Judge Silver (discussing the 9th's ruling): No question the Court embraced the issue that there was harm to the West Pilots. That was clear."
Wonder who knows more about the law - BS, Hate, or Judge Silver? Wonder who has more experience with the 9th's rulings - BS, Hate, or Judge Silver? Wonder who takes the entirety of the record into account, not just carefully chosen tidbits -- BS, Hate, or Judge Silver?
Jim
My Money is on the Ninth!
Swan
"We do not address the thorny question of the extent to which the
Nicolau Award is binding on USAPA. We note, as the district court recog-
nized, that USAPA is at least as free to abandon the Nicolau Award as was
its predecessor, ALPA. The dissent appears implicitly to assume that the
Nicolau Award, the product of the internal rules and processes of ALPA,
is binding on USAPA."
8008 ADDINGTON v. US AIRLINE PILOTS ASSOC.
8] Plaintiffs seek to escape this conclusion by framing
their harm as the lost opportunity to have a CBA implementing
the Nicolau Award put to a ratification vote. Because
merely putting a CBA effectuating the Nicolau Award to a
ratification vote will not itself alleviate the West Pilots furloughs,
Plaintiffs have not identified a sufficiently concrete
injury.2 Additionally, USAPA’s final proposal may yet be one
that does not work the disadvantages Plaintiffs fear, even if
that proposal is not the Nicolau Award.3
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2 Plaintiffs’ alleged hardship cannot instead be premised on any delay
caused by USAPA in reaching a single CBA. As the district court noted,
Plaintiffs abandoned their claim that USAPA is intentionally delaying
negotiation of a CBA. Addington, 2009 WL 2169164, at *22 (“During discovery,
Plaintiffs retreated from any notion of deliberate delay on the part
of USAPA.”). The dissent’s assertion that “the absence of a CBA is itself
powerful evidence of a DFR violation,” Diss. op. at 8015, is therefore misplaced.
Although absence of a CBA might be evidence of a DFR violation,
if the violation were based on deliberate delay by the union, it is not evidence
of a union’s improper preference of one seniority system over
another. As demonstrated by ALPA’s similar difficulties in reaching a
CBA, the pilot groups, and individual pilots with their ratification/nonratification
powers, are the major contributors to the absence of a CBA in
these circumstances.
3We do not address the thorny question of the extent to which the
Nicolau Award is binding on USAPA. We note, as the district court recog-
nized, that USAPA is at least as free to abandon the Nicolau Award as was
its predecessor, ALPA. The dissent appears implicitly to assume that the
Nicolau Award, the product of the internal rules and processes of ALPA,
is binding on USAPA. See Diss op. at 8021-22.