US Pilots Labor Discussion

[BoeingBoy]

A contract is only good till the next merger, force majeure, or if your lucky, your next contract; but the Nic reshuffling of the seniority list is forever.

I thought USAPA and the East said seniority is negotiable, just like crew meals. I know it's been posted here hundreds of times. How does that translate into the Nic "is forever?"

Jim

 

[Zone5]

There is really no reason to discuss alternative methods of integration, as the Nic is the only accepted system seniority list at LCC, and will be the only list implemented in a joint contract. However, I would like to point out the fundemental flaw in your scenario.

First, you are still looking at it as though I am being added to the east list. Lets talk about what my position was. Is it merely the seat I was in at the time of the merger, or was it my status and ranking within the West pilot group, and my future potential ("career expectation") with the airline? You are saying, it was my A320 captin seat, which you are willing to make provisions to help me keep, as long as east furloughees can have my position, status and ranking. Your scenario absolutely strips me of any upward mobility for the remainder of my carrer, as I could not hold that same a320 lineholding captain seat for another 10 years, while the former east pilots enjoy their new found windfall rakning within the company puts them on the fast track to career advancement.

Now the east arguement that the Nic does the same in reverse is pure horse manure. Everybody keeps their relative pre-merger position, status and ranking. The east's own specialist said that career advancement on the east would be delayed by as much as two years vs. stand alone. But the problem is, you did not stand alone, and the West was not being added to your stand alone list. Is two years a lot, considering many on the east were closing in faster on retirement? Perhaps, but Nic could not use age as a criteria, as there are age discrimination laws in this country that would have made that pretty unseemly. So, everybody gets to share the newly formed combined advancement equally, with an edge given to the east by Nic giving you guys the top 517. The Nic is fair, perhaps overly simple, and most importantly the result of binding arbitration.

I pick on Theur a lot in this thread. The reason is he gave an interview in a USA Today article when the merger went down. The whole premise of his interview was that now it was his turn to leepfrog forward, as the merger would supply this large group of people who would come in under him. Absolutely out of touch with the term "career expectation".

I'm talking about MAINTAINING your pre-merger career expectations, until such time as your system-wide seniority, post-merger, would allow you to reap the benefits of a position on equipment, that sans-merger, you had no expectation to ever have.

How does that "hurt" you?

seajay

 

[fodase]

I read it. For entertainment. Quite biased (I know....Shocked face) and short sighted. Kind of like Nic. Lets see you extrapolate out those graphs on pages 13 & 14 for say......5, 10, 15 years. Lets see how the East fares vs. West on those graphs! Yeah,.....we'll never see that info from the West.

Biased? Were Clearys's comments printed on the cover not true?

 

[BoeingBoy]

So you will admit that there might be a flaw in the system whereby NIC gives ALL this credit to how well
the West was doing then Vegas closed and Parker is chomping at the bit to draw down PHX considerably and 500 guys who
were shown as furloughed are now working and will soon be skyrocketing up the East list........YA THINK MAYBE THAT IS WHY WE ARE WHERE WE ARE
.....OH YEA I FORGOT....YOU DON'T CARE!!!! How much career expectations are on the West now versus the East
...go ahead give it a shot!!!!!

NICDOA
NPJB

Just another nonsensical post pretending that the merger was today. The East has enjoyed the benefits of the merger for 5 years while the West got stuck with the downside and you want to perpetuate that in the seniority list. When you grow up and want to rationally discuss seniority integration let me know.

Jim

 

[CallawayGolf]

The part that the West doesn't get is that a whole bunch of Captains got screwed by NIC...not just F/Os.

NICDOA
NPJB

By "screwed" you mean a linenholding captain runs the risk of being downgraded and replaced by someone who was furloughed at the time of the merger right? Want to compare "screwed" captains between NIC vs DOH?

 

[BoeingBoy]

I'm talking about MAINTAINING your pre-merger career expectations, until such time as your system-wide seniority, post-merger, would allow you to reap the benefits of a position on equipment, that sans-merger, you had no expectation to ever have.

How does that "hurt" you?

seajay

The $64 million dollar question is how to put that in C&R's. The West is already behind on their pre-merger expectations while the East is far ahead of their pre-merger expectations. Do you lock in what has already happened and somehow force the company to get more airplanes and reopen LAS to restore the West expectations? Or force the company to move East planes West to restore their expectations, which would lead to furloughs on the East which would be a step toward restoring East expectations? Or maybe get the company to give the West the European routes the transition agreement allows - close to 2/3 of the routes this summer? That would certainly improve the West's current expectations and lower the East's current expectations.

See what a tangled web C&R's can create?

Jim

Oh - forgot - what do you do about the East pre-merger expectations? There are 7 A332's, a goodly number of ETAPS 757's, and the 15 E190's that East had no expectation of flying pre-merger. Eventually there will be A350's that East had no pre-merger expectation of flying. Do you allow East to continue with much better expectations now that pre-merger or is it just the West that is stuck with pre-merger expectations?

 

[GuntherA320]

Well that's good I suppose. It's down to Nic and a joint contract or status quo until there is enough new blood in this company to move forward.

I am so glad to hear you say this. 10+ years of status quo it will be then. Stagnation on the west and attrition in the east. All of that "new blood" will upgrade to Captain on an A320 before you will. Pretty amazing when you think about it. All Current east F/O's will be able to hold an A320 captain position in the next 3 to 6 years. New hires today will have 6 year upgrades on the east. Current A320 captains will be able to hold widebody captain in the next 2 to 7 years. Yes......you will be holding us down on LOA 93. Pleassssssse don't throw us in that briar patch.

 

[aquagreen73s]

I am so glad to hear you say this. 10+ years of status quo it will be then. Stagnation on the west and attrition in the east. All of that "new blood" will upgrade to Captain on an A320 before you will. Pretty amazing when you think about it. All Current east F/O's will be able to hold an A320 captain position in the next 3 to 6 years. New hires today will have 6 year upgrades on the east. Current A320 captains will be able to hold widebody captain in the next 2 to 7 years. Yes......you will be holding us down on LOA 93. Pleassssssse don't throw us in that briar patch.

Total BS. The West updgrades in a static situation is the same as it would be under Nicolau system-wide. 98%+ of West retirements are from the left seat, and the vast majority of those are from the very top of the seniority list. More than a third of East retirements are out of the right seat. Your numbers just don't add up. If they did, you wouldn't be trying so hard to steal West upgrades via DOH.

One more point - Nicolau created his ratio based on relative sizes of each group and captain attrition in a static, East-only/West only analysis. You get pretty much the same upgrade rate under Nic as you do under separate ops. Read the hearing transcripts. It's all in there.

 

[CallawayGolf]

I am so glad to hear you say this. 10+ years of status quo it will be then. Stagnation on the west and attrition in the east. All of that "new blood" will upgrade to Captain on an A320 before you will. Pretty amazing when you think about it. All Current east F/O's will be able to hold an A320 captain position in the next 3 to 6 years. New hires today will have 6 year upgrades on the east. Current A320 captains will be able to hold widebody captain in the next 2 to 7 years. Yes......you will be holding us down on LOA 93. Pleassssssse don't throw us in that briar patch.

I'm sure the NMB will be glad to hear USAPA has no interest in getting a JCBA and isn't negotiating in good faith for one.

 

[MUTATIS MUTANDIS]

Total BS. The West updgrades in a static situation is the same as it would be under Nicolau system-wide. 98%+ of West retirements are from the left seat, and the vast majority of those are from the very top of the seniority list. More than a third of East retirements are out of the right seat. Your numbers just don't add up. If they did, you wouldn't be trying so hard to steal West upgrades via DOH.

One more point - Nicolau created his ratio based on relative sizes of each group and captain attrition in a static, East-only/West only analysis. You get pretty much the same upgrade rate under Nic as you do under separate ops. Read the hearing transcripts. It's all in there.

Name an airline that has a "STATIC " maybe the WEST, that's where your BS doesn't cut it. One only has to look at an EAST bid to see the REAL TRUTH, otherwise you wouldn't be stealing info to try to convince us! MM!

 

[Zone5]

I guess the question is whether it's so important to have DOH with C&R's that don't let one exercise whatever seniority they have because the C&R's to protect the West are so complex or start with a system that lets everyone keep "what they brought to the table."

Take your EW fence - if most of the new flying is on the East how does that either protect the west from shrinkage/furlough or let them exercise their seniority? A fence is attractive to the people on one side when most of the benefits of the merger are going to that side. Just like when you were in PHL confident that no one from the other side could displace you, the folks on the other side saw most of their bases and one hub close and were all moving backwards - because of a C&R meant to protect the South from the more senior North.

The law of unintended consequences hasn't been repealed, so any C&R's will have the problem of not forecasting something.

Jim

If most of the "new" flying turns out to be as "Dougie" keeps saying "International", for the foreseeable future, then that means there would have been no new flying out West sans-merger anyway. Like I said, I don't see any further base closings or furloughs on the horizon. Do you?

The whole idea is to maintain pre & post-merger career expectations for everyone, until such time as attrition enables movement for all in accordance with their DOH. Both East and West have suffered furloughs post-merger along with other negative "base consolidation" effects.

Any methodology will invariably have "unintended consequences", that's what LOA's are for. For instance, if the Kagel fence was intended to protect the relatively junior South from the more senior North, it had just the opposite effect for me, more senior PI F/O's were precluded from displacing me out of my block, position and base.

seajay

 

[aquagreen73s]

Name an airline that has a "STATIC " maybe the WEST, that's where your BS doesn't cut it. One only has to look at an EAST bid to see the REAL TRUTH, otherwise you wouldn't be stealing info to try to convince us! MM!

As BB has point out so well, the West has gotten the short end of this merger stick. The East has recalled all of their furloughs, hired off the street, added a handful of 330s. The West entered the merger with 144 airplanes and we've given up 20+ airframes. Not coincidentally, Parker has been stacking the "New US Airways" with old US Airways management. You guys have gotten everything in this merger, but then you want to steal our captain upgrades. Forget it. The West has suffered all the harm they are going to suffer. Separate ops with the East now paying back under LOA93 is perfectly fine with us. Nicolau nailed the ratios and under the current scenario, the West will be upgrading at the same pace as under Nicolau. The only difference is for the few dozen of West pilots living East of the Mississippi who probably would have taken an East domicile upgrade. It's not the ideal for them, but for the rest of us, commuting to Phoenix or living in Phoenix is far better than commuting to DCA in the dead of winter. Read the transcripts. Nicolau nailed the ratios.

P.S. See what' going on in Europe? How's that going to impact East/West going forward? Hmmmm.

 

[nycbusdriver]

it was encrypted and never touched,

Prove it.

For all anybody knows, it was sold to Al Qaeda for money to fund the lawsuits, then hacked.

 

[aquagreen73s]

Prove it.

For all anybody knows, it was sold to Al Qaeda for money to fund the lawsuits, then hacked.

A delusional Eastie talking about proof. Classic.

Read Johnson's letter. After that, read what comes out of the investigation. And after all that, you'll still be saying something asinine (which means stupid) like, "The West got away with (fill in blank) but we know the truth!" You USAPAians are truly men of genius.

 

[nycbusdriver]

Separate ops with the East now paying back under LOA93 is perfectly fine with us.

I know you enjoy that tremendously. And we on the east will persevere with LOA 93 as need be.

But, how will you feel if Kasher upsets your smug attitude by giving the east pilots LOA 84 pay, while the rest of LOA 93 stays in effect? Will you be just as smug if the east pilots are again out in front of you pay-wise with no contract for you in sight?

To be fair, I only give the Kasher ruling a 50-50 chance of success for the east pilots. But if it happens, I suspect we will see a whole new tune out of aquagreen737 at the lowest pay rates in the industry....with no end in sight.

Just be ready for it. We're ready to continue with LOA 93.