I can't respond to the Little Dynasty (Little, Gless etc.) so I won't. However, since you started off with the B Scale, I'll let you in on something AMFA has always chosen to ignore:
The B-Scale Plague
American Airlines adopted the benchmark B-scale in 1983, permanently reducing pay for newly hired pilots by 50 percent. In fact, under the AA system—negotiated while the Seham firm sat on the labor side of the table—pay rates and pensions for new employees would never merge with those of then-current employees.
Martin Seham wrote proudly of this accomplishment in Cleared for Takeoff: Airline Labor Relations Since Deregulation.
As general counsel to the Allied Pilots Association (APA), the independent certified representative of the American Airlines pilots, I was close to the negotiations that resulted, in 1983, in the earliest realization of the two-tier system. APA was not faced with an insolvent or failing carrier; it was, however, forced to deal with an economic environment that had changed dramatically because of the effects of deregulation and was, by virtue of its independence, mandated to reach an agreement consistent with the needs and objectives of its constituency. — Martin C. Seham
Although B-scales were not a new concept, their initial format was unique to the airline industry. Following American’s lead, other airlines began to demand similar packages—forcing the entire airline labor movement into a new era of concessions. Good for management; bad for pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and all of the airline industry’s workers.
While ALPA pilots were forced to deal with this blight brought to the industry by APA and the Sehams, not one ALPA pilot group accepted a non-merging two-tier scale. The clearest example of this was the ALPA strike at United in June 1985, when the pilots refused to agree to a non-merging two-tier pay scale.
UNION OKS AMERICAN AIRLINES PACT
Author: United Press International
Transportation Workers Union officials said yesterday that union members have ratified a new contract with American Airlines, averting a strike that had been scheduled for 12:01 a.m. today.
TWU leaders had recommended that the contract be rejected.
The airline set the strike deadline on the pact after the union backed out of a strike three weeks ago and submitted the contract to the membership.
American had said it would use nonunion personnel to run the airline if the TWU 's 10,000 ground workers struck. It also said if the contract was not ratified, it would begin laying off TWU workers.
The airline 's offer includes 21 percent pay raises over the three-year life of the contract; a clause the airline calls a "lifetime" job guarantee, and incentives for early retirement at age 55.
But it also grants the airline the right to ask TWU employees to do work not covered in their job descriptions; establishes a separate wage structure for new employees up to 27 percent below union scale, and allows the airline to contract for building maintenance work outside the union.
It was these clauses that prompted TWU officials to recommend that the contract be rejected.
Edition: FINAL
Section: BUSINESS
Dateline: DALLAS
