usairways_vote_NO
Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2002
- Messages
- 1,882
- Reaction score
- 57
Self Help
Code
Dated March 2003 ref:
The bankruptcy courts seem generally sympathetic to debtor-employers and grant rejection rather liberally. Furthermore, most courts that grant rejection simply issue orders “approving†the employer’s rejection, without discussing the possibility of protecting post-rejection employee rights. To date, no court has addressed the application of the Railway Labor Act after Section 1113 rejection. The most sensible result appears to entail some sort of bargaining impasse doctrine, leaving the carrier free to implement modifications necessary for the Chapter 11 reorganization, but granting employees the right to strike (and limiting the employer’s discretion to exact further concessions). However, there is no explicit basis for this result in the statute, nor is there judicial precedent directly on point.
Also:
Whatever position the court may take with respect to its remedial rejection powers, the federal labor laws will ultimately govern the parties’ post-rejection relationship. The Bankruptcy Code may briefly usurp certain aspects of the NLRA and RLA during the rejection process, but it does not do so on a permanent basis.34 Thus, even if the Bankruptcy Court’s power were limited to approving a rejection, the parties would not necessarily acquire discretion to engage in unlimited self-help.
There is no precedent to guide the court’s decision regarding the parties’ post-rejection obligations under the RLA. A number of possibilities present themselves. First, the effects of rejection may be similar to the consequences of an amendable date clause – thus compelling the parties to maintain the status quo and exhaust the Section 6 process of negotiations, mediation and “cooling off†before engaging in self-help.35 Second, rejection may bring the parties to an equivalent of the Section 6 impasse, allowing immediate self-help measures. Finally, the rejection process may be considered a total bypass of Section 6, leaving the parties with only their Section 2(First)36 duties to bargain, which would perhaps entail some sort of obligation to maintain the status quo through a specialized impasse doctrine.
Code
Dated March 2003 ref:
The bankruptcy courts seem generally sympathetic to debtor-employers and grant rejection rather liberally. Furthermore, most courts that grant rejection simply issue orders “approving†the employer’s rejection, without discussing the possibility of protecting post-rejection employee rights. To date, no court has addressed the application of the Railway Labor Act after Section 1113 rejection. The most sensible result appears to entail some sort of bargaining impasse doctrine, leaving the carrier free to implement modifications necessary for the Chapter 11 reorganization, but granting employees the right to strike (and limiting the employer’s discretion to exact further concessions). However, there is no explicit basis for this result in the statute, nor is there judicial precedent directly on point.
Also:
Whatever position the court may take with respect to its remedial rejection powers, the federal labor laws will ultimately govern the parties’ post-rejection relationship. The Bankruptcy Code may briefly usurp certain aspects of the NLRA and RLA during the rejection process, but it does not do so on a permanent basis.34 Thus, even if the Bankruptcy Court’s power were limited to approving a rejection, the parties would not necessarily acquire discretion to engage in unlimited self-help.
There is no precedent to guide the court’s decision regarding the parties’ post-rejection obligations under the RLA. A number of possibilities present themselves. First, the effects of rejection may be similar to the consequences of an amendable date clause – thus compelling the parties to maintain the status quo and exhaust the Section 6 process of negotiations, mediation and “cooling off†before engaging in self-help.35 Second, rejection may bring the parties to an equivalent of the Section 6 impasse, allowing immediate self-help measures. Finally, the rejection process may be considered a total bypass of Section 6, leaving the parties with only their Section 2(First)36 duties to bargain, which would perhaps entail some sort of obligation to maintain the status quo through a specialized impasse doctrine.
