Easties,
Your leadership has pumped you up only to watch their promises come crashing down time and time again. LOA93, snapbacks, MDA, DOH, Nic dismissal, etc - all failures.
And now they're doing it again with CoC.
Ask them WHY they think CoC will kick in. Why are the only 99% sure? What variable does that 1% represent?
Some stuff to consider and ask your reps about:
The Change of Control provision appears in Section 1(D) 2 of the 1998-2003 US Airways Agreement, and, in general, provides that, if there is a "change of control" with respect to the ownership or management of the Company, "hourly rates of pay will be the greater of the existing rates of pay or the Book Rates." Section 1(D) 2 also gives the Association "in its sole discretion" the right "to extend the Agreement . . . with across-the-board wages increases of four and one half percent (4.5%) on . . . each annual anniversary of the amendable date thereafter."
When this was written, the airline stock was publicly traded. Ownership changed every day. Management changes every few years. CEO's retire, VP's move up the ladder, underperformers are fired, superstars are brought in, bad boys go to jail or divorce court. The only way I can see this, apparently poorly written and illconcieved COC clause kicking in is if the company was taken private in some kind of a LBO, or management buyout, or even an ESOP like United had. Maybe that was the original concern?
Billions are at stake here. It looks like the three surviving network megacarriers, DAL,UAL, and AMR, plus LUV will be aligning their employee costs within a few percentage points of each other, essentially leveling the field of employee compensation. Each will try to get an edge on fuel costs. DAL with a refinery purchase, LUV and UAL with hedging, AMR, if they continue to follow Dougs strategy, paying market rates, due to the correlation of fuel and the economy(jobs, purchasing patterns, stock markets indices, etc.). All have worldwide alliances who are involved, except LUV who has their proprietary program in place(like Apple vs. all of the rest).
In my personal opinion, which pretty much aint worth much, I would say the east contract becomes null and void upon execution of a subsequent CBA, especially given the successor bargining agent will not be ALPA or USAPA. They will have to sue the new company with their own dime and the company will state they no longer have to abide by that agreement as it is no longer an enforceable contract. However, if those provisions are placed in the new contract, which I doubt they will, all bets are off. A new contract will be the enforcable document that will covet the membership. Now didn't I sould somewhat intelligent? I guess that contract law class I took in college paid off.
