Outsourcing Flight Crews?

[jimntx]

Jimintx:

I believe that state law doesn't apply since flight attendants are governed under the National Railway Labor Act...

It is not a state law. The Alien Labor Certification Act is a FEDERAL law. The first step of administration is handled by the state employment services. What a lot of people do not know is that the state employment services are Federal agencies in everything except name and employee pay and benefits.

The employment services were set up during the Depression under mandate of Congress. Even today the underlying legislation governing their funding and their activities is predominantly Federal. Some states have added additional legislation and funding, but not all.

 

[Bear96]

Jim

I wonder if they could get around it by only putting these F/As on the domestic "tags" of flights. For example, Flight 123 might operate NRT-DTW-LGA. Could they put the foreign F/As on the DTW-LGA leg saying it is really an "international" flight because the flight number originated outside the US ...

 

[jimntx]

I doubt it. The U.S. Dept. of Labor is not that dumb. A flight occurring totally within the U.S. borders and especially between 2 U.S. cities could not by any stretch of the imagination be called an International flight. I worked a flight once between SAN and ORD that I had to (with a straight face) say "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard American flight so and so from San Diego to Chicago with continuing serivce the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris." It was on an MD-80. Ya think maybe there was a change of equipment at ORD?

But, saying it's an International flight does not make it an International flight. NWA could try it, but I doubt they would be successful.

 

[Wretched Wrench]

There is a lesson to be learned here. It should have been learned decades ago by observing Continental. Heck, it should be intuitive or at least self-evident.

When you cross a picket line you will be next.

The Romans did the divide and conquer thing. It has worked ever since, if the opposition is not unified. I believe our US founding fathers were aware of this.

 

[Bear96]

I doubt it. The U.S. Dept. of Labor is not that dumb. A flight occurring totally within the U.S. borders and especially between 2 U.S. cities could not by any stretch of the imagination be called an International flight. I worked a flight once between SAN and ORD that I had to (with a straight face) say "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard American flight so and so from San Diego to Chicago with continuing serivce the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris." It was on an MD-80. Ya think maybe there was a change of equipment at ORD?

But, saying it's an International flight does not make it an International flight. NWA could try it, but I doubt they would be successful.

Of course, many passenger flights segments per day are already conducted between two US cities totally within US borders staffed by non-US crews. BA operate a ORD-IAH segment; QF a LAX-JFK one; KE and SV, JFK-IAD (or at least they used to); etc. The catch is, obviously, that no local revenue traffic is carried between the US points. But that is just one additional little step away ...

And, I don't think it will come down to DoL being "dumb" as much as it will come down to how "persuasive" a big business entity can be in convincing a Republican-dominated and -influenced federal administrative agency to interpret the rules in its favor.

 

[jimntx]

Of course, many passenger flights segments per day are already conducted between two US cities totally within US borders staffed by non-US crews. BA operate a ORD-IAH segment; QF a LAX-JFK one; KE and SV, JFK-IAD (or at least they used to); etc. The catch is, obviously, that no local revenue traffic is carried between the US points. But that is just one additional little step away ...

And, I don't think it will come down to DoL being "dumb" as much as it will come down to how "persuasive" a big business entity can be in convincing a Republican-dominated and -influenced federal administrative agency to interpret the rules in its favor.

But, neither of those airlines is a incorporated in the U.S. and as you say, they carry no revenue passengers from Point A to Point B in the U.S. That's basically an International flight from LGW to IAH with an intermediate stop at ORD to drop off some passengers.

However, I share your concern that the current Dept. of Labor could be "persuaded" to overlook the loss of U.S. jobs for the right size donation to the GOP. They have at every turn so far when sending jobs overseas was the issue.

 

[Wings]

Jim

I wonder if they could get around it by only putting these F/As on the domestic "tags" of flights. For example, Flight 123 might operate NRT-DTW-LGA. Could they put the foreign F/As on the DTW-LGA leg saying it is really an "international" flight because the flight number originated outside the US ...

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The company has not given us a detailed proposal on this yet, but we believe this is exactly how they will get away with it. They are supposedly still working on it ....

NWA wants to redefine domestic flying to include all of Canada, U.S. (excluding Hawaii), Mexico, and the Caribbean.

The foreign nationals would work flights from China (NWA labels them "regional FAs" in our concessionary proposal .... which is obviously a ploy by NWA because they don't want to alarm their passengers by telling them that their domestic flight from i.e. MSP-FAR is now going to staffed by foreign nationals from Asia) to an international gateway city (i.e LAX,SFO,SEA).

These Chinese FAs then could possibly fly anywhere from 3-6 day trips (or longer?) working domestic duty days sandwiched between layovers in i.e. Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean. In our current contract, an entire duty day is considered "international flying" if the majority of actual flying (on that day) is international. This is how our union and others are theorizing it would work so that NWA stays within the law and won't have any trouble with the government.

Our question is .... how are these FAs going to be put through the certification process and security checks that we had to go through over a year ago (2004) when the TSA and FAA made it mandatory? Supposedly, you aren't allowed to fly from point to point within the U.S. without this certification ((and we have to carry this proof of certification with us or be able to provide the information to an FAA inspector within so many days if asked to). I guess if the government loosens the rules for this to occur, the security system the government has developed since 9/11 will be nothing more than a scam.

And then we have the potential problems with the bird flu and SARS .... I'll let you ponder that without going into detail.

 

[upsilon]

Jim, I too know the history of UC and federal-state relationship. I also have had personal experience in recruiting and getting skilled foreigners into the US for employment by my company.

While I understand your concern; I doubt that either the federal laws could be "bent" (by any party in power in Washington) to allow foreign national FAs to be "based" in the US.

But what if a FNFA based overseas were to fly only O & D to/from the USA airport? Don't we already have that with the AA FNFA from SA? Is there anything except the APFA contract that limits their numbers?

Based on the laws you have cited and the existing practices of OA that use FNFA, I would not expect the see them on the continuation of NW flights within the US. But do you agree that there is nothing in the US law to prevent or limit NW from staffing their international flights with overseas based FNFA?

 

[jimntx]

The foreign nationals at AA as I understand it never replaced any U.S. workers. We inherited that little gem of labor history when we bought the SA routes from PanAm or Eastern--not sure which. It was a requirement of getting the route authorities to certain countries--Colombia for one, I don't know the others.

The FNs at AA can only fly to/from International gateway cities for AA. AFAIK, MIA is the only one. They can not fly beyond MIA to any other U.S. destination.

What NWA is proposing is that the FNs would work not only the International legs, but also would fly domestic sequences as well--for instance, MSP-MEM. That I think is illegal. Having them fly NRT-MSP-MEM-MSP-YYZ does not make the MSP-MEM legs any less domestic. Now don't anyone get your panties in a literal wad by saying that the sequence I named is impossible because it is too long a duty day. I know that. I'm just naming some cities at random that I know NWA serves as an example. You could just as easily say NRT-SEA-IAH-ACA. The point is that starting at a foreign destination and flying around the U.S., but ending the day at another foreign destination does not make it legal. Otherwise, what would stop BA and KLM and LH from doing same?

It is so obvious a ploy to replace American workers with foreigners who are not even eligible to work in this country that it could not possibly pass any smell test not leavened by a major donation to the GOP.

Moi? Cynical? How could you say such a thing?

 

[eolesen]

Under normal circumstances, the FN's cannot fly beyond MIA on a domestic segment and are not mixed with APFA crews, but reading Appendix S of the contract, it does appear that FN's can be used if a flight is below minimum crew and would otherwise be cancelled. Garfield may have more information on that over in the AA forum.

Since they're trained to the same standards and follow the same emergency procedures, my guess is that as far as the FAA is concerned, there's nothing which would prohibit FN's from being used to staff domestic flights if the contract allowed it. DOL might look at it otherwise, but if I recall, there are already some specific exclusions in place which permit the use of foreign flight crews and seamen by US based operators.

 

[jimntx]

DOL might look at it otherwise, but if I recall, there are already some specific exclusions in place which permit the use of foreign flight crews and seamen by US based operators.

On flight crews, I don't know, but I would guess it is handled on a case by case basis. On seamen, I can tell you. No U.S. flagged ship can use foreign workers who are not at least resident aliens. That's why every cruise ship in the U.S. except the ones cruising the Hawaiian islands are foreign-flagged. Most of them are registered in Liberia--known as a flag of convenience. That way they can pay the workers below minimum wage. Cabin stewards on some of the most elegant ships sailing--Princess, for instance--are paid something like $10/day+ room & board + passenger tips. The cabin steward works from something like 0600 until 2200 with breaks only for meals.

It's also why cruise ships must call at a foreign port before calling at another U.S. port. Some weird U.S. maritime law. The joke is that the law was written to protect the U.S. passenger liner service. The law of unintended consequences kicked in. It actually destroyed the U.S. passenger service. The liners could not compete paying U.S. minimum wage or better. (I almost didn't include this piece of information because it could be used to argue that the FNs at NWA are actually saving the airline.)

If you dig long enough you can find an exception to just about every U.S. law. My original post was simply to make people aware that there is a law out there prohibiting companies from using foreign workers in the U.S. unless they can prove that no U.S. citizen is willing or able to do the job. There's no point in us looking for loopholes. I'm sure NWA lawyers are quite capable of doing that.

 

[upsilon]

jim, my post above included the questions, "But what if a FNFA based overseas were to fly only O & D to/from the USA airport?" and "Is there anything except the [relative] FA contract [e.g., APFA, AFA, PFAA, etc.] that would limit their numbers?"

I just do not believe it is going to be possible in any practical way to have FNFAs fly a domestic O&D leg of any international flight. But I'm afraid I see nothing except a union contract to prevent a carrier from using 100% overseas based FNFA on international flights. And if NW can (in BK) nullify the FA contract, they just might do it!

 

[wouldbefa]

The foreign nationals at AA as I understand it never replaced any U.S. workers. We inherited that little gem of labor history when we bought the SA routes from PanAm or Eastern--not sure which. It was a requirement of getting the route authorities to certain countries--Colombia for one, I don't know the others.

The FNs at AA can only fly to/from International gateway cities for AA. AFAIK, MIA is the only one. They can not fly beyond MIA to any other U.S. destination.

What NWA is proposing is that the FNs would work not only the International legs, but also would fly domestic sequences as well--for instance, MSP-MEM. That I think is illegal. Having them fly NRT-MSP-MEM-MSP-YYZ does not make the MSP-MEM legs any less domestic. Now don't anyone get your panties in a literal wad by saying that the sequence I named is impossible because it is too long a duty day. I know that. I'm just naming some cities at random that I know NWA serves as an example. You could just as easily say NRT-SEA-IAH-ACA. The point is that starting at a foreign destination and flying around the U.S., but ending the day at another foreign destination does not make it legal. Otherwise, what would stop BA and KLM and LH from doing same?

It is so obvious a ploy to replace American workers with foreigners who are not even eligible to work in this country that it could not possibly pass any smell test not leavened by a major donation to the GOP.

Moi? Cynical? How could you say such a thing?

Have to agree with you on the last part of your statement. We have the best government money can buy. with this money grubber in charge, and hid family(the bushes) the american worker is at risk. Have a friend and his wife who voted for Bush in the last election. They tough that the tax cuts , pro-life, and pension stand would be goood. Came back later to bite them badly, they are both scrapeing for bucks.
Time folks to turn thee heat on under your elected officials...

 

[PlayTheOdds]

Time folks to turn thee heat on under your elected officials...

What good will that do? It is time to erase the board and start over. No current political party is going to do anything for the American people. Things will not change until we have a total Grass Roots Party in office.