AWA ALPA Thread for the Week 9/14-9/20

[EastUS]

ALPO thinks of us as maggots? Yeah, I finally understand now. It is clear. Everything they did makes sense! Gee if we only saw our selves as maggots then we could be happy as a pig in..
Come to thank of it when Dougie or Prater tell us which way to go then we know sure as he ll to do the opposite.

In full fairness = Can't say that I've seen the term maggot employed in print by Alpo to describe we fools who've so long paid for the vast amount of pampered harrumphing that apparently takes place at nat'l...or is that "Alpo Notional"? It certainly seems clear to me that all they're lately able to try and sell is material for the utterly timid, who would prefer the dysfunctional devil that they know, to any other less "known" future. It's a long established sale's pitch on their part that we've seen used on lesser issues for many years.

FDR, if President of Alpo, would have had some serious troubles trying to promote "All we have to fear, is fear itself"

 

[Bear96]

Just a whimsical thought...any lawyer worth his/her salt can construct an appropriate argument for either side of any case...What would be your's in favor of the East?

I disagree that any argument, no matter how ridiculous, is "appropriate" to pursue. Lawyers can get sanctioned for putting forth arguments that have no reasonable basis in law or fact. When an argument is too weak, it is frivolous, and lawyers can get punished for clogging up the courts with such nonsense. Sometimes a lawyer "worth his salt" has the responsibility to tell his client that the client simply does not have a case.

Such is the case here. Similar to a lawyer explaining to a client after a jury trial that the jury decided against him, here a lawyer's duty is to explain to East that they submitted to binding arbitration, and must abide by the arbitrator's decision. (Of course, this should have been explained before starting the whole process.) There are occassionally narrow grounds to go to court to vacate the arbitrator's decision which should be explored if they would conceivably apply, but as has been discussed exhaustively on this site, those grounds do not exist in this case.

Sure a few complaints could be filed seeking to vacate the arbitration, but those would soon get dismissed, and if that behavior were to continue, sanctions would follow.

But for the sake of argument, I suppose the least worst argument to try to get the arbitration award thrown out would be to argue the arbitrator somehow abused his discretion and exceeded the authority granted to him by ALPA in totally disregarding the guidelines that were supposed to be followed, and that the new seniority list was created arbitrarily -- i.e., that the list is not based on any reasonable factors and no reasonable arbitrator would have come up with such a list. (In fact, I think that is basically what East was trying to do in filing the complaint in the D.C. courts a couple of months ago, which I seem to recall was removed to federal court -- whatever happened with that?) However, that would still be a losing argument because the record would not support it. The facts of this case do not even come close to the legal standard necessary to overturn an arbitration award for being arbitrary or for an arbitrator exceeding his authority.

So we're back to Square One, which is explaining to East that ultimately they will have to come to terms with the award one way or another.

 

[Bear96]

Bear isn't a lawyer. He thinks signatures on documents don't matter.

I never said they "don't matter" at all. Rather, courts will look to a lot more than a signature on a document to determine whether an enforceable contract was formed. If the the East and West MECs somehow manifested the intent not to become bound by the new list until there was a particular signature on a particular document (and I have not heard of any evidence suggesting that so far in this case regarding the East/West situation*), your obsession with signatures might be relevant. Otherwise, not so much. For example, have you ever heard of an oral contract? Those can be just as binding as written, signed contracts.

Courts will have no problem looking to (and finding) other indicia of East's and West's intent to be bound upon entering the agreement to arbitrate.


* An argument can be made that ALPA as a bargaining representative did not agree to the list actually being implemented by the company until it is forwarded to the company, which is a different topic from the East and West MECs agreeing to resolve their seniority dispute with each other.

 

[Phoenix]

.... have you ever heard of an oral contract? Those can be just as binding as written, signed contracts.

Ha! Maybe you are a lawwwyer. You change the argument because you don't like the one your loooosing. Company won't use the Nic list based on verbal contract. Prater has to sign it.

 

[Bear96]

Ha! Maybe you are a lawwwyer. You change the argument because you don't like the one your loooosing. Company won't use the Nic list based on verbal contract. Prater has to sign it.

??? "Chang[ing] the argument" ???

I did not say there was an oral contract at issue here. I was merely giving an example of a situation where a court may find a binding contract, even though there is not a signed document anywhere.

In this situation, there seem to be plenty of written documents to indicate East agreed to be bound by the decision before the arbitration started, even if Prater doesn't sign it whatever post-arbitration document you are referring to now. The documents indicating the intent and agreement to be bound start with the ALPA merger policy that has been in place for over 15 years, and end with the TA and other documents leading up to the arbitration.

The lack of a signature on some after-the-fact document you are obsessing about is likely to be only a very minor point in all of this. (This is subject to the caveat I mentioned above, if somehwere there is something indicating East did not intend to be bound by the arbitration decision until this particular document was signed. If you have evidence of that, let's see it.)

 

[PA18]

It would appear that Prater, as a last resort to prevent an eight figure loss in annual dues income, is trying to exploit the one facet of the East pilots' character that is even stronger than greed.

Fear.

You know that big red button that says "easy" on it, that Staples stores use as a marketing gimmick? Well, that button sits right on Jerry Glass's desk. Except it's also labeled "FUD". Prater probably asked to borrow it for a little while.

And I wouldn't be surprised if a certain ALPA VP is whispering in Prater's ear that the "fear" card can be ultimately used to trump any decert effort, and save his "phoney baloney" job at National.

He oughta know. He certainly presided over more than one capitulation by the East pilots when he was MEC chairman.

(Memo to Chris: There's going to be a domicile and equipment bid published for January. You better make sure your bid choices are up to date.)

 

[hp_fa]

The lack of a signature on some after-the-fact document you are obsessing about is likely to be only a very minor point in all of this. (This is subject to the caveat I mentioned above, if somehwere there is something indicating East did not intend to be bound by the arbitration decision until this particular document was signed. If you have evidence of that, let's see it.)

Just as an example of what Bear says, flip the situation around on it's head as if you were a judge determining whether or not East intended to abide by a full and binding arbitration. If East had no intent to be a party to the arbitration:

1. Why did they spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare for arbitration?

2. Why did they attend arbitration?

3. What were they arguing in arbitration?

4. Did they ever mention, say, or infer that they never intended to be bound by whatever result came from arbitration?

After reviewing answers to those questions, what do you think any judge would conclude?

 

[Phoenix]

Just as an example of what Bear says, flip the situation around on it's head as if you were a judge determining whether or not East intended to abide by a full and binding arbitration. If East had no intent to be a party to the arbitration:

1. Why did they spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare for arbitration?

2. Why did they attend arbitration?

3. What were they arguing in arbitration?

4. Did they ever mention, say, or infer that they never intended to be bound by whatever result came from arbitration?

After reviewing answers to those questions, what do you think any judge would conclude?

East this... West that.... blah, blah, blah...

The Nic Award means nothing until Prater signs it. <------ Notice the period at the end

 

[Tiger 1050]

Tiger 1050,

Good for you for staying on subject. Guys like nostradamus and EastUS always try to redirect the subject by throwing around words like scab, and hypocrite, and stories of drug runners of yesteryear. Then they end with things like naive boy. This is par for the course for them. They are incapable of taking responsibility for their actions. It's amazing they made it this far as pilots. Next they will be calling you out like highschool bullies for a sudden death match in the sky!

You and your MEC have demonstrated the utmost professionalism and restraint in this dispute. These "old guys" and the East MEC could learn a few things from your example.

Peace,
767jetz

Thanks jetz. It's nice to see others, not of our fold, see this for what it is. Sad thing is the east pilots want to be respected and honored for their time and "experience." They don't seem to realize that they talk a good game but their actions suggest they do not understand how one becomes respected. And I'm quite sure they will tear me up somewhere along the line for my comments only illustrating my point. Soon they will be retired and maybe things will settle down a bit. But until then I believe it will be good ole U fighting anybody for any irrational reason...

 

[EastUS]

Thanks jetz. It's nice to see others, not of our fold, see this for what it is. Sad thing is the east pilots want to be respected and honored for their time and "experience." They don't seem to realize that they talk a good game but their actions suggest they do not understand how one becomes respected. And I'm quite sure they will tear me up somewhere along the line for my comments only illustrating my point. Soon they will be retired and maybe things will settle down a bit. But until then I believe it will be good ole U fighting anybody for any irrational reason...

No worries mate Respect and/or Honor from others only matters if one first has respect for said others

Pose yourself the logical question: Should I be more (or even in any slight way) concerned with "respect" from you/jetz/et al?....or more properly that of my 20+ year "First Officer"/former captain/ex-military comrade/etc ? 😉 Sigh..given the vast rivers of Koolaide clearly flowing out there in the otherwise sun parched desert...you may consider such notions as "irrational". Suit yourself 😉

 

[nostradamus]

No worries mate Respect and/or Honor from others only matters if one first has respect for said others Pose yourself the logical question: Should I be more (or even in any slight way) concerned with "respect" from you/jetz/et al?....or more properly that of my 20+ year "First Officer"/former captain/ex-military comrade/etc ? 😉

Very good post. Their airlines scabbed in Australia, what a great way to rationalize this buy pointing towards U pilots. There is a merger coming up that if in fact the Nicolau award is presented, they will attain positions that normally take years to earn.

They make fun of the age of Usairways pilots, but the person that made this award is in his mid 80's. I know people in their 80's and most are sharp as as a tack, but others, well fill in your own thoughts here.


Mr Nicolau's findings are flawed. History will prove this.

 

[Junebug172]

Thought I'd share something I came across on the National board.

Its from an east pilot and he makes a great point.


"The difference between the east fighting the award to the bitter end, and the west fighting the award to the bitter end is the west's fight will be financed by ALPA, while the easts fight will be personally financed by east pilots. Just another lead weight of assessments each east pilot will pay each month in their quest to absolutely and utterly destroy their lives and careers. Sickening and sad."

 

[hp_fa]

A month or so ago I posted something along the same lines when I was reading that USAPA supporters were claiming that dues would be lower then current ALPA dues. I didn't see it then and I don't see it now, especially with all the costs to set up the union and it's infrastructure, plus the legal bills that will likely accrue sooner rather then later.

 

[AAA73Pilot]

A month or so ago I posted something along the same lines when I was reading that USAPA supporters were claiming that dues would be lower then current ALPA dues. I didn't see it then and I don't see it now, especially with all the costs to set up the union and it's infrastructure, plus the legal bills that will likely accrue sooner rather then later.

It will still be true. We expect dues to go down or at worst stay the same. Why? Because we're not setting up an ALPA infrastructure. We will not be supporting secretaries in Herndon who make more than I do. Plus we won't have a president who makes six figures and produce nothing. No more flight pay loss abuse. There won't be a castle, like in Herndon to build or support. Those alone are worth a reduction. So what other costs are you refering too? Would be glad to answer your questions if I can.

 

[CapnCockroach]

A month or so ago I posted something along the same lines when I was reading that USAPA supporters were claiming that dues would be lower then current ALPA dues. I didn't see it then and I don't see it now, especially with all the costs to set up the union and it's infrastructure, plus the legal bills that will likely accrue sooner rather then later.

Exactly. Having been in the midst of the start up of an in-house union, the first trip to the lawyers office taught us that....and that was just the lawyer (cheapest rate was $325/"billable" hour). No office, no infra-structure, no envelopes, no desks or phones, no stamps, no nothing. You are right. The legal bill will accrue first. Just getting federal "recognition" costs money and lots of time.