APA, USAPA and the Ghost of TWA

[WorldTraveler]

suppose the same type of feud happens between pm AA and US pilots as has happened between HP and US pilots...what happens to the promised pay raises? Are they dependent on an integrated seniority list?

 

[nycbusdriver]

suppose the same type of feud happens between pm AA and US pilots as has happened between HP and US pilots...what happens to the promised pay raises? Are they dependent on an integrated seniority list?

 
No, they are not dependent on a SLI.  The pay raises (for the US pilots, not sure if the AA pilots see this as "raises") are already, effectively since February 8, 2013, last year, in place.
 
The hourly rates in effect now are the same for both AA pilots and US pilots.  

 

[Mach85ER]

The defiant tone of Mr Mach is an example of what USAPA can expect down the road. DP must be giggling.

Not really RJ.
The current situation is far different from Reno and TWA.

IMHO, although I feel there is some risk exposure to the PHX, I feel that the LCC and AA systems should stay relatively intact and protect current jobs. Any system changes will most likely be mitigated by future planned retirements.

The LCC side has widebody jobs and future orders. The list should reflect a proportional access to those jobs at the combined company. Same goes down the list.

I have zero desire to bump or flush anyone as well as to take anyone else's flying if things go a little south for my side. The TWA guys at AA disagree with the previous statement.

 

[Mach85ER]

NYC,
I was reacting to your current description of "antics" regarding APA and the MB legislation.

The single carrier timeline was set long ago. The Judge and the law says APA will be the representative for the group and the 2-3 lists. Legally, there isn't another party to deal with. I'm not an expert, but I'd guess that USAPA knows this and that is the reason they are objecting to the single carrier filing. As long as it's not a single carrier, USAPA lives.

From what I've heard, APA didn't want the job of fixing your pathetic mess and was hoping for one list to combine with ours. Your side abstained and now somebody has to clean it up. Honestly, I'm PO'd that my union dues are now going to be spent on your Jerry Springer marathon.

Beers on me when it's all done.

Cheers

 

[Piedmont1984]

Mach

Arbitration will be a new experience for your group. Our experience has been that arbitration is like a box of chocolates. I was really hoping a negotiated settlement (ISL) could be worked out. Your union is obviously trying to run the table and I don't blame you, but it appears to me that the law according to Congress is in conflict with the law according to Judge Silver. Any merger between two different unions will inevitably result in the decertification of one at some point in the process. So if you manipulate the timeline then McCaskill-Bond can be effectively circumvented each and every time and in all future mergers. Any effort to undermine the autonomy and authority, to reorder or restaff, or limit the financial resources available to the original USAPA Merger Committee is tampering with the law enacted by Congress, in my opinion.

Second round on me when this is over.

'84

 

[Mach85ER]

Thx Piedmont.

The whole legal issue with Silver and MB is well above my head at this point. In regards to the statement that APA is attempting to run the table, I don't believe we are attempting to staple or limit the expectations of the LCC that existed before the merge. We have some MIA guys salivating for a CLT bid, but I think you guys probably have just as many wanting to be MIA based.

Maybe we can exchange those guys at the DMZ as a sign of friendship. ( too bad we can't pick our own "volunteers").

 

[luvthe9]

GOOD LETTER.............My fellow Pilots I have posted, emailed and spoke up at the UNION meetings and have served on a couple committees and sat at the BPR table all for one thing. All of us. I have never thought of my self one time when it came to who or what I supported. I have both worked with and against several of my fellow pilots never losing respect for each of them. Even when things said were disrespectful. With that said, looking at the last week of communications we find our selves once again with another pilot group thinking of them selves in stead of the whole. APA has decided to throw in with Management and take the seniority integration to where no one really wants to go. They may think that it will give them a better chance at the table but it won't. It will how ever take us to arbitration were someone else will decide all of our futures. In the mean time Parker will get what he loves and has enjoyed for the last 7 years. A fractured Pilot group. I always had faith that one day the Pilots of this industry would figure it out and start acting like brothers and sisters for all Pilots at all Airlines. Looking at the past ALPA has failed at that task and USAPA and APA as well. Now APA has sent to their Pilots an update proving they have no respect for the very Pilot group that sacrificed for all Pilots at all Airlines. How you ask? One word, Pension. With out our fight and our investigation APA would have lost their pension as we did. Instead the PBGC hurting from our investigation prompted them to freeze assets to cover APA's pension short fall. USAPA has succeeded in protecting this Pilot group from a personal vendetta disguised as an arbitration award from an angry arbitrator. No one in this industry who calls them self a professional pilot has said the Nicolaou award was fair. Even ALPA didn't think so. We fought long and hard against everyone. Management, AWA, NMB and the court system in a plaintiff's home town. WE WON. Now APA takes the ramblings of a judge pissed off because the law is on our side and tells their Pilots that it was a ruling. Where is APA's legal team? I sure hope that they know that everything a judge says before the ruling has no bearing on anything. USAPA will be the Bargaining agent in the McCaskill-Bond procedures even if APA get single UNION status. APA is the reason that we have the McCaskill-Bond law. Do they think we will not go to court and get a judge to tell them that? They think we are quick to fight. Well, yes we are. Only because that is what we had to do for the last 7 years. APA, I want you to mark my words. You will find out just what the US Airways Pilot have been going through over the last 7 years in 2016. If you think the parity pay raises are set you better think again.
It only took 2 days for my last post to make it to the APA Pilots. One of them called me an angry pilot. Another Pilot told him or her that I was not angry and that I was smart. I thank that Pilot and he is right, I am smart. There is one thing about that. There are Pilots a hell of a lot smarter than me on the BPR of USAPA and in various committees. They are all willing to fight for what is right. APA ought to keep that in mind next time they cozy up with management.
I want to see APA and USAPA work together and it can still happen. APA all you have to do is come back to the table and let USAPA represent the US Airways Pilots the way APA represents the American Pilots. That is all we want. After that APA is going to be our UNION and I will be happy with that. Remember the last time an arbitrator ruled on seniority integration for a bankrupted Airline, it did not go well for said carrier.

 

[AirwAr]

.....
Remember the last time an arbitrator ruled on seniority integration for a bankrupted Airline, it did not go well for said carrier.

 
Who was the "bankrupted" airline?  Were they in the exact same situation as AA...able to exit bankruptcy as successful, independent company?

 

[FWAAA]

suppose the same type of feud happens between pm AA and US pilots as has happened between HP and US pilots...what happens to the promised pay raises? Are they dependent on an integrated seniority list?

Funny thing about those raises, WT;   Parker paid them late last year, retroactive to last February, and then took a special charge on last years' income statement for the $192 million those raises cost, in effect overstating the "excluding special items" net income of pmUS and new combined AA for 2013.   Turns out that US and AA were not as profitable as everyone thought they were.  
 
I'm not a CPA and my degree is not in accounting, but it just doesn't sound very honest to label wages and benefits paid to employees as a "special item."    If it ain't misleading and potentially fraudulent, it ain't the work of Parker and Kirby.    That's Doug Parker for ya.  
 
Sure, the raises were contingent on the merger closing, but on December 9, they became, in my eyes, an ordinary and necessary and continuing business expense of AA.    Special item my ass.

 

[Mach85ER]

luvthe 9,
 
"good letter"?
 
Are you serious? The author needs a lobotomy after claiming USAPA "saved my pension".
 
What a deal, my A-Fund was frozen. .......for now. Maybe the Mensa boy and his hysterics can give me the Vegas odds on maintaining it during the next downturn and BK with $5 Billion in the ATM machine. The bottom 2/3 is PO'd that it didn't go to the PBGC with better (but not 100% sure) odds of a payout.
 
Get the boy some Ritalin please.

 

[FWAAA]

It's practically a given that an arbitration panel will merge the lists of US Airways pilots with the APA seniority list.    Which list of the US Airways pilots will be used to merge with the AA APA list?   Why, the same arbitration result from last time - the Nic list.   May not be George Nicolau who writes the final decision, but you can bank on the Nic list being used as the starting point.   Those who conduct arbitration for a living tend to hold the results of arbitration in somewhat higher regard than does the USAPA.    Nicolau's list will be combined with the APA list by whomever writes the decision.    
 
An even bigger upcoming shock for many APA pilots is that their relative position on the new combined list may be hurt slightly by the fact that AA was in Chapter 11 when the merger took place, and had AA emerged from Ch 11 and then merged with US, the APA pilots might have fared slightly better in the APA-USAPA SLI arbitration. 

 

[Mach85ER]

FWAAA,
 
Dunno.
 
The BK from our end looks more and more like a BK of conveniance.
 
Pay and bennies is another thing. Their narrow body pay goes from the low $120's to around $180 hour. Work rules are another story.
 
I have no idea what list they will use. I will describe current events from that group as,....well.............."charming".

 

[WorldTraveler]

UA did the same thing with the retroactive part of their pilot pay raises - about $500M. it is a special charge because the EXTRA amount that was paid retroactively won't be repeated. The ongoing part will be part of their normal costs.

My question is what incentive the unions involved have to come up with an integrated seniority list if they get the pay raises without an ISL.

UA is going thru the sUA vs sCO fighting precisely because there are cost advantages to the company of one CBA vs. the other.

Even if there is no cost advantage to the company on one CBA vs another, what do the employees lose if the unions refuse to cooperate and produce JCBAs and ISLs?

The question I want answered is what the effect on new AA will be if this process goes as badly as it is at UA/CO or did at US-HP with the pilots.

 

[PullUp]

UA did the same thing with the retroactive part of their pilot pay raises - about $500M. it is a special charge because the EXTRA amount that was paid retroactively won't be repeated. The ongoing part will be part of their normal costs.

My question is what incentive the unions involved have to come up with an integrated seniority list if they get the pay raises without an ISL...

The question I want answered is what the effect on new AA will be if this process goes as badly as it is at UA/CO or did at US-HP with the pilots.

The way the MOU is written, the ISL will be completed. It has provisions for negotiations (the time period we are in now), then arbitration. There is a 24 month limit (I hesitate to say how enforceable this is...) on the results of said arbitration. But the company doesn't have to worry, it WILL be done.
Cheers.

 

[Bob Owens]

I  
 
An even bigger upcoming shock for many APA pilots is that their relative position on the new combined list may be hurt slightly by the fact that AA was in Chapter 11 when the merger took place, and had AA emerged from Ch 11 and then merged with US, the APA pilots might have fared slightly better in the APA-USAPA SLI arbitration. 

Unlike Sean Lane who simply rubber stamped anything AA wanted and convienently "assumed" that AAs motivations for filing BK was to avoid liquidation, in spite of all the facts which he ignored ($5 billion in cash, 500 new planes coming in, $3billion in profits according to the new business plan-more than the rest of the industry combined, etc, etc, etc) an Arbitrator will listen to the story the APA has to tell as far as who was the "White knight" here and who brought more to the table.  Clearly the AA side brought more so I doubt the circumstantial fact that AA went through a BK where everyone except labor was made 100% whole, a bankruptcy that everyone knows they went into in order to get what they could not get through negotiations.