position, and the Allegheny Mohawk provision under McCaskill was clear and concise.
The problem I have with everything is the neverending lawsuits. At what point is it over? How many lost suits will it take before it is done? I have been hearing that certain recalls have been very confrontational in the past few weeks at LaGuardia with some of our regular transcon flyers. Most of the recalls are nice and professional. It just makes you wary when you have to be on guard against a possible attack over an issue that has been lost in court on more than one occasion.
"crushing debt payment" due was $50 million on the 3 767-300 that were financed by Boeing. Is that crushing? Laughable.
