Airtran and Southwest Mechanic Seniority Bridging.

[BoeingBoy]

There are many scenarios that can take place. Ideally the Airtran guys dump the ibt and go AMFA before the merger. The majority of Airtran Mechanics are in Atlanta and it wouldn't take long to organize. GT

Doesn't the AMFA represent the WN mechanics? And does AMFA have a seniority integration policy that dictates the outcome (like AFA mandates DOH)? or the process (like ALPA dictates negotiations then arbitration if necessary)?

The new law seems to say that the corporate merger - when one carrier is actually acquires by the other - is the controlling event, not when they're operating as a single carrier or any other milestone on the way to being a single carrier operating with one integrated workforce. The situation that exists at that point in time determines what happens. If different unions represent the mechanics or whoever at that point, the law applies (requiring negotiation/arbitration to determine how seniority will be integrated) regardless of what happens with representation later. If the same union represents the mechanics or whoever at that point, the law applies but merely says that the union's merger policy will be followed. Since the new law has not been tested in court, however, there is room for different interpretations and mine doesn't really matter.

Jim

 

[swamt]

Doesn't the AMFA represent the WN mechanics? And does AMFA have a seniority integration policy that dictates the outcome (like AFA mandates DOH)? or the process (like ALPA dictates negotiations then arbitration if necessary)?

Since the new law has not been tested in court, however, there is room for different interpretations and mine doesn't really matter.

Jim

Jim you are correct. There are 2 different unions involved with the integration of WN and FL. Teamsters @ FL and AMFA @ WN. Yes there will be negotiations then arbritation if required. With the Teamsters we actually see them taking us to arbritation, and we will more than likely see the first time for the law to be tested in court. As you can see the teamsters are already ignoring their membership. This was one of the top issues why SWA got rid of the teamsters with a record less than 2 week card drive. That's how bad it got. They even tried to send truckers to help their side of the IBT, even all them were a joke. The teamsters ONLY care about union dues paying members, the more the merryer. Like a previous poster said, The Air Tran mechanics would be better off dumping the teamsters and start dealing with AMFA. You guys are already seeing the true teamsters... Good Luck to all.

 

[swamt]

According to my sources the ibt has abandoned the Airtran Mechanics. They are telling the Airtran people to pretty much shut up and we (the ibt) will take care of everything. No information from the ibt at all. Pretty disgusting but no surprise. GT

Hey GT. This is exacally what we are refering to about the teamsters, especially when it comes to big issues. This is only the beginning. As in our case, it got alot worse as we went along. I do encourage AirTran mechanics to call AMFA National and ask any questions. AMFA has nothing to hide--teamsters will be hush-hush and work behind closed doors until boom, all done heres what you guys get. But not to worry, AMFA WILL have members attending the integration negotiations and will help spread the word on how negotiations are going. So if your guys are in contact with some of our guys, you will in fact hear updates long before the teamsters will give one IF they even give any.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Jim you are correct. There are 2 different unions involved with the integration of WN and FL. Teamsters @ FL and AMFA @ WN. Yes there will be negotiations then arbritation if required. With the Teamsters we actually see them taking us to arbritation, and we will more than likely see the first time for the law to be tested in court.

As an outsider, I just hope that almost everyone will be relatively pleased with the result of the merger, including seniority.

I expect the first real test of the new law to come when one side or the other changes unions just to trigger it, which means the same union would represent both sides prior to the merger (or trigering event as the law puts it). For example, if the AFA represents the FA's on both sides it's policy for merging seniority is DOH. If one of the carriers were younger, their FA's could see DOH as harmful to their seniority. If they changed unions after the merger but before the two carriers were integrated would that trigger the negotiation and arbitration provisions of the law? The AFA would argue no in this example, while the new union would argue yes. A judge would probably have to decide who was right under the new law.

Jim

 

[swamt]

As an outsider, I just hope that almost everyone will be relatively pleased with the result of the merger, including seniority.

I expect the first real test of the new law to come when one side or the other changes unions just to trigger it, which means the same union would represent both sides prior to the merger (or trigering event as the law puts it). For example, if the AFA represents the FA's on both sides it's policy for merging seniority is DOH. If one of the carriers were younger, their FA's could see DOH as harmful to their seniority. If they changed unions after the merger but before the two carriers were integrated would that trigger the negotiation and arbitration provisions of the law? The AFA would argue no in this example, while the new union would argue yes. A judge would probably have to decide who was right under the new law.

Jim

I actually hope the teamsters will nego. in good faith. Our local officers actually have some very good and fair ideas that they have been discussing. Hopefully the teamsters will look at them and see the fairness of the total package and we can all get this done rather quick and smoothly. Jim, I do hear what you are saying about changing unions and becomming the same union, or becomming 2 different unions. I will say this, it would be very risky to try to change unions at this point, it could cause alot of chaos and make everyone focus on something else rather than the intregation. As far as the new law is concerned, I actually see the teamsters holding out for some rediculous way to integrade and not moving in order to goto binding arbritration so they can say, "hey, it's not our fault, the arbritrader made the final decision" The teamsters don't understand that if you give a little, the members will gain alot. Everyone needs to look down the road and what all this will bring in the long run. I see another airline getting purchased by WN by 2015. Just a guess, but I do see more mergers in the future... This is just the beginning of SWA's growth plans. SWA just announced that they are hiring hundreds of pilots and F/A's starting spring of 2011. Don't be surprised if you start to hear the announcement of hirring new mechanics also early 2011 (say by Mar or Apr). Just some rumers we are hearing here, hopefully they will come true.

 

[wirewinder]

I actually hope the teamsters will nego. in good faith. Our local officers actually have some very good and fair ideas that they have been discussing. Hopefully the teamsters will look at them and see the fairness of the total package and we can all get this done rather quick and smoothly. Jim, I do hear what you are saying about changing unions and becomming the same union, or becomming 2 different unions. I will say this, it would be very risky to try to change unions at this point, it could cause alot of chaos and make everyone focus on something else rather than the intregation. As far as the new law is concerned, I actually see the teamsters holding out for some rediculous way to integrade and not moving in order to goto binding arbritration so they can say, "hey, it's not our fault, the arbritrader made the final decision" The teamsters don't understand that if you give a little, the members will gain alot. Everyone needs to look down the road and what all this will bring in the long run. I see another airline getting purchased by WN by 2015. Just a guess, but I do see more mergers in the future... This is just the beginning of SWA's growth plans. SWA just announced that they are hiring hundreds of pilots and F/A's starting spring of 2011. Don't be surprised if you start to hear the announcement of hirring new mechanics also early 2011 (say by Mar or Apr). Just some rumers we are hearing here, hopefully they will come true.

Swamt, I hope some of you have followed the AA - TWA merger and negotiations by arb. Richard Kasher. His writings are available at the National Mediation Board site if you care for the whole 29 pages. On April 29, 2002, Mr. Kasher wrote that the fair choice was to place all 25,000 former-TWA personell at the bottoms of their respective seniority rosters. Within the text of his "Decision and Award" were references to the Allegheny-Mohawk Provisions, at 59 CAB 22, sections 3 and 13, for the merging of airlines "equitably", and then, at great length he explained that we were not a merger in the traditional sense, but a purchase of a debtor-in-posession as a result of our bankruptcy filing, and thus not eligible for dove-tailing of our seniority lists. For this forum, my thumbnail summary: The arbitrator is NOT required to follow any precedent of law, his decision is binding and final, only the original arbitrator can resolve future disputes that arise as a result of interpretations of the original decision and award. No future contract negotiations can override the arbitrators decision, such as restoring seniority lost at the time of the merger, because it has the effect of harm in the "ex post facto" sense. Lost vacation time, lost bid opportunities, or loss of shift preference, (time with family) that can never be "equitably" restored. So, once harmed by the award, there will remain one group of workers that becomes the "Permanent Underclass" of the company. All of us TWA folks even carry an employee number that starts with a 6, so it marks us at the gate as non-revs from the "wrong side of the tracks". All of our pilots were given one year for every five of old TWA seniority, so were effectively "stapled to the bottom" of the list and were told in no uncertain terms that NO TWA pilots would ever sit in either seat of the B-777! The F/A's fared even worse, with 6,800 furloughed at St. Louis immediately and another 6000 over time, AA kept about 60 total.
Any one can share their opinions or questions with me, even though I am now retired, I have all of my notes and references for anyone who may want to discuss how these thing play out. This is not sour-grapes time, it is however time that the industry, especially such a heavily unionized industry, put a stop to the abuse of arbitration and resolved to use the single standard of actual time worked. TWA was the more senior of the two and after nine years we still sit at the back of the bus.

 

[swamt]

Swamt, I hope some of you have followed the AA - TWA merger and negotiations by arb. Richard Kasher. His writings are available at the National Mediation Board site if you care for the whole 29 pages. On April 29, 2002, Mr. Kasher wrote that the fair choice was to place all 25,000 former-TWA personell at the bottoms of their respective seniority rosters. Within the text of his "Decision and Award" were references to the Allegheny-Mohawk Provisions, at 59 CAB 22, sections 3 and 13, for the merging of airlines "equitably", and then, at great length he explained that we were not a merger in the traditional sense, but a purchase of a debtor-in-posession as a result of our bankruptcy filing, and thus not eligible for dove-tailing of our seniority lists. For this forum, my thumbnail summary: The arbitrator is NOT required to follow any precedent of law, his decision is binding and final, only the original arbitrator can resolve future disputes that arise as a result of interpretations of the original decision and award. No future contract negotiations can override the arbitrators decision, such as restoring seniority lost at the time of the merger, because it has the effect of harm in the "ex post facto" sense. Lost vacation time, lost bid opportunities, or loss of shift preference, (time with family) that can never be "equitably" restored. So, once harmed by the award, there will remain one group of workers that becomes the "Permanent Underclass" of the company. All of us TWA folks even carry an employee number that starts with a 6, so it marks us at the gate as non-revs from the "wrong side of the tracks". All of our pilots were given one year for every five of old TWA seniority, so were effectively "stapled to the bottom" of the list and were told in no uncertain terms that NO TWA pilots would ever sit in either seat of the B-777! The F/A's fared even worse, with 6,800 furloughed at St. Louis immediately and another 6000 over time, AA kept about 60 total.
Any one can share their opinions or questions with me, even though I am now retired, I have all of my notes and references for anyone who may want to discuss how these thing play out. This is not sour-grapes time, it is however time that the industry, especially such a heavily unionized industry, put a stop to the abuse of arbitration and resolved to use the single standard of actual time worked. TWA was the more senior of the two and after nine years we still sit at the back of the bus.

Wirewinder, thx for the insight. Couple of questions, what did the mechanics get between AA and TWA? Also, how did the pilot group come up with a 1 for 5? Why not 1 for 10, or 1 for 3. Just curious what factors or numbers and formulas was used to end up at 1 for 5?

 

[wirewinder]

Wirewinder, thx for the insight. Couple of questions, what did the mechanics get between AA and TWA? Also, how did the pilot group come up with a 1 for 5? Why not 1 for 10, or 1 for 3. Just curious what factors or numbers and formulas was used to end up at 1 for 5?

Thanks for the questions. After the merger on 10 Apr. 2001, we remained at the TWA rates of pay, $18.25 per hour, base, with $.50 per license, so $19.25 for A&P.
Ten months later, on 2 Jan. 2002, we went on the AA payroll at $27+ per hour. The April 2003 contract brought up the pay to $31, for about five months, then a threatened bankruptcy caused the Transp. Workers Union to accept a rollback to $26, a $5.00 rollback for five years. The result was still a gain for us at TWA, but the rest of the AA workforce hate-mailed us saying that we were the reason the company was in trouble and that we had cost the rest of the guys all of their pay and bonuses since the merger. That was man-to-man, not a union thing. As to the pilot merger, that was explained in the Arbitrators letter, the Decision and Award, for the pilot group. Mr. Kasher said/wrote that he was guided by the precedent of mergers where the carriers were equal in workforce and the merger of carriers where the workforce sizes were ten-to-one. Thus he chose the TWA / AA ratio of 1 to 5 and that was based on the 24,700 TWA and 108,000 AA populations or the applicable pilot-only population to pilot only population method, they result in the same outcome.
If you will permit me a liberty to add: Several posts are rife with Union vs. Union and some clarity is in order. In any merger one party is the acquired and one is the acquirer, even in a meeting of equals. If it is not spelled out clearly in the public press, there will be a financial transaction; money, shares of stock, promissary notes, subordinated debentures, letters of intent, all of which set forth the matter of who will be acquiring whom. Allow that two strong unions are trying to get the best terms for the group whos dues they accept. There comes a point in the acquisition that the operation of law will reach a point of determining that the merged carriers are now operating as a "single carrier". Single carrier is a practical definition and not a comprehensive one, it looks for: common livery, uniforms, schedules, routes and gates, ticketing arrangements, domicile cities, and the broad general perception by the public that the two carriers are now one. The single-carrier threshold is the point at which one of the unions is tossed off the property as being redundant and no longer a proper representative, by action of law. Long way to say that one union may be loved, and still be disqualified to negotiate on behalf of the members whose dues they have in their wallets. Not lazy, not self-serving, not being paid off, not incapable of mounting a good legal challenge, just set aside by the determination of "single carrier". I watched the IAM get handcuffed as our union, and I wouldn't rest until I knew what caused it, I would not accept nonsensical talk from our committee, so I went on a search of the National Mediation Board website to see what darkness they could shed on things. Not much, at their site: http://www.nmb.gov/arbitration/amenu.html They are facilitators and recorders, and they maintain the list of qualified arbitrators that the parties must choose from. The Arbitrators DO NOT WORK for the government, they are paid by the parties over whom they preside during the dispute. They are mostly retired judges and attorneys who have experience in labor law. The NLRB is the real power over the process, they are at: http://www.nlrb.gov/ The caveat is this: Once the parties decide on binding arbitration -- no judge will ever review or retry any of the facts of the dispute in any venue. Even official misconduct by the Arb. is off-limits, unless substantiated to a grand jury of a Federal District Court, then it only has the ability to disqualify the arbitrator from future work, and cannot overrule his past decisions. We had Richard R. Kasher of Longboat Key, Florida. He violated his own writings, and when challenged during a dispute resolution hearing, he said, "I could not have anticipated every possible outcome when I wrote my original decision and award, over six years ago." What he wrote was the simple and common standard of all appended rulings: "The outcome of any dispute resolution hearing shall become part of the original award, and shall have the same power and effect as the original award." He was refusing to abide those words, because a convoy-of-complaints was being placed on his desk, after he granted one employee permission to move to DTW. Others wanted the same rules to apply, and he refused, thus recanting his own writings. My working friends are second-class citizens, with their own seniority rosters, unmerged, and let me pose the question that I posed in our open discussions: If I should reach my 50th year in aviation maintenance, and am about to walk to the podium to accept the Charles Taylor Award, will some AA mechanic in the audience yell out, "sit down rookie, you only have nine years seniority!" The answer was... Yes, that might very well happen. Walt in K.C.

 

[wirewinder]

My guess is that they will be treated fairly, after all mechanics are becoming a rare commodity.

Original Mechanic Certificates Issued
2000 8,894
2001 8,083
2002 7,733
2003 6,064
2004 6,126
2005 5,651
2006 5,555
2007 5,980
2008 5,830
2009 6,352

Figure since an A&P is two certificates that means at the max we are talking about 3175 new A&Ps last year, thats to cover the entire commercial aviation industry, General Aviation, Business aviation, FBOs, FAA and manufacturing.

Thats not much when you consider that AA alone is losing around 500/year through attrition (Retirements, resignations, terminations and deaths).

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/civil_airmen_statistics/2009/

Bob-O, you are right about the shrinking pool of A&P's and that brings me to the good, the bad, and the ugly: The good is as you say, the value of the commodity rises as there are fewer of us. The bad is that it puts pressure, through lobbyists, on Congress to authorize more outsourcing to foreigh repair stations. And the ugly is that the FAA only "inspects" aircraft by looking at the paperwork. Flight 800 was our real introduction to what the FAA does, and most of it does not involve any real knowledge of aircraft at the nuts and bolts level.

 

[swamt]

Thanks for the questions. After the merger on 10 Apr. 2001, we remained at the TWA rates of pay, $18.25 per hour, base, with $.50 per license, so $19.25 for A&P.
Ten months later, on 2 Jan. 2002, we went on the AA payroll at $27+ per hour. The April 2003 contract brought up the pay to $31, for about five months, then a threatened bankruptcy caused the Transp. Workers Union to accept a rollback to $26, a $5.00 rollback for five years. The result was still a gain for us at TWA, but the rest of the AA workforce hate-mailed us saying that we were the reason the company was in trouble and that we had cost the rest of the guys all of their pay and bonuses since the merger. That was man-to-man, not a union thing. As to the pilot merger, that was explained in the Arbitrators letter, the Decision and Award, for the pilot group. Mr. Kasher said/wrote that he was guided by the precedent of mergers where the carriers were equal in workforce and the merger of carriers where the workforce sizes were ten-to-one. Thus he chose the TWA / AA ratio of 1 to 5 and that was based on the 24,700 TWA and 108,000 AA populations or the applicable pilot-only population to pilot only population method, they result in the same outcome.
If you will permit me a liberty to add: Several posts are rife with Union vs. Union and some clarity is in order. In any merger one party is the acquired and one is the acquirer, even in a meeting of equals. If it is not spelled out clearly in the public press, there will be a financial transaction; money, shares of stock, promissary notes, subordinated debentures, letters of intent, all of which set forth the matter of who will be acquiring whom. Allow that two strong unions are trying to get the best terms for the group whos dues they accept. There comes a point in the acquisition that the operation of law will reach a point of determining that the merged carriers are now operating as a "single carrier". Single carrier is a practical definition and not a comprehensive one, it looks for: common livery, uniforms, schedules, routes and gates, ticketing arrangements, domicile cities, and the broad general perception by the public that the two carriers are now one. The single-carrier threshold is the point at which one of the unions is tossed off the property as being redundant and no longer a proper representative, by action of law. Long way to say that one union may be loved, and still be disqualified to negotiate on behalf of the members whose dues they have in their wallets. Not lazy, not self-serving, not being paid off, not incapable of mounting a good legal challenge, just set aside by the determination of "single carrier". I watched the IAM get handcuffed as our union, and I wouldn't rest until I knew what caused it, I would not accept nonsensical talk from our committee, so I went on a search of the National Mediation Board website to see what darkness they could shed on things. Not much, at their site: http://www.nmb.gov/arbitration/amenu.html They are facilitators and recorders, and they maintain the list of qualified arbitrators that the parties must choose from. The Arbitrators DO NOT WORK for the government, they are paid by the parties over whom they preside during the dispute. They are mostly retired judges and attorneys who have experience in labor law. The NLRB is the real power over the process, they are at: http://www.nlrb.gov/ The caveat is this: Once the parties decide on binding arbitration -- no judge will ever review or retry any of the facts of the dispute in any venue. Even official misconduct by the Arb. is off-limits, unless substantiated to a grand jury of a Federal District Court, then it only has the ability to disqualify the arbitrator from future work, and cannot overrule his past decisions. We had Richard R. Kasher of Longboat Key, Florida. He violated his own writings, and when challenged during a dispute resolution hearing, he said, "I could not have anticipated every possible outcome when I wrote my original decision and award, over six years ago." What he wrote was the simple and common standard of all appended rulings: "The outcome of any dispute resolution hearing shall become part of the original award, and shall have the same power and effect as the original award." He was refusing to abide those words, because a convoy-of-complaints was being placed on his desk, after he granted one employee permission to move to DTW. Others wanted the same rules to apply, and he refused, thus recanting his own writings. My working friends are second-class citizens, with their own seniority rosters, unmerged, and let me pose the question that I posed in our open discussions: If I should reach my 50th year in aviation maintenance, and am about to walk to the podium to accept the Charles Taylor Award, will some AA mechanic in the audience yell out, "sit down rookie, you only have nine years seniority!" The answer was... Yes, that might very well happen. Walt in K.C.

Wirewinder; Thx so much for your input. My thoughts were that TWA was about 1/5 the size of AA as far as the population was concerned. This is how I see the senority intregation going between SWA and Airtran. This will all depend on the negotiations, but i truely see the teamsters going to arbritration. This will be fine with all of us here at SWA. Never been involved with a merger before, so I do appreciate all the info...

 

[Bob Owens]

Wirewinder; Thx so much for your input. My thoughts were that TWA was about 1/5 the size of AA as far as the population was concerned. This is how I see the senority intregation going between SWA and Airtran. This will all depend on the negotiations, but i truely see the teamsters going to arbritration. This will be fine with all of us here at SWA. Never been involved with a merger before, so I do appreciate all the info...

My advice would be to skip arbitration and just go with DOH. That used to be AMFAs position, it may have changed. Its simpler, cleaner and in the end the guys will accept it.

The TWA/AA merger was very complicated, it was made even more complicated by Kasher.

TWA was an airline that had been in decline for many years, as a result many people over the years quit TWA and went to AA long before the merger.

Since TWA was in decline for many years its workforce was very senior, the majority would have ended up on the upper part of the seniority list. They would have displaced AA workers who had decades with AA. Many of these TWA workers had 30plus years, few had less than 10.

Kasher came up with a convoluted settlement, if a TWA guy ended up in New York he got 25% of his seniority, in Dallas he would end up with 4/10/01(much less than 25% for most), if they were in STL or MCI they got 100%. He should have made them 25% everywhere and kept it simple since we never had station seniority before, and only TWA workers are subjected to it now. MCI is now closed and STL has radically shrunk so the 100% isnt really much of a benifit, only 121 ex TWA workers get it in STL. If they had 25% across the whole system they would have more options, now they are forced to high cost areas if they want any seniority.



There's no doubt that resentments linger, I think Kasher made it worse. The sad part is that MCI was instramental in forcing the concessions of 2003 on us. They were afraid that if they didnt vote Yes the company would close the base, now its closed anyway, like I told them it might. If you subtract MCI from the total the vote would have failed. It passed by only 700 votes, MCI provided over 1000 Yes votes.



Your situation probably isnt nearly as complex, simply because your situation is more like when TWA bought Ozark than when AA bought TWA. Ozark was an expanding airline with mostly young workers being brought into a larger older company(Ozark had AMFA and they refused to waive their merger protection language, unlike the IAM who bailed on their members to get the monies owed by TWA to the IAM for the IAM Pension fund and an IAM owned engine, one difference is that Ozark mechanics had higher pay and benifit than TWA). More than likely no one will end up on the street with your merger and I dont think there are a lot of station overlaps..

 

[700UW]

The NLRB has nothing to do with airlines, and the RLA, that would be the NMB.

 

[swamt]

My advice would be to skip arbitration and just go with DOH. That used to be AMFAs position, it may have changed. Its simpler, cleaner and in the end the guys will accept it.

Why in the world would you say DOH for senority, not knowing everything the AriTran employees will gain? As the RLA states it must be fair and not overwhellming for one side. They will gain everything once they become SWA employees. The mechs. will gain about 8-12 bucks an hour, more holidays, more vac. more F/H, more sick time accrual, a 7.3% 401K match from co., profit sharring, cheaper ins. cost, and more... Lets not forget about the job security here, and pretty much work all the overtime you want. We have mech and insp getting well over 1000 hours per year. The quality of life will increase as well.
I think they (airtran) should get 1 for 4. However, word on the street is they are looking at trying station senority as well. It doesn't really matter as SWA will continue to grow. We have also heard of some possible hiring next year if we start a "C" check line in Dallas. Another thing about Dallas is that they just went to a new schedule for the hanger workers. Pretty much everyone has weakends off. Only a handfull are working over the weakends, I believe 8-12 each shift works weakends-all others are off on weakends. Co. says that all overtime will be called over weakends. Bye-Bye 4 overs. Too many mechs. to call 4 over.
If the AirTran boys were smart they would get rid of the teamsters. The intregration of senority would go so much faster, smoother, and fair w/o the teamsters negotiating. There are copies of what the teamsters are telling their membership all over the hangers, and I just want to assure the mechs. of AirTran;
Currently there is "NO CARD DRIVE" for the teamsters. We even asked our teamster lovers here in Dallas, they made some phone calls and reported back that there is no card drive by the teamsters to get in and represent both carriers mechanics after the merger. Just more lies (typical) from the teamsters...
Here's a question for the AirTran mechs. Is the teamsters asking you guys for what you guys want in this integration proccess? What are you guys hearing there? And point blank what do you guys want out of it? You guys can goto amfa11.com and download our contract to compare. Let us know what you think...

 

[xUT]

My advice would be to skip arbitration and just go with DOH. That used to be AMFAs position, it may have changed. Its simpler, cleaner and in the end the guys will accept it.

The idea being that seniority (experience) should be portable regardless of what company you work for.
That was when AMFA was the little dog in the fight.

 

[southwind]

When Delta merged with NW, Pan Am and everyone else, seniority was intergrated by DOH, period....................regardless of who was getting the most out of the deal and all done with no squabbling or union !

Why should an AT mechanic get 1 for 4..................it's a slap in the face if you ask me and I'm sure you'd feel differently if the shoe were on the other foot !