US Pilots Labor Discussion

[Pi brat]

Wow! You're really good at pulling facts from deep inside your ass.

You know what squirt? Maybe when your wife asks where the remote is, you might look up your ass, but I've never thought to store anything there. A hard drive works much better. We've been over this before, just a few months ago with cleardirect. Here's some light reading for ya:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/050426/awa10-q.html
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/america-west-reports-first-quarter-results-54355172.html
http://www.airtimes.com/cgat/usa/americawest/ar/hp2005.pdf
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-148713666.html

 

[fodase]

I have not talked out of both sides of my mouth. It is my money that is included in this INVESTMENT, even though I voted against it, and had quit paying ALPA dues long before the Nic came out.....mainly over pension termination.

Like I said, it doesn't matter how it got there, it's money that we gave up and brought to the table. Call it an investment.....a screwin', or whatever you want.....it's still our monies on the table.

So why are you trying to steal it off the west instead of management? Because you're a bunch of clown college graduates?

 

[lynyrdskynyrd]

A third list Cleary puppet, that biggie. Gotta love it. He surfs on in occasionally, probably in between washing Cleary's car and shining his shoes.

 

[Pi brat]

So why are you trying to steal it off the west instead of management? Because you're a bunch of clown college graduates?

Ray, is that you? Have you switched themes to "clowns".

 

[Pi brat]

If we want a merger you guys better read this



In case you haven't figured it out yet, PHL and DCA are in bed with PHX and working with a group of Mike Cleary haters to unseat Cleary and replace him with EVP Gary Hummel. If this happens you can kiss your seniority goodbye and thank Dave Ciabattoni, Gary Hummel, Mark King, Woody Menear, Rob Streble, and Eric Rowe along with their unlikely buddies from the Army of Leonidas for it (and PHL and DCA Reps.)

A cog in the machinery of this plan was revealed to you with a betrayal of your trust when on February 19th, PHL and DCA published a joint update wrought with harsh public criticism of the man in charge of defending your seniority, President Mike Cleary. If you are not outraged by the action of PHL/DCA you should check your pulse because you are about to have the knife twisted in your back by the Reps. from these two domiciles. Rest assured that their take on what has been going on behind the scenes in their update is far from accurate. The process of unseating Cleary has been slow and methodical and this is just the latest blow to the nail in the coffin of your career courtesy of the out going PHL reps and DCA.

Here is another tidbit of betrayal by the PHL/DCA Reps. you have never heard before:

At 1900 on January 20th, there was an “Informal” conference call conducted by some members of the BPR. The request for the call was sent out January 19th by PHL Chairman Doug Burke presumably at the behest of Eric Ferguson and was quickly supported by all PHX, PHL, and DCA Representatives. CLT Representatives objected to the meeting because it was in violation of the Union Operating Manual's requirement to notify the membership of any call as well as the planned subject matter of such 48 hours in advance. No Officers were invited to participate and no minutes were taken and you will not find any record of the proceedings on the USAPA website. In short, the meeting never happened - it was behind closed doors, sound familiar?

The topic of discussion on the conference call was how to teach the USAPA President a lesson with regard to an email he had recently sent out that some members of the BPR took exception to. The action taken at the conference call - which is also a violation of the Union Operating Manual because no action is allowed to be taken at an information only conference call - was to task PHX Vice Chairman Eric Ferguson (the founder of Army of Leonidas) to write a letter of censure against the President to be signed by willing BPR members and emailed to the membership. Unbelievably, during debate it was the PHX Vice Chairman who spoke against such a public censure and DCA and PHL Vice Chairmen Pete Dugstad and John Dubarry who insisted that the letter be sent. At the end of debate, Dugstad and Dubarry prevailed and the letter was drafted by Ferguson but in the following days and after much emotional lobbying behind the scenes by certain members of USAPA, it did not see the light of day. However, on February 19th DCA/PHL published their own version of this devastating piece of gossip as their "joint update" you have probably seen.

If you think these actions are treacherous, you are correct. If you think that toppling Mike Cleary and replacing him with Gary Hummel (who will win with 1700 west votes right out of the gate) is the road to protect your contract aspirations and your seniority, you are sorely mistaken. There are two goals here...get a contract, and fix the seniority mess and we cannot accomplish either if every minute of every day of our Reps. and our Officers time is taken up with this nonsense. You, the line pilots must, and can make it stop. Let your DCA and PHL Reps. know that you are outraged and tell them to cease and desist. The PHL Reps. have just over one month left in their terms and this is their parting shot? - their legacy? Surely they can bridle their near sided urges for that long. And the DCA Reps? Well, that's another story. They are barely into their terms and they have betrayed you harshly so some brainstorming will need to be done to fix that problem.

Is there hope in the future? Yes. On April 1st three new PHL Reps. take office and two of them, Steve Szpyrka and either Mike Gillies or Brian Pflanzer (runoff) are committed to work in steadfast dedication with those who are focused on a contract with a fix to the seniority issue. That will greatly change the make-up of the BPR and hopefully help end this destructive behavior. Even if you have questions about the fitness of our leadership it should be clear that the forward looking decisions of the BPR should be made by those who will be charged to manage the outcome of those decisions - the incoming reps, not those who see their impending departure as an excuse to recklessly fire fatal shots with a perceived lack of accountability.


Call everyone you know now. Tell them to send a strong message to the BPR that this nonsense will not be tolerated and that they, all of them, will be held accountable.

Well Biggie, I hope this means you are a westie, because I hope there is no eastie stupid enough to post something like this. If not, it shows there are as many east idiots as west.

Time for Cleary and Mowery to go.

 

[Pi brat]

Hey Ames, I forgot one. Here is 4th quarter 2004:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-01-21-amwest-earnings_x.htm

 

[fodase]

Well Biggie, I hope this means you are a westie, because I hope there is no eastie stupid enough to post something like this. If not, it shows there are as many east idiots as west.

Time for Cleary and Mowery to go.

Lol, you clowns are brilliant. You go to clown college then wonder why your career sucks. Was it the west that voted in loa 93? How about usapa, the biggest joke of a union ever.

 

[Pi brat]

Lol, you clowns are brilliant. You go to clown college then wonder why your career sucks. Was it the west that voted in loa 93? How about usapa, the biggest joke of a union ever.

No, but AWA pilots working for bottom of the barrel for years help set the stage. What were your other catch phrases? Dumber than butter? Butter boy?

 

[Pi brat]

Hey cleardirect,

You took issue with me about the PID and what should have been looked at by Nic. Capt Brucia should have had a clue about how all that worked, right? Here is what he had to say about it:

"As a consequence of the Boards decision, America West pilot Odell, who was hired
less than 2 months before the merger was announced, has been placed immediately senior to
US Airways pilot Colello who was hired more than 16 years earlier and who had over 16 years
of credited length of service. I disagree with this placement, which disregards Colello’s
substantial service time.…
The Board did not adequately take into account the realities of the “new” airline, the
return of furloughees that has already taken place and the much greater rate of age-based
attrition at US Airways as compared to the rate at America West. The vast amount of agerelated
attrition that has occurred within the US Airways pilot group caused the recall of over
300 US Airways pilots between March 2006 and the first week of January of this year. The
pace of recalls is brisk and has continued. During the hearings we learned that additional
recalls were taking place and there was testimony that stated at the current pace it was possible
that all US Airways pilots would receive recall notices before the end of 2007."

 

[fodase]

No, but AWA pilots working for bottom of the barrel for years help set the stage. What were your other catch phrases? Dumber than butter? Butter boy?

I sure like the FACTs you always come up with. All kidding aside you have to know what a failure this east adventure has been. This proves that it wasn't the name of the union on the door, but the east pilots themselves that are responsible for this situation

 

[Pi brat]

This proves that it wasn't the name of the union on the door, but the east pilots themselves that are responsible for this situation

I've always agreed with that, to a degree. I believe ALPA has a lot of issues, but if we don't have quality people in there doing the work, any union will be screwed up. We have some great people working for USAPA, I just don't have faith in Cleary and Mowery. I don't think they have the skills to lead us.

As for the facts, I've tried to back mine up. What I've posted about AWA is not to put you guys down. You just did your job, as we did, but as I see it we both needed the merger and the who-saved-who does no one any good.

We would all be better off if we could set aside the venom and let the seniority fight ride itself out in court. I have little faith that will happen and when snapped at, I snap back.

 

[fodase]

Hey cleardirect,

You took issue with me about the PID and what should have been looked at by Nic. Capt Brucia should have had a clue about how all that worked, right? Here is what he had to say about it:

"As a consequence of the Boards decision, America West pilot Odell, who was hired
less than 2 months before the merger was announced, has been placed immediately senior to
US Airways pilot Colello who was hired more than 16 years earlier and who had over 16 years
of credited length of service. I disagree with this placement, which disregards Colello’s
substantial service time.…
The Board did not adequately take into account the realities of the “new” airline, the
return of furloughees that has already taken place and the much greater rate of age-based
attrition at US Airways as compared to the rate at America West. The vast amount of agerelated
attrition that has occurred within the US Airways pilot group caused the recall of over
300 US Airways pilots between March 2006 and the first week of January of this year. The
pace of recalls is brisk and has continued. During the hearings we learned that additional
recalls were taking place and there was testimony that stated at the current pace it was possible
that all US Airways pilots would receive recall notices before the end of 2007."

And captain Steve Gillen agreed with Nicolau. From the west pint of view, Brucia was off the mark, and we have the nwa/dal list as well as the republic/frontier list that concur with nicolau.

 

[cleardirect]

Hey cleardirect,

You took issue with me about the PID and what should have been looked at by Nic. Capt Brucia should have had a clue about how all that worked, right? Here is what he had to say about it:

"As a consequence of the Boards decision, America West pilot Odell, who was hired
less than 2 months before the merger was announced, has been placed immediately senior to
US Airways pilot Colello who was hired more than 16 years earlier and who had over 16 years
of credited length of service. I disagree with this placement, which disregards Colello’s
substantial service time.…
The Board did not adequately take into account the realities of the “new” airline, the
return of furloughees that has already taken place and the much greater rate of age-based
attrition at US Airways as compared to the rate at America West. The vast amount of agerelated
attrition that has occurred within the US Airways pilot group caused the recall of over
300 US Airways pilots between March 2006 and the first week of January of this year. The
pace of recalls is brisk and has continued. During the hearings we learned that additional
recalls were taking place and there was testimony that stated at the current pace it was possible
that all US Airways pilots would receive recall notices before the end of 2007."

Recalled after the PID.

What was it you guys said about Bybee's opinon? It was the minority so it did not matter. But what did Nicolau and the majority have to say about the PID?

As evidenced by Captain Brucia's Concurring and Dissenting Opinion, attached hereto, he disagrees with this aspect of the Award. His view is that at a minimum consideration should be given to those US Airways pilots already recalled; that treatment of them as active pilots consistent with their present status would serve to recognize the substantial time they had already invested in their airline. In the majority's view, this gives weight to post-merger expectations rather than pre-merger expectations, contrary to what ALPA policy foresees. In so doing it fails to recognize the prospects the US Airways pilots faced before the merger; including the reduction of the active pilot work force from 5500 to close to 3000, the sharp reduction in the size of the fleet since the 1990's; the absence of recalls though many active pilots were retiring; the successive bankruptcies and the inability to successfully emerge from that condition. When all that is considered, in the majority's view, it is far more appropriate to combine those who brought jobs to the merger, particularly when the protection of career expectations is of such overriding concern. This is not to say, of course, that this merger is designed or should be thought of as a model for others that may follow. As stated at the beginning, each case does turn on its own facts. As a consequence, different facts may produce different results. Here, a majority is of the opinion that the facts of this case justify our conclusion.

You guys are all about majority correct?

Expect for the position noted by Captain Broda on one point, our view, taking into account the attrition rate of both groups and all the factors that must be considered and balanced in any merger, leads us to the conclusion, despite that difference, as well as others that have since been resolved, that the List achieves, as well as any list can, the objectives of ALPA Merger Policy in this case.

that on epoint being, giving credit to furloughed pilots recalled AFTER the PID. POST merger result.

 

[fodase]

I've always agreed with that, to a degree. I believe ALPA has a lot of issues, but if we don't have quality people in there doing the work, any union will be screwed up. We have some great people working for USAPA, I just don't have faith in Cleary and Mowery. I don't think they have the skills to lead us.

As for the facts, I've tried to back mine up. What I've posted about AWA is not to put you guys down. You just did your job, as we did, but as I see it we both needed the merger and the who-saved-who does no one any good.

We would all be better off if we could set aside the venom and let the seniority fight ride itself out in court. I have little faith that will happen and when snapped at, I snap back.

The problem you got is we have a valid response for all your facts. It is a Fact that we were all aware of the binding arbitration, it is a fact that every merger in the last 20 years has gone equipment/status including the trump shuttle. It is an undeniable fact that dal/nwa and now frontier/republic (done under allegheny/mohawk btw.) placed furloughed pilots at the bottom with some sort of slotting by equipment type. You are right, who saved who has no place in the discussion, fact is the east decided on their own to cause this mess. The Courts won't step in, I'll call it now and tell you that no court in this land will give the company a free pass from the west.

 

[CactusPilot1]

I've always agreed with that, to a degree. I believe ALPA has a lot of issues, but if we don't have quality people in there doing the work, any union will be screwed up. We have some great people working for USAPA, I just don't have faith in Cleary and Mowery. I don't think they have the skills to lead us.

As for the facts, I've tried to back mine up. What I've posted about AWA is not to put you guys down. You just did your job, as we did, but as I see it we both needed the merger and the who-saved-who does no one any good.

We would all be better off if we could set aside the venom and let the seniority fight ride itself out in court. I have little faith that will happen and when snapped at, I snap back.

Pi, i agree with your thinking. I saw first hand how Cleary has acted, met the man, asked questions. Same goes for Streble. I formed different opinions of each. One, seemed to be a little more in touch with reality than the other. One, I felt I could work with, the other would go on my no-fly list.