5.5 million ways to say goodbye
03-07-2016, 10:31 AM
#61
Line Holder
Joined APC: Nov 2010
Position: A320 CAPT
Posts: 93
LOA93 the gift that you boys decided was worth the DELAY (and your cute "fish bowl" jokes).
We won't be in PHX forever, and I'll be willing to guess the BOA knows exactly what they are going to do with regard to the Nicolau list.
03-07-2016, 11:22 AM
#62
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2011
Position: A320 Capt
Posts: 5,299
Uhhmmmm....you do know that mathematically $142 is $17 MORE an hour than $125? You do know that 1/2 (or ZERO) of Deadhead, Mechanical, & Cancel is LESS than FULL PAY? You do realize that ONE MORE WEEK of PAID VACATION is MORE than what you were getting?
LOA93 the gift that you boys decided was worth the DELAY (and your cute "fish bowl" jokes).
We won't be in PHX forever, and I'll be willing to guess the BOA knows exactly what they are going to do with regard to the Nicolau list.
LOA93 the gift that you boys decided was worth the DELAY (and your cute "fish bowl" jokes).
We won't be in PHX forever, and I'll be willing to guess the BOA knows exactly what they are going to do with regard to the Nicolau list.
Again, how much have you lost as a group 2 F/O?
03-07-2016, 11:24 AM
#63
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2011
Position: A320 Capt
Posts: 5,299
You see, there you go confusing facts with your OPINION. All we were doing is DEFENDING ourselves from attacks, persecution, & prosecution. There was NO legal avenue to allow us to negotiate AWAY from the product of a mutually agreed upon process. There was an avenue for the East pilots to proceed forward: Stay with ALPA, keep your word, remain at the bargaining table & get a new contract, RETURN to the bargaining table and get ANOTHER CONTRACT, and then perhaps MERGE with DAL with the first merger "attempt".
Failing to do so, was beyond STUPID. IF the BOA award includes the Nicolau List as the beginning point for the LUS pilots, you will have won nothing but DELAY. Costing EVERY SINGLE pilot on this property money that was used to do the LAA/LUS merger.
Sweet!!
Failing to do so, was beyond STUPID. IF the BOA award includes the Nicolau List as the beginning point for the LUS pilots, you will have won nothing but DELAY. Costing EVERY SINGLE pilot on this property money that was used to do the LAA/LUS merger.
Sweet!!
03-07-2016, 11:31 AM
#64
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2014
Posts: 3,223
In a way your low pay brought about the ability for Parker to merge with AA. Enjoy the benefit of a stronger airline/big raises and sock that retirement money away. I would spend less time on here patting yourself on the back and more enjoying life. What's done is done, posting on here won't change anyone's mind or the outcome. I just noticed I have over 500 posts, I wonder how much time I've wasted on this site. Time to enjoy the warm weather!
03-07-2016, 11:40 AM
#65
Banned
Joined APC: Jun 2008
Posts: 8,350
Specifically, neither the MTA nor the JCBA controlling this merger include the Nicolau award as required, so no CBA alteration or cancellation occurred. In fact, my understanding is that the Nicolau award was simply a milestone in the achievement of a future JCBA in the merger or US Airways and America West which was never consummated and so I'm not sure it could be construed that CBA was cancelled or altered in that situation, as it was never completely defined in the first place (incomplete process). Finally, I don't see how the requirement that USAPA advocate the Nicolau offers any required foundation (legally or otherwise) that it must be used at any point in the future. If that existed, again, a court would have compelled its use in this integration which they did not.
I give you an A for effort despite what appears to be more misguided wishful thinking then anything else. Please see me after school.
03-07-2016, 07:36 PM
#66
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2014
Posts: 212
Uhhmmmm....you do know that mathematically $142 is $17 MORE an hour than $125? You do know that 1/2 (or ZERO) of Deadhead, Mechanical, & Cancel is LESS than FULL PAY? You do realize that ONE MORE WEEK of PAID VACATION is MORE than what you were getting?
LOA93 the gift that you boys decided was worth the DELAY (and your cute "fish bowl" jokes).
We won't be in PHX forever, and I'll be willing to guess the BOA knows exactly what they are going to do with regard to the Nicolau list.
LOA93 the gift that you boys decided was worth the DELAY (and your cute "fish bowl" jokes).
We won't be in PHX forever, and I'll be willing to guess the BOA knows exactly what they are going to do with regard to the Nicolau list.
Bottom line america west pilots are suddenly concerned about a few years of wages. The history of america west pilot wages does not reflect your current attitude;
http://web.mit.edu/airlinedata/www/2...0PERSONNEL.htm
03-07-2016, 07:43 PM
#67
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2014
Posts: 212
Recent phx pilot fishbowl update;
"Dear Phoenix Pilots,
There were a couple of developments this week of critical importance to the PHX-based pilots of New American. Both of these developments relate to decisions by the company, and one was the result of a decision by the APA BOD which your PHX-reps were unable to stop in spite of our best efforts. In short, we feel as though we were railroaded by the majority, even being prevented from getting our opinion on record thanks to repeated efforts by the vast majority of the BOD who had already made up their minds and would not allow us to be heard. We were used to this sort of governance at USAPA but must point out that it is beginning to happen with greater frequency at APA. The good news is that, whether the vote is 11 to 3 (the usual at USAPA) or 20 to 2 at APA, the majority cannot simply extinguish our rights under the law with a vote. If that were so, we would have been done for long ago.
The APA Information Update of March 2, 2016 included the following:
Before going into closed session on Wednesday, the board directed President Keith Wilson to sign a Jan. 21, 2016, settlement letter from Beth Holdren American Airlines managing director of labor relations, flight concerning implementation of Section 17E of the CBA for LUS pilots.
We know you are as outraged as we are about the company extending JCBA 17.E reinstatement rights for LUS East pilots. The net result will be that pilots who have captured positions only as a result of USAPA's long and illegal efforts to prevent implementation of the Nicolau Award will be able to keep them longer still. Thus, ill-gotten gains will be locked in even longer, and with the blessings and approval of both the company and APA. What's more, the real push for this contractual provision to be applied began concurrent with the East Pilot Merger Committee's presentation on this exact topic (reference EPSIC testimony of Dean Colello on January 7, 2016). It was at this point that an East-only contingent of several APA committees met with the company and began to lobby in earnest for this provision. So, while the EPSIC was lobbying the SLI committee for fences to lock in these same ill-gotten gains, APA was lobbying the company for the similar protections. Therefore the APA and the company (both of whom are, by law, jointly responsible for the fairness of the SLI proceedings and are supposed to remain neutral) were working together to provide a benefit being sought (at that exact moment) by one party to the SLI proceedings to the detriment of another.
Of course this is anything but fair or proper and your PHX representatives were fortunate to have found out about it as it was ongoing and John was in a position to bring this inconsistency to the company and the president of the union. This had the effect of slowing the injustice down a bit (and we quite reasonably expected, stopped it in its tracks). But as Wednesday's BOD meeting results prove, APA's acceptance of the company's offer (not surprisingly made by a long-time former US Airways manager, Beth Holdren) to apply 17.E retroactively, will result in the PHX pilots yet again being subjected to the tyranny of the majority, only this time at the hands of a new union and with the ongoing approval of the company. The company and APA are pretending to be deaf, dumb and blind to the factual history of abuses we have suffered. APA appears to pretend that it didn't inherit our longstanding dispute and litigation history with the East, and the BOD has convinced itself that it didn't. But, just like the Ninth Circuit noted that USAPA succeeded ALPA, likewise APA succeeded to the status of the former bargaining agent without alteration in contract terms and therefore enters dangerous waters when it ignores the history of harm to one group at the hands of another, and even more when it works with that group to intentionally exacerbate that harm. This was so important that they were willing to waive back pay provisions in order to keep these gains.
By now, this should not come as a surprise to anyone in PHX. Evidence is everywhere that APA never had any intention of representing West pilots fairly and simply intended to make the former AWA pilots the New TWA by way of another staple job, which was plainly illustrated by the AAPSIC's initial proposal from June (the one that had to be rescinded because it was unworkable in light of the Ninth Circuit's predictable finding that the Nicolau Award must be advocated for by USAPA in the McCaskill-Bond SLI with AA). Such a proposal could only have been crafted by living in the same house of lies, built on the same foundation of fiction, and forever propagated by the former bargaining agent and its representatives who not coincidentally are found today on APA's BOD. We are outnumbered two-to-one on the BOD (or more when considering the DCA reps and their LUS East constituents) and we are simply unable to overcome the propagation of their distortions because the other BOD members there are also steeped in these half-truths and misinformation.
This is not surprising in light of APA's solicitation of West pilot support right after the merger on the simple platform that APA is not USAPA, and nothing more. That was a convenient and seemingly safe position for the APA to take in a world devoid of history or facts, but that strategy quickly ran into the reality that they were dealing with USAPA. Fortunately for the West Class, USAPA's frequent practice of overplaying its hand (and breaching virtually every agreement) resulted in it suing APA and the company in the Federal District Court of Washington D.C. just weeks after the merger in effort to derail negotiations for a Protocol Agreement and prevent the West pilots from getting a seat at the table during the planned SLI proceedings. This lawsuit by the East actually worked to the benefit of the former AWA pilots because it led to the unprecedented NMB-facilitated mediation to hammer out the Protocol Agreement which created the process that ultimately led to the birth of our West Merger Committee. Based on what we've seen (and had APA been left to its own devices), we seriously doubt this would have occurred but forUSAPA's litigation that was designed toprevent our participation. But that agreement still required West pilots to apply to have a committee and then win the right to be recognized through the process of the Preliminary Arbitration. This, on our own dime, of course.
More evidence of APA's favoritism toward LUS East pilots can be seen in how it handled USAPA's sudden withdrawal from the SLI process after the Ninth's ruling: It wasted no time whatsoever creating a new East Merger Committee, the members of which were simply chosen by the East BOD members (the same folks who chose and approved the USAPA Merger Committee which quit) without requiring it to go through the same Preliminary Arbitration and giving that new committee access to an untouched $1.33 million. In essence, APA went to great lengths to assist East pilots to circumvent the plain intent of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That is, the APA assisted the East in being able to argue before the SLI panel a seniority proposal the federal court of appeals said would be illegal and unfair to the West pilots..
It's not just the APA that wants to pretend the past decade has no effect on the present, as if a simple reset was accomplished with the AA merger that wiped clean the slate of history and abuse embodied in the public record of litigation. Apparently the company also wants to pretend the decade of litigation that has vindicated the West simply has no effect in the present. The East could do nothing alone; there were always willing members of management ready and able to seal the deal. This latest example with 17.E perfectly illustrates the East and management duality: VP of Labor Relations negotiates with East reps directly, which spawns a letter of agreement from Ms. Holdren to the APA, which allows the former US Air pilots to retain positions to which they should never have had exclusive rights. Note that many of these positions were created as a result of the merger between AWA and US Airways and bargained for to be fairly and equitably distributed among the East and West pilots in accordance with the 2005 AWA/US Airways Transition Agreement, but are still wrongfully and exclusively attributed to the East side. The Wests legitimate interest in these positions is deliberately ignored, even by management. If the East stole the Wests wallet, it is the company that is allowing the East to keep that wallet, while the APA eagerly assists in making sure there is nothing missing from the wallet, notwithstanding the fact that the East was found guilty in Federal Court of stealing the wallet. The company, with the assistance of the APA, is doing everything in its power to ensure the West doesn't get our wallet back (or that it will be empty if we ever do get it back). Everyone too easily forgets that, but for the West's decision not to appeal the company's dismissal from Addington III, it could well have been found jointly liable with USAPA for its breach. Instead, it continues to act on behalf of the pilots formally represented by the former union which accomplished nothing except breaching its DFR and other illegal behaviors during the eight-plus years of USAPA's existence.
On Monday, Captain Mark Cronin (Managing Director of Line Operations) denied our domicile grievance over the misapplication of the 5:00 hour per duty period minimum. We find this shocking and unreasonable, given the actual history of this merger (and the last), which Captain Cronin cannot (or at least should not) be ignorant of at this time. PHX is indeed a special place, deprived of basic opportunities afforded to brand-new hires placed anywhere else at New American. The reason for this is clear: USAPA's breach of the DFR! And, it remains clear from this grievance denial and from the 17.E issue that management is happy to continue to exploit USAPA's DFR breach while helping to sustain the myth that somehow PHX pilots are unworthy to participate as partners in this merger or the last. Recall that the JCBA changes the minimum duty period to 5:10, provided that the pilot group is operating under Preferential Bidding. To put that in the form of a simple mathematical relationship: PBS = 5:10. The West is obviously on PBS. But, unlike the great deference the company affords the East (i.e. 17.E), the West is forced by the company to litigate for everything. Given the long history of favoritism by the company, one has to wonder if the acknowledgments by senior management of the Wests superior operational performance is really their way of mocking us. The group that set out to wreck US Airways through their illegal safety campaign and derail the AA merger through their litigation in D.C. and their efforts last summer to derail the SLI has received every benefit of the US-AWA merger, while management has seen fit to deprive the West and make us fight for everything.
So what do we do about it? We have heard some rumblings of mass resignations but we think that would be rash at this time and would only be symbolic. We instead ask for your help in educating our fellow BOD members and legacy AA pilots of the true facts of our situation. Do so often, and with clarity, and respect to help us overcome the misinformation and unfavorable odds we face. Make no mistake: The facts are on our side and anything anyone might point to for justification of the situation is grounded on a company or East breach of an agreement or the Duty of Fair Representation itself- it is of their own creation at our expense and born out of dishonesty. Please note that we are not asking you to send canned sound-offs or get into some cut-and-paste form-letter war. Rather, we encourage every West pilot to simply use every opportunity to tell your side because the factual history is clear. This is why we won at the Ninth Circuit, its why we got a unanimous jury verdict after a very short deliberation, and its why we were successful in attaining an injunction against the USAPA officers in North Carolina. What we are saying is this: just tell your story, because both of your reps believe that there is a temptation for legacy AA pilots to just ignore the past; but ignoring the past will only result in an insurmountable obstacle to a unified pilot force. While they did not specifically ask to inherit our dispute, it is they who willingly punted this issue back in 2012 once they started dealing with Parker. Instead of insisting that US Airways management resolve the East/West dispute beforehand, they mortgaged it to a future date, which is coming due now. Likewise, don't hesitate to convey your dissatisfaction to management as well, because clearly our unique situation (and how that situation came about) has yet to be given sufficient thought or reflection. Rather than quitting, actively join us in continuing, and even intensifying the fight. We know you are near the end of your rope, but the end of our fight is near and we still anticipate a positive outcome despite our many adversaries. Let us finish strong together, even if we find ourselves alone today."
"Dear Phoenix Pilots,
There were a couple of developments this week of critical importance to the PHX-based pilots of New American. Both of these developments relate to decisions by the company, and one was the result of a decision by the APA BOD which your PHX-reps were unable to stop in spite of our best efforts. In short, we feel as though we were railroaded by the majority, even being prevented from getting our opinion on record thanks to repeated efforts by the vast majority of the BOD who had already made up their minds and would not allow us to be heard. We were used to this sort of governance at USAPA but must point out that it is beginning to happen with greater frequency at APA. The good news is that, whether the vote is 11 to 3 (the usual at USAPA) or 20 to 2 at APA, the majority cannot simply extinguish our rights under the law with a vote. If that were so, we would have been done for long ago.
The APA Information Update of March 2, 2016 included the following:
Before going into closed session on Wednesday, the board directed President Keith Wilson to sign a Jan. 21, 2016, settlement letter from Beth Holdren American Airlines managing director of labor relations, flight concerning implementation of Section 17E of the CBA for LUS pilots.
We know you are as outraged as we are about the company extending JCBA 17.E reinstatement rights for LUS East pilots. The net result will be that pilots who have captured positions only as a result of USAPA's long and illegal efforts to prevent implementation of the Nicolau Award will be able to keep them longer still. Thus, ill-gotten gains will be locked in even longer, and with the blessings and approval of both the company and APA. What's more, the real push for this contractual provision to be applied began concurrent with the East Pilot Merger Committee's presentation on this exact topic (reference EPSIC testimony of Dean Colello on January 7, 2016). It was at this point that an East-only contingent of several APA committees met with the company and began to lobby in earnest for this provision. So, while the EPSIC was lobbying the SLI committee for fences to lock in these same ill-gotten gains, APA was lobbying the company for the similar protections. Therefore the APA and the company (both of whom are, by law, jointly responsible for the fairness of the SLI proceedings and are supposed to remain neutral) were working together to provide a benefit being sought (at that exact moment) by one party to the SLI proceedings to the detriment of another.
Of course this is anything but fair or proper and your PHX representatives were fortunate to have found out about it as it was ongoing and John was in a position to bring this inconsistency to the company and the president of the union. This had the effect of slowing the injustice down a bit (and we quite reasonably expected, stopped it in its tracks). But as Wednesday's BOD meeting results prove, APA's acceptance of the company's offer (not surprisingly made by a long-time former US Airways manager, Beth Holdren) to apply 17.E retroactively, will result in the PHX pilots yet again being subjected to the tyranny of the majority, only this time at the hands of a new union and with the ongoing approval of the company. The company and APA are pretending to be deaf, dumb and blind to the factual history of abuses we have suffered. APA appears to pretend that it didn't inherit our longstanding dispute and litigation history with the East, and the BOD has convinced itself that it didn't. But, just like the Ninth Circuit noted that USAPA succeeded ALPA, likewise APA succeeded to the status of the former bargaining agent without alteration in contract terms and therefore enters dangerous waters when it ignores the history of harm to one group at the hands of another, and even more when it works with that group to intentionally exacerbate that harm. This was so important that they were willing to waive back pay provisions in order to keep these gains.
By now, this should not come as a surprise to anyone in PHX. Evidence is everywhere that APA never had any intention of representing West pilots fairly and simply intended to make the former AWA pilots the New TWA by way of another staple job, which was plainly illustrated by the AAPSIC's initial proposal from June (the one that had to be rescinded because it was unworkable in light of the Ninth Circuit's predictable finding that the Nicolau Award must be advocated for by USAPA in the McCaskill-Bond SLI with AA). Such a proposal could only have been crafted by living in the same house of lies, built on the same foundation of fiction, and forever propagated by the former bargaining agent and its representatives who not coincidentally are found today on APA's BOD. We are outnumbered two-to-one on the BOD (or more when considering the DCA reps and their LUS East constituents) and we are simply unable to overcome the propagation of their distortions because the other BOD members there are also steeped in these half-truths and misinformation.
This is not surprising in light of APA's solicitation of West pilot support right after the merger on the simple platform that APA is not USAPA, and nothing more. That was a convenient and seemingly safe position for the APA to take in a world devoid of history or facts, but that strategy quickly ran into the reality that they were dealing with USAPA. Fortunately for the West Class, USAPA's frequent practice of overplaying its hand (and breaching virtually every agreement) resulted in it suing APA and the company in the Federal District Court of Washington D.C. just weeks after the merger in effort to derail negotiations for a Protocol Agreement and prevent the West pilots from getting a seat at the table during the planned SLI proceedings. This lawsuit by the East actually worked to the benefit of the former AWA pilots because it led to the unprecedented NMB-facilitated mediation to hammer out the Protocol Agreement which created the process that ultimately led to the birth of our West Merger Committee. Based on what we've seen (and had APA been left to its own devices), we seriously doubt this would have occurred but forUSAPA's litigation that was designed toprevent our participation. But that agreement still required West pilots to apply to have a committee and then win the right to be recognized through the process of the Preliminary Arbitration. This, on our own dime, of course.
More evidence of APA's favoritism toward LUS East pilots can be seen in how it handled USAPA's sudden withdrawal from the SLI process after the Ninth's ruling: It wasted no time whatsoever creating a new East Merger Committee, the members of which were simply chosen by the East BOD members (the same folks who chose and approved the USAPA Merger Committee which quit) without requiring it to go through the same Preliminary Arbitration and giving that new committee access to an untouched $1.33 million. In essence, APA went to great lengths to assist East pilots to circumvent the plain intent of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That is, the APA assisted the East in being able to argue before the SLI panel a seniority proposal the federal court of appeals said would be illegal and unfair to the West pilots..
It's not just the APA that wants to pretend the past decade has no effect on the present, as if a simple reset was accomplished with the AA merger that wiped clean the slate of history and abuse embodied in the public record of litigation. Apparently the company also wants to pretend the decade of litigation that has vindicated the West simply has no effect in the present. The East could do nothing alone; there were always willing members of management ready and able to seal the deal. This latest example with 17.E perfectly illustrates the East and management duality: VP of Labor Relations negotiates with East reps directly, which spawns a letter of agreement from Ms. Holdren to the APA, which allows the former US Air pilots to retain positions to which they should never have had exclusive rights. Note that many of these positions were created as a result of the merger between AWA and US Airways and bargained for to be fairly and equitably distributed among the East and West pilots in accordance with the 2005 AWA/US Airways Transition Agreement, but are still wrongfully and exclusively attributed to the East side. The Wests legitimate interest in these positions is deliberately ignored, even by management. If the East stole the Wests wallet, it is the company that is allowing the East to keep that wallet, while the APA eagerly assists in making sure there is nothing missing from the wallet, notwithstanding the fact that the East was found guilty in Federal Court of stealing the wallet. The company, with the assistance of the APA, is doing everything in its power to ensure the West doesn't get our wallet back (or that it will be empty if we ever do get it back). Everyone too easily forgets that, but for the West's decision not to appeal the company's dismissal from Addington III, it could well have been found jointly liable with USAPA for its breach. Instead, it continues to act on behalf of the pilots formally represented by the former union which accomplished nothing except breaching its DFR and other illegal behaviors during the eight-plus years of USAPA's existence.
On Monday, Captain Mark Cronin (Managing Director of Line Operations) denied our domicile grievance over the misapplication of the 5:00 hour per duty period minimum. We find this shocking and unreasonable, given the actual history of this merger (and the last), which Captain Cronin cannot (or at least should not) be ignorant of at this time. PHX is indeed a special place, deprived of basic opportunities afforded to brand-new hires placed anywhere else at New American. The reason for this is clear: USAPA's breach of the DFR! And, it remains clear from this grievance denial and from the 17.E issue that management is happy to continue to exploit USAPA's DFR breach while helping to sustain the myth that somehow PHX pilots are unworthy to participate as partners in this merger or the last. Recall that the JCBA changes the minimum duty period to 5:10, provided that the pilot group is operating under Preferential Bidding. To put that in the form of a simple mathematical relationship: PBS = 5:10. The West is obviously on PBS. But, unlike the great deference the company affords the East (i.e. 17.E), the West is forced by the company to litigate for everything. Given the long history of favoritism by the company, one has to wonder if the acknowledgments by senior management of the Wests superior operational performance is really their way of mocking us. The group that set out to wreck US Airways through their illegal safety campaign and derail the AA merger through their litigation in D.C. and their efforts last summer to derail the SLI has received every benefit of the US-AWA merger, while management has seen fit to deprive the West and make us fight for everything.
So what do we do about it? We have heard some rumblings of mass resignations but we think that would be rash at this time and would only be symbolic. We instead ask for your help in educating our fellow BOD members and legacy AA pilots of the true facts of our situation. Do so often, and with clarity, and respect to help us overcome the misinformation and unfavorable odds we face. Make no mistake: The facts are on our side and anything anyone might point to for justification of the situation is grounded on a company or East breach of an agreement or the Duty of Fair Representation itself- it is of their own creation at our expense and born out of dishonesty. Please note that we are not asking you to send canned sound-offs or get into some cut-and-paste form-letter war. Rather, we encourage every West pilot to simply use every opportunity to tell your side because the factual history is clear. This is why we won at the Ninth Circuit, its why we got a unanimous jury verdict after a very short deliberation, and its why we were successful in attaining an injunction against the USAPA officers in North Carolina. What we are saying is this: just tell your story, because both of your reps believe that there is a temptation for legacy AA pilots to just ignore the past; but ignoring the past will only result in an insurmountable obstacle to a unified pilot force. While they did not specifically ask to inherit our dispute, it is they who willingly punted this issue back in 2012 once they started dealing with Parker. Instead of insisting that US Airways management resolve the East/West dispute beforehand, they mortgaged it to a future date, which is coming due now. Likewise, don't hesitate to convey your dissatisfaction to management as well, because clearly our unique situation (and how that situation came about) has yet to be given sufficient thought or reflection. Rather than quitting, actively join us in continuing, and even intensifying the fight. We know you are near the end of your rope, but the end of our fight is near and we still anticipate a positive outcome despite our many adversaries. Let us finish strong together, even if we find ourselves alone today."
03-07-2016, 07:54 PM
#68
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2014
Posts: 212
You bask above your safety net and pretend you are equal amongst men with big shoulders that provided that net.
03-08-2016, 03:10 AM
#69
You scratched my anchor
Joined APC: Feb 2011
Posts: 4,946
I definitely do not consider myself an equal to guys who are so mad when talking about the other side that they are red in the face and have spit coming out of their mouth. Ever wonder what both sides say to a "third party" while he is working or riding in the cockpit to explain their side? I have seen the devastation of this has caused you and them. Both sides have truly lost.
Do you disagree?
Last edited by Al Czervik; 03-08-2016 at 03:21 AM.
03-08-2016, 03:57 AM
#70
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2014
Posts: 1,238
Recent phx pilot fishbowl update;
"Dear Phoenix Pilots,
There were a couple of developments this week of critical importance to the PHX-based pilots of New American. Both of these developments relate to decisions by the company, and one was the result of a decision by the APA BOD which your PHX-reps were unable to stop in spite of our best efforts. In short, we feel as though we were railroaded by the majority, even being prevented from getting our opinion on record thanks to repeated efforts by the vast majority of the BOD who had already made up their minds and would not allow us to be heard. We were used to this sort of governance at USAPA but must point out that it is beginning to happen with greater frequency at APA. The good news is that, whether the vote is 11 to 3 (the usual at USAPA) or 20 to 2 at APA, the majority cannot simply extinguish our rights under the law with a vote. If that were so, we would have been done for long ago.
The APA Information Update of March 2, 2016 included the following:
Before going into closed session on Wednesday, the board directed President Keith Wilson to sign a Jan. 21, 2016, settlement letter from Beth Holdren American Airlines managing director of labor relations, flight concerning implementation of Section 17E of the CBA for LUS pilots.
We know you are as outraged as we are about the company extending JCBA 17.E reinstatement rights for LUS East pilots. The net result will be that pilots who have captured positions only as a result of USAPA's long and illegal efforts to prevent implementation of the Nicolau Award will be able to keep them longer still. Thus, ill-gotten gains will be locked in even longer, and with the blessings and approval of both the company and APA. What's more, the real push for this contractual provision to be applied began concurrent with the East Pilot Merger Committee's presentation on this exact topic (reference EPSIC testimony of Dean Colello on January 7, 2016). It was at this point that an East-only contingent of several APA committees met with the company and began to lobby in earnest for this provision. So, while the EPSIC was lobbying the SLI committee for fences to lock in these same ill-gotten gains, APA was lobbying the company for the similar protections. Therefore the APA and the company (both of whom are, by law, jointly responsible for the fairness of the SLI proceedings and are supposed to remain neutral) were working together to provide a benefit being sought (at that exact moment) by one party to the SLI proceedings to the detriment of another.
Of course this is anything but fair or proper and your PHX representatives were fortunate to have found out about it as it was ongoing and John was in a position to bring this inconsistency to the company and the president of the union. This had the effect of slowing the injustice down a bit (and we quite reasonably expected, stopped it in its tracks). But as Wednesday's BOD meeting results prove, APA's acceptance of the company's offer (not surprisingly made by a long-time former US Airways manager, Beth Holdren) to apply 17.E retroactively, will result in the PHX pilots yet again being subjected to the tyranny of the majority, only this time at the hands of a new union and with the ongoing approval of the company. The company and APA are pretending to be deaf, dumb and blind to the factual history of abuses we have suffered. APA appears to pretend that it didn't inherit our longstanding dispute and litigation history with the East, and the BOD has convinced itself that it didn't. But, just like the Ninth Circuit noted that USAPA succeeded ALPA, likewise APA succeeded to the status of the former bargaining agent without alteration in contract terms and therefore enters dangerous waters when it ignores the history of harm to one group at the hands of another, and even more when it works with that group to intentionally exacerbate that harm. This was so important that they were willing to waive back pay provisions in order to keep these gains.
By now, this should not come as a surprise to anyone in PHX. Evidence is everywhere that APA never had any intention of representing West pilots fairly and simply intended to make the former AWA pilots the New TWA by way of another staple job, which was plainly illustrated by the AAPSIC's initial proposal from June (the one that had to be rescinded because it was unworkable in light of the Ninth Circuit's predictable finding that the Nicolau Award must be advocated for by USAPA in the McCaskill-Bond SLI with AA). Such a proposal could only have been crafted by living in the same house of lies, built on the same foundation of fiction, and forever propagated by the former bargaining agent and its representatives who not coincidentally are found today on APA's BOD. We are outnumbered two-to-one on the BOD (or more when considering the DCA reps and their LUS East constituents) and we are simply unable to overcome the propagation of their distortions because the other BOD members there are also steeped in these half-truths and misinformation.
This is not surprising in light of APA's solicitation of West pilot support right after the merger on the simple platform that APA is not USAPA, and nothing more. That was a convenient and seemingly safe position for the APA to take in a world devoid of history or facts, but that strategy quickly ran into the reality that they were dealing with USAPA. Fortunately for the West Class, USAPA's frequent practice of overplaying its hand (and breaching virtually every agreement) resulted in it suing APA and the company in the Federal District Court of Washington D.C. just weeks after the merger in effort to derail negotiations for a Protocol Agreement and prevent the West pilots from getting a seat at the table during the planned SLI proceedings. This lawsuit by the East actually worked to the benefit of the former AWA pilots because it led to the unprecedented NMB-facilitated mediation to hammer out the Protocol Agreement which created the process that ultimately led to the birth of our West Merger Committee. Based on what we've seen (and had APA been left to its own devices), we seriously doubt this would have occurred but forUSAPA's litigation that was designed toprevent our participation. But that agreement still required West pilots to apply to have a committee and then win the right to be recognized through the process of the Preliminary Arbitration. This, on our own dime, of course.
More evidence of APA's favoritism toward LUS East pilots can be seen in how it handled USAPA's sudden withdrawal from the SLI process after the Ninth's ruling: It wasted no time whatsoever creating a new East Merger Committee, the members of which were simply chosen by the East BOD members (the same folks who chose and approved the USAPA Merger Committee which quit) without requiring it to go through the same Preliminary Arbitration and giving that new committee access to an untouched $1.33 million. In essence, APA went to great lengths to assist East pilots to circumvent the plain intent of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That is, the APA assisted the East in being able to argue before the SLI panel a seniority proposal the federal court of appeals said would be illegal and unfair to the West pilots..
It's not just the APA that wants to pretend the past decade has no effect on the present, as if a simple reset was accomplished with the AA merger that wiped clean the slate of history and abuse embodied in the public record of litigation. Apparently the company also wants to pretend the decade of litigation that has vindicated the West simply has no effect in the present. The East could do nothing alone; there were always willing members of management ready and able to seal the deal. This latest example with 17.E perfectly illustrates the East and management duality: VP of Labor Relations negotiates with East reps directly, which spawns a letter of agreement from Ms. Holdren to the APA, which allows the former US Air pilots to retain positions to which they should never have had exclusive rights. Note that many of these positions were created as a result of the merger between AWA and US Airways and bargained for to be fairly and equitably distributed among the East and West pilots in accordance with the 2005 AWA/US Airways Transition Agreement, but are still wrongfully and exclusively attributed to the East side. The Wests legitimate interest in these positions is deliberately ignored, even by management. If the East stole the Wests wallet, it is the company that is allowing the East to keep that wallet, while the APA eagerly assists in making sure there is nothing missing from the wallet, notwithstanding the fact that the East was found guilty in Federal Court of stealing the wallet. The company, with the assistance of the APA, is doing everything in its power to ensure the West doesn't get our wallet back (or that it will be empty if we ever do get it back). Everyone too easily forgets that, but for the West's decision not to appeal the company's dismissal from Addington III, it could well have been found jointly liable with USAPA for its breach. Instead, it continues to act on behalf of the pilots formally represented by the former union which accomplished nothing except breaching its DFR and other illegal behaviors during the eight-plus years of USAPA's existence.
On Monday, Captain Mark Cronin (Managing Director of Line Operations) denied our domicile grievance over the misapplication of the 5:00 hour per duty period minimum. We find this shocking and unreasonable, given the actual history of this merger (and the last), which Captain Cronin cannot (or at least should not) be ignorant of at this time. PHX is indeed a special place, deprived of basic opportunities afforded to brand-new hires placed anywhere else at New American. The reason for this is clear: USAPA's breach of the DFR! And, it remains clear from this grievance denial and from the 17.E issue that management is happy to continue to exploit USAPA's DFR breach while helping to sustain the myth that somehow PHX pilots are unworthy to participate as partners in this merger or the last. Recall that the JCBA changes the minimum duty period to 5:10, provided that the pilot group is operating under Preferential Bidding. To put that in the form of a simple mathematical relationship: PBS = 5:10. The West is obviously on PBS. But, unlike the great deference the company affords the East (i.e. 17.E), the West is forced by the company to litigate for everything. Given the long history of favoritism by the company, one has to wonder if the acknowledgments by senior management of the Wests superior operational performance is really their way of mocking us. The group that set out to wreck US Airways through their illegal safety campaign and derail the AA merger through their litigation in D.C. and their efforts last summer to derail the SLI has received every benefit of the US-AWA merger, while management has seen fit to deprive the West and make us fight for everything.
So what do we do about it? We have heard some rumblings of mass resignations but we think that would be rash at this time and would only be symbolic. We instead ask for your help in educating our fellow BOD members and legacy AA pilots of the true facts of our situation. Do so often, and with clarity, and respect to help us overcome the misinformation and unfavorable odds we face. Make no mistake: The facts are on our side and anything anyone might point to for justification of the situation is grounded on a company or East breach of an agreement or the Duty of Fair Representation itself- it is of their own creation at our expense and born out of dishonesty. Please note that we are not asking you to send canned sound-offs or get into some cut-and-paste form-letter war. Rather, we encourage every West pilot to simply use every opportunity to tell your side because the factual history is clear. This is why we won at the Ninth Circuit, its why we got a unanimous jury verdict after a very short deliberation, and its why we were successful in attaining an injunction against the USAPA officers in North Carolina. What we are saying is this: just tell your story, because both of your reps believe that there is a temptation for legacy AA pilots to just ignore the past; but ignoring the past will only result in an insurmountable obstacle to a unified pilot force. While they did not specifically ask to inherit our dispute, it is they who willingly punted this issue back in 2012 once they started dealing with Parker. Instead of insisting that US Airways management resolve the East/West dispute beforehand, they mortgaged it to a future date, which is coming due now. Likewise, don't hesitate to convey your dissatisfaction to management as well, because clearly our unique situation (and how that situation came about) has yet to be given sufficient thought or reflection. Rather than quitting, actively join us in continuing, and even intensifying the fight. We know you are near the end of your rope, but the end of our fight is near and we still anticipate a positive outcome despite our many adversaries. Let us finish strong together, even if we find ourselves alone today."
"Dear Phoenix Pilots,
There were a couple of developments this week of critical importance to the PHX-based pilots of New American. Both of these developments relate to decisions by the company, and one was the result of a decision by the APA BOD which your PHX-reps were unable to stop in spite of our best efforts. In short, we feel as though we were railroaded by the majority, even being prevented from getting our opinion on record thanks to repeated efforts by the vast majority of the BOD who had already made up their minds and would not allow us to be heard. We were used to this sort of governance at USAPA but must point out that it is beginning to happen with greater frequency at APA. The good news is that, whether the vote is 11 to 3 (the usual at USAPA) or 20 to 2 at APA, the majority cannot simply extinguish our rights under the law with a vote. If that were so, we would have been done for long ago.
The APA Information Update of March 2, 2016 included the following:
Before going into closed session on Wednesday, the board directed President Keith Wilson to sign a Jan. 21, 2016, settlement letter from Beth Holdren American Airlines managing director of labor relations, flight concerning implementation of Section 17E of the CBA for LUS pilots.
We know you are as outraged as we are about the company extending JCBA 17.E reinstatement rights for LUS East pilots. The net result will be that pilots who have captured positions only as a result of USAPA's long and illegal efforts to prevent implementation of the Nicolau Award will be able to keep them longer still. Thus, ill-gotten gains will be locked in even longer, and with the blessings and approval of both the company and APA. What's more, the real push for this contractual provision to be applied began concurrent with the East Pilot Merger Committee's presentation on this exact topic (reference EPSIC testimony of Dean Colello on January 7, 2016). It was at this point that an East-only contingent of several APA committees met with the company and began to lobby in earnest for this provision. So, while the EPSIC was lobbying the SLI committee for fences to lock in these same ill-gotten gains, APA was lobbying the company for the similar protections. Therefore the APA and the company (both of whom are, by law, jointly responsible for the fairness of the SLI proceedings and are supposed to remain neutral) were working together to provide a benefit being sought (at that exact moment) by one party to the SLI proceedings to the detriment of another.
Of course this is anything but fair or proper and your PHX representatives were fortunate to have found out about it as it was ongoing and John was in a position to bring this inconsistency to the company and the president of the union. This had the effect of slowing the injustice down a bit (and we quite reasonably expected, stopped it in its tracks). But as Wednesday's BOD meeting results prove, APA's acceptance of the company's offer (not surprisingly made by a long-time former US Airways manager, Beth Holdren) to apply 17.E retroactively, will result in the PHX pilots yet again being subjected to the tyranny of the majority, only this time at the hands of a new union and with the ongoing approval of the company. The company and APA are pretending to be deaf, dumb and blind to the factual history of abuses we have suffered. APA appears to pretend that it didn't inherit our longstanding dispute and litigation history with the East, and the BOD has convinced itself that it didn't. But, just like the Ninth Circuit noted that USAPA succeeded ALPA, likewise APA succeeded to the status of the former bargaining agent without alteration in contract terms and therefore enters dangerous waters when it ignores the history of harm to one group at the hands of another, and even more when it works with that group to intentionally exacerbate that harm. This was so important that they were willing to waive back pay provisions in order to keep these gains.
By now, this should not come as a surprise to anyone in PHX. Evidence is everywhere that APA never had any intention of representing West pilots fairly and simply intended to make the former AWA pilots the New TWA by way of another staple job, which was plainly illustrated by the AAPSIC's initial proposal from June (the one that had to be rescinded because it was unworkable in light of the Ninth Circuit's predictable finding that the Nicolau Award must be advocated for by USAPA in the McCaskill-Bond SLI with AA). Such a proposal could only have been crafted by living in the same house of lies, built on the same foundation of fiction, and forever propagated by the former bargaining agent and its representatives who not coincidentally are found today on APA's BOD. We are outnumbered two-to-one on the BOD (or more when considering the DCA reps and their LUS East constituents) and we are simply unable to overcome the propagation of their distortions because the other BOD members there are also steeped in these half-truths and misinformation.
This is not surprising in light of APA's solicitation of West pilot support right after the merger on the simple platform that APA is not USAPA, and nothing more. That was a convenient and seemingly safe position for the APA to take in a world devoid of history or facts, but that strategy quickly ran into the reality that they were dealing with USAPA. Fortunately for the West Class, USAPA's frequent practice of overplaying its hand (and breaching virtually every agreement) resulted in it suing APA and the company in the Federal District Court of Washington D.C. just weeks after the merger in effort to derail negotiations for a Protocol Agreement and prevent the West pilots from getting a seat at the table during the planned SLI proceedings. This lawsuit by the East actually worked to the benefit of the former AWA pilots because it led to the unprecedented NMB-facilitated mediation to hammer out the Protocol Agreement which created the process that ultimately led to the birth of our West Merger Committee. Based on what we've seen (and had APA been left to its own devices), we seriously doubt this would have occurred but forUSAPA's litigation that was designed toprevent our participation. But that agreement still required West pilots to apply to have a committee and then win the right to be recognized through the process of the Preliminary Arbitration. This, on our own dime, of course.
More evidence of APA's favoritism toward LUS East pilots can be seen in how it handled USAPA's sudden withdrawal from the SLI process after the Ninth's ruling: It wasted no time whatsoever creating a new East Merger Committee, the members of which were simply chosen by the East BOD members (the same folks who chose and approved the USAPA Merger Committee which quit) without requiring it to go through the same Preliminary Arbitration and giving that new committee access to an untouched $1.33 million. In essence, APA went to great lengths to assist East pilots to circumvent the plain intent of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That is, the APA assisted the East in being able to argue before the SLI panel a seniority proposal the federal court of appeals said would be illegal and unfair to the West pilots..
It's not just the APA that wants to pretend the past decade has no effect on the present, as if a simple reset was accomplished with the AA merger that wiped clean the slate of history and abuse embodied in the public record of litigation. Apparently the company also wants to pretend the decade of litigation that has vindicated the West simply has no effect in the present. The East could do nothing alone; there were always willing members of management ready and able to seal the deal. This latest example with 17.E perfectly illustrates the East and management duality: VP of Labor Relations negotiates with East reps directly, which spawns a letter of agreement from Ms. Holdren to the APA, which allows the former US Air pilots to retain positions to which they should never have had exclusive rights. Note that many of these positions were created as a result of the merger between AWA and US Airways and bargained for to be fairly and equitably distributed among the East and West pilots in accordance with the 2005 AWA/US Airways Transition Agreement, but are still wrongfully and exclusively attributed to the East side. The Wests legitimate interest in these positions is deliberately ignored, even by management. If the East stole the Wests wallet, it is the company that is allowing the East to keep that wallet, while the APA eagerly assists in making sure there is nothing missing from the wallet, notwithstanding the fact that the East was found guilty in Federal Court of stealing the wallet. The company, with the assistance of the APA, is doing everything in its power to ensure the West doesn't get our wallet back (or that it will be empty if we ever do get it back). Everyone too easily forgets that, but for the West's decision not to appeal the company's dismissal from Addington III, it could well have been found jointly liable with USAPA for its breach. Instead, it continues to act on behalf of the pilots formally represented by the former union which accomplished nothing except breaching its DFR and other illegal behaviors during the eight-plus years of USAPA's existence.
On Monday, Captain Mark Cronin (Managing Director of Line Operations) denied our domicile grievance over the misapplication of the 5:00 hour per duty period minimum. We find this shocking and unreasonable, given the actual history of this merger (and the last), which Captain Cronin cannot (or at least should not) be ignorant of at this time. PHX is indeed a special place, deprived of basic opportunities afforded to brand-new hires placed anywhere else at New American. The reason for this is clear: USAPA's breach of the DFR! And, it remains clear from this grievance denial and from the 17.E issue that management is happy to continue to exploit USAPA's DFR breach while helping to sustain the myth that somehow PHX pilots are unworthy to participate as partners in this merger or the last. Recall that the JCBA changes the minimum duty period to 5:10, provided that the pilot group is operating under Preferential Bidding. To put that in the form of a simple mathematical relationship: PBS = 5:10. The West is obviously on PBS. But, unlike the great deference the company affords the East (i.e. 17.E), the West is forced by the company to litigate for everything. Given the long history of favoritism by the company, one has to wonder if the acknowledgments by senior management of the Wests superior operational performance is really their way of mocking us. The group that set out to wreck US Airways through their illegal safety campaign and derail the AA merger through their litigation in D.C. and their efforts last summer to derail the SLI has received every benefit of the US-AWA merger, while management has seen fit to deprive the West and make us fight for everything.
So what do we do about it? We have heard some rumblings of mass resignations but we think that would be rash at this time and would only be symbolic. We instead ask for your help in educating our fellow BOD members and legacy AA pilots of the true facts of our situation. Do so often, and with clarity, and respect to help us overcome the misinformation and unfavorable odds we face. Make no mistake: The facts are on our side and anything anyone might point to for justification of the situation is grounded on a company or East breach of an agreement or the Duty of Fair Representation itself- it is of their own creation at our expense and born out of dishonesty. Please note that we are not asking you to send canned sound-offs or get into some cut-and-paste form-letter war. Rather, we encourage every West pilot to simply use every opportunity to tell your side because the factual history is clear. This is why we won at the Ninth Circuit, its why we got a unanimous jury verdict after a very short deliberation, and its why we were successful in attaining an injunction against the USAPA officers in North Carolina. What we are saying is this: just tell your story, because both of your reps believe that there is a temptation for legacy AA pilots to just ignore the past; but ignoring the past will only result in an insurmountable obstacle to a unified pilot force. While they did not specifically ask to inherit our dispute, it is they who willingly punted this issue back in 2012 once they started dealing with Parker. Instead of insisting that US Airways management resolve the East/West dispute beforehand, they mortgaged it to a future date, which is coming due now. Likewise, don't hesitate to convey your dissatisfaction to management as well, because clearly our unique situation (and how that situation came about) has yet to be given sufficient thought or reflection. Rather than quitting, actively join us in continuing, and even intensifying the fight. We know you are near the end of your rope, but the end of our fight is near and we still anticipate a positive outcome despite our many adversaries. Let us finish strong together, even if we find ourselves alone today."
Educating huh. Like anyone listens to YOU anymore. Continue to rant because you guys have NO friends on ANY side. I wouldn't bring this crap up on the Jumpseat. I'll shut you up fast.
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