I'm not disputing that one way or the other. I'm just saying that US ALPA at the time had an opportunity to make that clear and use it as leverage with the company. HOWEVER, if they discussed this with the company, and for some reason still AGREED to allow the "shortcut" with the understanding that those pilots were still furloughed, then you can't go back and erase it after the fact.
For example, maybe the company said, "look, if you don't let us do it this way and put MDA on our current certificate with the stipulation that it be off limits to non-furloughed pilots, since we need to furlough "x" number of pilots to get our costs in line, and blah, blah, blah... THEN we'll do it the hard way and hire off the street and none of the furloughs will get a job with MDA." Maybe US ALPA looked at this and decided (without membership input) that this was the way to go. Well, then the argument now is moot. It's like getting scope relief from the contract. We own the metal but you're not flying it. It's exactly what AirLingus/UA is doing (or trying to do) right now because AirLingus pilots do not have the scope language to prevent it.