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FLIGHT PLAN TO A DEFINITE "MAYBE," A BIG "WHAT IF," AND "IT HASN'T HAPPENED YET!"
ALWAYS MAKE SURE THE RIGHT FLIGHT PLAN IS LOADED INTO THE COMPUTER!
Compass Correction writers are noted for a satirical and irreverent style. We try to poke a little fun, while making serious points and asking probing questions. I don’t feel light hearted or satirical today, but I'm sure I'll warm to the subject as I ponder this MOU.
We are now voting on the recently completed Memorandum of Understanding, which will serve as an interim guide to your working conditions, until The Green Book becomes your working agreement, and that assumes if the merger even happens.
If the MOU is any indication (and it is) – US Airways Pilots’ lives will not be improved, except for more money, (of which you shall earn every penny, when it eventually, maybe, shows up in your check).
Also, US Airways, as a medium sized, National Carrier, with a small, but steady and growing International presence will be no more. The very thing that made us the Flying Cockroach which the big airlines couldn’t kill will be gone and we will have done so voluntarily, as we did when 9-guys signed away your pension. This IS history and circumstances repeating. We shall lose our attrition advancements too.
Did you know?
There will be no minimum number of airframes if we ratify this MOU.
The minimum number of hours which must be flown by former US Airways pilots will be much lower than now. How much lower? No one knows, because the standard of measurement is to become “scheduled to fly”, rather than “actually flown”, as it is now. The question becomes; scheduled, as of when? If 40,000 hours is removed a week before the month begins, has The New American violated our contract? No one knows. Our current minimum fleet size and minimum block hour provision is so enforceable that it is one of the big grievances we have pursued and won…if we ratify this MOU, it’s gone.
Gone too is our Scope and Change of Control language. What is ours to fly and what can be “rationalized” to other bases? No one knows.
Our new vacation is 31 days (equivalent)…correct? Well, not exactly. For American Airlines, yes…immediately. Former US Airways pilots will, (in the words of our NAC) “earn our way to that number”….perhaps, (perhaps?) as early as 2015! Perhaps not.
American Airlines pilots are earning New Green Book, and 14% DC contributions right now. We will get a promissory note for the difference in hourly, to be paid…..sometime. There will be no improvement in our 10% DC contribution until the POR (then it goes to 14% and that's only if it occurs before 2014!) and there will be NO DC contribution to any retroactive pay.The promised check in arrears for hourly pay, “shall be the total amount paid, and no additional fringe benefits or other payments, (e.g., DC Contributions) shall be made.” (Quoting Scott Kirby, in a letter to his business partner Gary Hummel, dated January 07, 2013)
Any protections to our flying end in a maximum of 18 months after The New American is a single carrier with US Airways, or when there exists a Joint Collective Bargaining Agreement. (MOU Para. 8) The rest of Para. 8 goes on to describe how FURLOUGHED pilots will be able to go to the bottom of the bidding list of the respective other carrier…..not a warm fuzzy and positive outlook; where is the “growth plan”?
Preferential Bidding and the new flight time/duty time rigs will be a fact of life, by early 2014. This is perhaps inevitable. What else is inevitable is this: PBS means fewer pilotsneeded to fly a given number of block hours. Gone is a fifty year experience of adjusting our flying, inter monthly….inter weekly, for that matter...bear this in mind. How many positions will be lost? There’s no telling….literally; the NAC isn’t telling anyone because a complete analysis hasn’t been done. Old estimates from a stand-alone US Airways model were that PBS might cost upwards of 400 jobs. Imagine that sort of efficiency applied to AA’s operation, then combine it with ours, and the loss of 1000 positions – permanently – is not unfathomable.
“No base, other than St. Louis shall be closed prior to October 01, 2013” (MOU para. 8, k. page 6) Well….that’s reassuring. Editorial note here: Pilots of US Airways; we are being asked to enter a marriage with American Airlines. They are a proud and storied carrier, with a long and glamorous history….and American Airlines is bankrupt as ####. They are too big to be small and too small to be big. Even in bankruptcy, with the relief that provides from one’s bills, they haven’t made money. Make no mistake here; our profitability, our good credit and the charisma of Chugalug Doug are what are making this deal work for Wall Street. Do not kid yourselves; if we ratify this MOU (as currently written) GROWTH AT USAIRWAYS IS OVER.
Seniority Integration; Well, here we shall be again, at the pointy end of the spear. McCaskill-Bond; you do know that this piece of legislation was crafted with the express purpose of outlawing the kind of outrageous injustices perpetrated upon the pilots of TWA in a merger seniority integration? Those guys got hosed…bad.
Thank goodness we won’t have to deal with the kind of demonstrably rapacious, fellow pilot eating guys who raped the TWA guys. Well….in any case, we at least have an untested, unproven, Government Designed Rule to make sure we are treated fairly…..I feel much better. Not having the Seniority Issue dealt with at all, during the months and months of MOU negotiations won’t prove to be problematic….do you think?
One final note on Seniority: Paragraph 10, i. of the MOU; someone thought it important to memorialize APA’s position that no matter what, the TWA pilots may not have their righteous grievances addressed as we supposedly move ahead with the formation of an entirely new seniority list. I’ll bet that our PHX based USAPA members are hoping that rationale isn’t universal. See….there is something in this MOU for every US Airways pilot to question!
Before you vote, read the whole MOU…twice. But if you are too apathetic, at least read Para. 14, on page 9. I won’t spoil it for you, by telling you the ending; at least not now. When you are reading it, know this fact; US Airways, AMR, UCC….ALL OF THEM absolutely would not budge on their insistence that our Scope, Change of Control, Labor Protective Provisions, Daily Utilization and…..MINIMUM FLEET SIZE be ELIMINATED. Yeah, sounds like lots of growth and happy days are here again. Let me repeat; if we sign off on this MOU as is, US Airways, as we have known it, (at least the good parts) will begin very soon and irrevocably to disappear.
The only way a former US Airways pilot will be going to Europe, by say… 2016, is in Row 15. It will all be done in the name of efficiency…very logical. Not too good for us the line pilot. Being part of a Winning Team is great…if you get to play. Notice when you’re read the MOU, how many times temporary pay for displacements is mentioned and how little is said about shared growth and shared opportunity. Think 5-day trips (Green Book) and European flying that starts and ends at DFW/ORD. Don’t worry…as our brothers at The New American Airlines taxi by at PHL in their 777, you will be given a hearty thumbs up, in the cockpit of your shiny new EMB 195….or at least some kind of a hand gesture. Darn…there I go again; sarcastically pointing out the past history of APA in mergers. I keep forgetting, their tendencies will be held in check by our CEO, Doug Parker who is a pilot loving friend of the US Airways pilot. Okay...I promise, “Just the facts, Ma’am.” However I must say, the facts are pretty stark; ask a TWA, Air Cal, Reno Air , or if any are still alive, Trans Caribbean pilot.
“My way, or the highway!”
Have you read the sales brochure, from USAPA, (actually Gary Hummel and James Ray), entitled, “Flight Plan To A Merger”? Man…I really, really hope every word comes true. History, ours and APA’s says…probably not.
The very, very vague language of the MOU as written says definitely not. The Dead Sea Scrolls are more straightforward.
We (our NAC, the 11-0 Board vote and President Gary Hummel) have set ourselves up for a series of very surprising interpretations by the UCC, Management and APA of the MOU language. Because Man built the tower of Babel, God confused their languages so that various tribes couldn’t communicate...well, things haven't changed!
So you might ask in exasperation; what is my alternative? I MUST VOTE YES….I MUST HAVE THE MONEY! LOOK AT THE MONEY…YOU ARE GETTING SLEEPY….LOOK DEEPLY AT THE MONEY; there! You’re hypnotized.
On Page 5 of “Flight Plan To A Merger”, our union devotes one whole paragraph to alternatives. I title it, “My Way, or the Highway”, or, Flight Plan to a "maybe."
It says the only way to “get a seat” at the table is this MOU. In the very recent past, our legal advisors have held quite different opinions. Without getting too far into the weeds, consider a few things. If these items pique a curiosity about the rest of your career, then start asking USAPA some very pointed questions; if not, simply stare deeply at the promised money and forget what it will cost to get that money.
Page 5 argues that we won’t get a seat at the JCBA table. The lion’s share of any foreseeable JCBA is already contained in the APA MOU and Modified Green Book. Pretty much what you see, or in our case haven’t seen, is what you will get….for the rest of most of our careers. In any case, the MOU mandates that JCBA disputes go to binding arbitration.
Two years ago, then President Mike Cleary commissioned a 59 page White Paper on the subject of our Scope and Change of Control Language. In summary, it concludes that (in the instant case) – the UCC, (Jack Butler) and LCC might be able, or might not (Giordano and Company lean toward the position that the company could notget around Scope and Change of Control, but stop short of promising so) get around USAPA and defeat the Change of Control Language. USAPA is very quick to aver that. position. What USAPA is not so fond of mentioning is the conclusion in that same White Paper by the independent law firm Giordano, Halleran & Ciesla that although it MIGHT be defeated, it certainly couldn’t be done automatically, cheaply , or in less time than several months, to several years in court. Timing is everything in a time sensitive transaction such as this one.
Your Merger Committee is the keeper of this document and have (very properly) withheld it from all but a few. The Board gave their direction to the NAC and then made their decision to endorse the MOU, without a healthy debate of ALL of the options. I really wonder why…
I very recently asked some members of the BPR their thoughts on the Giordano study. All told me candidly that they had not read it. One had requested it and was denied access both by Mike Cleary and now by Gary Hummel. One should presume the Board was denied, for different motives, in the case of Mr. Cleary and Mr. Hummel. Still, it seems as though none of our decision makers were in possession of all the facts and professional opinions. I wonder if the Board might have come to a different conclusion? We’ll never know. I still think it ought to be required reading....from what I hear of the content.
For the UCC, Parker and APA this is a business decision. The US Airways Line Pilots’ ratification of this MOU is the one missing piece of a $25,000,000,000 machine. I firmly believe they need US Airways more than we need them…at least for a couple of years.
What do we get? Every pilot will answer that in his own way, but frankly, not much. Lots of promises, most likely a pay rise. However, I am not sure we fully comprehend the titanic changes in our work rules, flexibility and loss of opportunity that will be the heavy price we pay for that money. Again, in the current scheme, our attrition is GONE. This last bid…a happy omen for most; will be one of the last. I honestly believe that we will be flying smaller airplanes, for less money ($114 hr. /$126 hr. EMB 195) – while the other (inaccessible to us) crew bases begin to expand. Ask your PHX brothers how that feels.
Many have asked Dean Coello things like, “why didn’t you get This, or That?” Dean correctly answers, “we tried and we couldn’t get This, or That!”
Let me slightly correct Dean; we couldn’t get This, or That …..YET.
A negotiation isn’t over until it is signed and the goods are delivered and the money is exchanged. That hasn’t happened.
What USAPA hasn’t considered, officially anyhow, is the possibilities that exist in a NO vote by you, the Line Pilots. We have very recent and very relevant history. In mid 2012, the Line Pilots of American were presented by their APA President with an "Last Best Final Offer" to vote on That President told his Line Pilots that this was the best they could ever hope for. He told them all the money had been squeezed. He told them that AMR was bankrupt and that the UCC was running the show. He told them to vote for the LBFO, or die a horrible, gooey death.
The Line Pilots told him to go back to the Line and told the UCC and AMR a not too polite, NO. They then did not die a gooey death but instead they were able to capture many improvements. So really, it was the "next to last best final offer!"
USAPA (page 5) says basically the same thing to us. I seriously doubt that some changes in the contract language of this MOU, some concrete protections for our flying, fleet, attrition and a little money ( think $200,000,000 in aggregate, over three years) is enough to upset a $25,000,000,000 polished apple cart.
I could be wrong..but history says no. And that’s what I am saying to the MOU, as currently structured.
The rest is up to The Line Pilots of the long suffering US Airways. History favors the bold.
Either way….thanks for listening and for casting an informed vote on our futures.
Woody Menear PHL-7i
