Ah, but you see you speak before you educate yourself.
Many, many OZ flight attendants WERE senior to me. I flew with them after my recall and not once did I, or any other person I flew with even suggest that they didn't deserve their seniority.
You speak from a position that has "taught" you that certain things are so...from the jumpseat to the galley. If you, and most of the remainder of the AA workforce, would have been willing to open your closed minds just a bit you might have found out that much of what you spout on here is untrue. Based on galley gossip, not fact.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to find out the real truth, rather than falling back on what you "know".
Ah but did the union at OZ waive their LPPs under the threat of BK and liquidation? You really didnt get a choice and when they came on, when was that 1988? Did you end up getting laid off as a result?
I'm a mechanic and I can tell you that we had a TWA/OZ guy here from STL, he told me that they were not welcomed when they were brought in. He and his union did not want the merger and refused to waive the LPPs, they were quite content and better paid at Ozark. So it wasnt the goodwill of the IAM that gave him his seniority, it was the fact that his union would have blocked the merger unless they got it. That gave them negotaiting leverage.
I still havent read any answers about why unionists who fight to preserve wages and benifits and lose their jobs as a result should get nothing, just like non-union people, but unionists who agree to concessions after concessions and made Carl Ichann even wealthier shoud get everything when he dumps it into bankruptcy and another carrier buys whats left.
I have another question. Lets say your unions refused to waive their LPPs. What do you think would have happened at TWA then? My guess is they would have liquidated and you would have been just like those who came from EAL and Pan Am and had nothing. You got something, not much, less than the IAM did but more than the workers at EAL and Pan Am did.
What happened to you guys sucks, no doubt about it but it was AA that did it to you. As far as seniority if you were in the NAAtives position you would have done the same thing, in fact you did when the workers from EAL and Pan Am showed up in your workplace, you could have changed your rules to recognize their years of service as unionized workers but you didnt. Buy outs mergers etc thats all company functions, thats why unions bargain for LPPs, your unions gave that away, we will never know if it was the prudent choice.
I dont agree with fellow NAAtives who demean and attck you guys, I realize that you are more like us and we are more like you than most want to realize. I realize that it sucks when after decades of loyal service your employer abandons you but whats done is done, nobody is going to willingly give their job to someone else because of the years of service they put in somewhere else unless they are guaranteed to get the same consideration down the road. We should consolidate the airline labor movement and make our careers , pensions and seniority portable. It would give us a huge amount of leverage at the bargaining table if all those things were not tied to the fate of any single employer, but everybody went on as if the company they worked for would be around forever, but thats not how things worked out.
As sad as all this is it would really be sad to see the same people, who as you say were out for years because they struck years ago, end up being scabs. No matter what you say about what was done with the seniority lists its just plain wrong to scab.