I expect 1500 West pilots will now join USAPA and pay dues to secure voting rights to protect their interests. A tweaked Nic would cause most pilots on both sides to vote against. The only ratifiable contract will have to completely neuter Nic all the way to fair and equitable to be able to secure enough East votes to ratify. The West position is now much worse than ever and the C&R protections that USAPA was offering will be lost by court order.
All labor contracts discriminate against minority groups of employees. They have to. It is impossible to make every employee or group of employees happy with a labor contract. Each employee can only vote yes or no to protect their individual interest. They can't sue the union to get more for themself than the democratic vote allows. The law allows unions near complete protections from lawsuits for bargaining. It has to or unions would not be able to ever sign a contract without being sued by some unhappy employee or "minority" group of employees. Addington would be a very narrow exception to union bargaining rights if it stands.
underpants
I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I just can't resist replying. There is a very specific point under the RLA where member voting rights are abrogated. That point is called binding arbitration. If a labor issue goes to that point, the result can not be voted away. Your union representatives (ALPA) demanded binding arbitration and that is what they got.
Don't bother with the keystrokes to type any of the following...
1.
ALPA does not represent me. It was the bargaining agent of record
at the time of the arbitration.
2.
I did not instruct/authorize ALPA to go to arbitration. Yeah, well as you say above, your union is protected. You elected them to represent you. Under the law, unless criminal activity can be proved against them, you are bound by whatever your elected officials decide. Just like in the good ole US of A, we get to elect a President and a Congress, but we don't get to second guess and overturn their every decision we don't like.
The former AWA pilots sued under DFR. A jury has now agreed with their position. Fair or not (and the law is not really concerned with what is fair--except when a majority is trying to nullify rights of a minority), that is the jury's decision and it is now a matter of record. The only thing the 9th Circuit will care about is whether or not the judge erred procedurally or legally. The jury's decision is not appealable.
As has been said before, there are numerous cases in the law and the history of the US where "majority rules," doesn't. Slavery, the rights of women to vote and own property, civil rights in general when applied to other than white males.
I don't
like the fact that I have to commute from Dallas to my base because there are too many people senior to me on the transfer list to DFW, but that's the way it is. I have a choice. I can quit and find a job in Dallas where I live, or I can commute. A
binding arbitration award determined that in this particular merger the seniority of the two groups being merged was too disparate for DOH to be a fair and equitable means of combining the two groups. Binding does not mean binding
only if I like the result. Suck it up and move on. You guys are going to be the death of US Airways. I have non-pilot friends who work for US Airways, and they don't deserve to have their careers destroyed by a bunch of spoiled, selfish brats who think they can pick up all their marbles and go home just because someone won their favorite aggie fair and square.
Oh, and I think you need to stop and ask yourself which is more important. That I am still a right seat guy or a narrowbody captain or whatever when I reach retirement? Or, that I am a former right seat guy or narrowbody captain or whatever who used to work for an airline that no longer exists; so, I didn't quite make it to retirement? Pride and principles don't buy much at Safeway.
