US Pilots' Labor Thread 6/24-6/30 Stay On Topic

[GuntherA320]

I find it strange that you post this quote.

The east has been struggling with being accused of having no integrity from the beginning. You post this quote with the last part saying not caring about who knows what you did.

Then why is it that it is always an east poster that is telling non pilots to go away? That it is none of their business what is going on here. I welcome any and all points of view. I welcome customers or members of other unions or pilots from other carriers. I welcome others to see and express their opinion of what is going on.

I think the problem the east has with others chiming in is that for the most part they all side with the west. So actually I care who knows, the more people the better what is going on. What is the problem with other voices expressing an opinion.

Clear,

For one thing....you don't know 700. I've known him for almost 17 years. I worked in the same department as him. He has a grudge against the east pilots. He has an axe to grind. His own co workers....the people he represented as a shop steward for the mechanics and related glued the locks shut on his car and slit his tires. He wasn't liked among his own co workers. He likes to think he knows alot about everything. He has a history of chiming in on things he knows nothing about. That is why it is easy to disregard him. He offers nothing to this discussion.

 

[ClueByFour]

PS: Captain Sullenberger nowadays has far better things to do than waste his time with PHX......

Sure. Whoring himself out for USAPA and apparently not convincing a soul on the jury.

Should've probably kept to the book signing circuit.

 

[nic4us]

One might fairly assume that, although he's clearly a person whom the nic abomination doesn't personally touch, he felt the need to voice his feelings on the obscene injustice of it...and did.

Just to make it perfectly clear, I in no way was attempting to disrespect Cpt Sullenberger. Prior to the trial I simply felt his testimony was not needed, and that cross examintation may have been damaging to all involved. However, once both sides started taking the stand and discussing the Nic, I had less opposition to Sully putting in his 2 cents.

 

[hp_fa]

"now a federal jury found your union has no integrity?" Thats pure flame-bait, 700, and you know it.

So your no-dog-in-this-fight “integrityâ€￾ requires you to post incessantly on pilot thread/issues? Under your definition of integrity I guess its not Ok for IAM union members to beat other union members to a bloody pulp at a union meeting? Or is your “integrityâ€￾ so situational that you support those arrested and fired?

Easy there tiger. Remember, this is a public board and 700 does have experience in union negotiations. If you only want pilots talking about this then move it to another website.

 

[nic4us]

"40 acres and a mule if you'll just vote in my nic!...rant/rave...Blah Blah Blah/etc".

For 40 acres and a mule, I will retire today, and leave all these trouble behind!

 

[hp_fa]

Just to make it perfectly clear, I in no way was attempting to disrespect Cpt Sullenberger. Prior to the trial I simply felt his testimony was not needed, and that cross examintation may have been damaging to all involved. However, once both sides started taking the stand and discussing the Nic, I had less opposition to Sully putting in his 2 cents.

For what it is worth I was not at all impressed by Capt. Sullenberger when he testified about the "integrity" issue. It was obvious, to me as a litigation legal assistant, that he had been prepped to address the integrity issue and I didn't buy what he said at all. It, to me, was the low point of his testimony. Had he stayed away from that issue his testimony, again IMO, would have been much stronger. Frankly I think Seham outsmarted himself in that decision.

 

[700UW]

Sorry no one ever glued my car locks shut, and I know exactly who slashed my tires and it was a certain lead utility who did not honor our picket line and betrayed his fellow IAM members and coworkers and took food off our tables, because I treated him how a picket line crosser should be treated by a trade unionist, I sacrificed my time off, days off and time with my son to further educate and represent my members who ELECTED me to the steward job numerous time, while you were all working overtime I was away from my family representing the members.

I have no axe to grind against east pilots as a matter of a fact my son's uncle is married to a A330 Captain's daughter and have several pilot friends. And yes I dont like anyone that crosses a picket line, sorry if I didnt embrace people who were doing our jobs during the 30 day cooling off period during the strike and calling our members names because we stood up to the company.

Funny I was the only utility ever in the IAM History at US Airways to be on the negotiating committee and work for the district.

Gunther, you don't like me cause you were called out for not doing your job when we worked in the same department as I, writing down and signing for work you didn't do is a terminating offense and last time I checked I made sure you did not get in trouble at all and you didnt.

I have taken all the leadership and collective bargaining classes at Placid Harbor, presented arbitration cases and won a multi-million dollar grievance against US Airways.

I offer plenty to this board, I gave examples of how changing unions doesnt void CBAs or arbitration awards and how the RLA works and example of how we lost our snapback grievance in 93 after those concessions.

If you want to attack me personally be my guest, I have no problem defending myself and my stellar track record.

And if you looked at any of my previous posts, Mega, I never supported any of those people involved in the fight that happened in PHL between the IAM and the TWU people. Violence is not the solution in that situation.

 

[nic4us]

I don't necessarily disagree, although I'm not convinced that it's not in the company's interest to get a combined contract. With the mixed flying - East crews flying some of the old HP routes and vice versa - I don't think any of us know the true cost of separate operations during irregular ops. We can debate the pilot cost of a combined contract all we want, but without the other side of the equation we can't say for sure how much extra the company can spend on the contract before the the overall cost is greater than $0.

Jim

It may very well be in the pilots best interest ( I cannot believe I am saying this) to continue with seperate ops for a little while. Once we have single ops, the transition agreement goes away, and I am not so certain contract scope will protect as well as the TA fleet minimums.

I thought about this recently while watching Doug explain why the draw down was uneven, east v. West. He said West lost more because of LAS reductions, and we really just drew both sides down to there TA fleet mins.

A joint contract would remove barriers in the TA that management may want desperately to see go away.

 

[Megasnoop]

'prechilill' date='Jun 28 2009, 04:18 AM' post
I believe many west pilots are good union people with solid moral principles

Man, I just fell out of my chair. Lets talk about how AWA got started. Remember Wien Air? Lets talk about Austraila. What a joke.

That list is making the rounds again. I got a copy yesterday. 5 out of AWAs first 15 pilots crossed the ALPA picket line at Wien. They elected an Ansett Strikebreaker their MEC Chairman. A lot of legacy “integrity†there, huh?

The timing of Sec 29 letters and the Wake ruling are obviously coincidence and do not reflect any breakdown in integrity.

Obvuosly. The machinery to get the Section 29 letters out began months ago. We’ve been more patient than ALPA ever was with me, JJ and others who were met at the gate.

Codified reality

Codified reality will be an Appeals Court ruling, not a chat post. Pending appeal, this one doesn’t do you much good. With LOA84, $70M, pension investigation and pilots working til 65, separate ops are on for a long time. Your 150 MIGS don’t give you much voting power. The union determines good standing. You pay all the way back to April 2008 or you dont vote. Don’t like that? Suzie us. Im sure Harper will be glad to handle that for you (after he gets paid for this round).

It would be interesting to see a similar causal relationship between the Wake ruling and both a demand from all east pilots for accountability and performance by their elected leaders as well as a demand for an armistice to the USAPA civil war.

One reason USAPA got elected was because the lack of accountability of ALPA. But it was also a vote against our MEC gaggers. USAPA Civil War? Members fighting members? Not seeing any that. We’re still getting 12-2 votes on the BPR. Your gorilla war against USAPA is different matter. As long as the NC State Court RICO is still active, we have the armistice hammer.

No, You'll likely never see USAPA roll out a strike vote and make plain for all to see how little support they really have.

Easy to make wild speculation on something you know wont/cant come up for years. You need to drop the one-line pontifications unless you got the hard numbers to prove them.

He just made it a lot harder for East to mark enough ballots to reject a contract with Nic. It's entirely conceivable that it could take 80% of eligible East pilots voting against a combined contract to reject it. You'd be hard pressed to find any issue that 80% of the eligible East pilots cast votes on, much less voted the same way. If tossing ALPA or investigating the pension loss for irregularities didn't do it, what are the odd that Nic will? Especially if it comes wrapped in a nice raise?

Im not saying a single vote wont take place. Im just saying that no matter how I read the judge’s decision, I don’t see it in the draft. Other hurdles to overcome. I’ll keep my powder dry on those. But your 80%? That doesn't make sense at all. Please explain.

 

[Beancounter]

Hi Bean. No one has answered you yet probably because while your question is valid, being a new guy you could also be a troll or be flamebaiting. So that is probably why no public response yet.

The judge has circulated a draft injunction. The real injunction will be issued in the next two weeks or so. That injunction is highly likely to make the Nicolau list the basis for the combined seniority list within a new CBA.

As for what the East wants I think the answer is they don't know. Many East folks seem to want to margainalize West folks as much as they can, others are looking for West to become a meaningful part of the union. The problem at this point is who (or what) would represent the interests of the West pilots if any meetings or discussions to find out what exactly would work going forward.

There are now only two West folks on the BPR and it is laughable to expect them to represent West interests to the BPR because of membership issues in the West. Last I saw anything I guess there are 90-99 USAPA members in good standing in PHX. The union issues are a shame because it seemed to me that the AWA were good union folks pre-merger.

Thanks for the response. It wasn't meant as flamebait. I've jumpseated on several east planes, but make a point of not asking questions related to the seniority integration. I'm currently a member in good standing with USAPA. The e-mails I receive from them seem to focus on DOH and don't seem to adress options for implementing the Nic decision(if it is mandatory). They are however more informative than most of the e-mails I used to get from ALPA. I wasn't happy with the way ALPA was removed from the property, but I was always leary of ALPA. I remember flying with FO's at my old commuter that were ex-Pan Am. It sounded like Delta and national ALPA threw them under a low clearance bus.

 

[nic4us]

Your 150 MIGS don’t give you much voting power. The union determines good standing. You pay all the way back to April 2008 or you dont vote. Don’t like that? Suzie us.

As long as the NC State Court RICO is still active, we have the armistice hammer.

Looks like I will not be voting. The union may determine good standing, but the company determines who gets fired. Suzie did not, and me thinks an arbitration ruling in her favor will set the stage for when dues began accrueing. Woe is USAPA if they deny good standing for not paying dues that are not owed.

A continued pursuit of criminal charges in the RICO is completely counterproductive. The West membership knows to what lengths USAPA will go to defend itself. Holding the current RICO out as an example will not stop a future attack by determined individuals, it will simply remind them to make certain they do not leave a trail of evidence.

 

[HPDriver]

What remains to be seen is which contract sections are used to neutralize the Nic damages and how many West members join USAPA to vote against a Nic neutered joint contract.

underpants

Underpants,

Just wondering what part of this you don't understand:

"support and defend the seniority rights provided by or arising from the Nicolau Award in negotiations with US Airways."

S22 of the TA is going to have Nic and no other section is going to undermine it. The sooner you understand this, the better off you'll be when the TA actually does come out.

And with single ratification, there's a good chance those senior pilots that supported you will go for the money.

 

[Richard]

Folks,

Here is a final reminder.

STOP discussing individual posters and making comments/insults/personal attacks.

Keep it on the TOPIC and not the PEOPLE.

We have already suspended a couple of members this morning.

If it continues, I am going to close the thread and not permit ANY discussions on this topic for a few days.....the nonsense has to stop.

We have two groups of supposed adult professional people here with a highly skilled and responsible occupation, with just a few who apparently can't behave like adults on here and discuss things in a mature manner. Those few people do a disservice to the entire profession and their respective causes, and drag all of you down in the process.

As I said before, it's time to think before you post, and to those to whom it applies, ONLY post while sober.......

Please grow up and post responsibly.

 

[lynyrdskynyrd]

Holding the current RICO out as an example will not stop a future attack by determined individuals, it will simply remind them to make certain they do not leave a trail of evidence.

That rico case never was about bad behaviour, alot of people on both sides still don't understand that.

 

[EastUS]

That rico case never was about bad behaviour, alot of people on both sides still don't understand that. But I suppose in a roundabout way it keeps people wary, because they know that usapa will sue someone for breathing the the same oxygen.

What type of good, perhaps even exemplary behavior was it about then? Offhand; I can't recall any listed complaints about breathing....