Attention APA, ALPA, CALPA, SWAPA members

[Raas767]

Some of you may be aware of this.

There seems to be a concerted effort by Airline CEO's led by Leo Mullin and Don Carty to pressure the Administration and or Congress to amend the Railway Labor Act. They want to amend it in such a way that would take away our right to self help and force us in to a "Base Ball" style type of arbitration. You can bet that if this ever comes to pass it will profoundly change the way we work. Airline management would not be pushing for this if it wasn't in their favor.
I urge everyone to keep tabs on this effort and be prepared, if necessary, to mount a huge lobbying campaign against this. This will not only affect pilots but all orginized labor that fall under the Railway Labor act.

I personally don't think that this will come to pass due to questions of constitutionality, but you never know.

[MidnightSpecial]

George Will had an article in the New York Post a couple days ago on this topic. He thought arbitration for pilot contracts was a great idea, typical since he has never been a friend of labor.

The CEOs have powerful friends.

MidnightSpecial

[ironbutt57]

Isn't it amazing that airlines spend millions of dollars in legal fees, and spite money trying to put the screws to flightcrews, then turn around and hand them a million-dollar-a-seat asset and turn them lose to fly around the world, then count on the pilot's professionalism (which always seems to be there) to carry the airline to profitability....so they can screw them out of their shares of the profit? what a strange industry....george will is a moron anyway...let him stick to amtrack...no wait they are union too....then fire them when some moron with a GED claims they said something "not conducive to security"....they DO have a GED don't they...at least from some bananna-land school district?:mad: :mad: :mad:

[DownIn3Green]

Seems to me the pot is calling the kettle black...I'll bet my bottom dollar the TWA ALPA guys would stand 100% behind the APA/ALPA on this one...

Hey wait a minute...They are right behind...way behind...

Look for support elsewhere on this one...

[AA717driver]

The TWA people I know are tired of bringing up the rear on contracts.

I will continue to maintain that pilots fly planes and management manages. It's not management's fault if I can't fly the plane right and it's not my fault if management can't figure out how to make money.

The current UAL and DAL pay is the same as in the '80's after adjusting for inflation. I wonder if CEO's can say the same thing?
TC

[Orca strait]

AMERICAN CEO BLASTED ON BASEBALL-STYLE ARBITRATION -

Airline Financial News:

The head of a leading union is furious with Donald Carty, CEO of American Airlines [AMR], for "teaming up" with columnist George Will and advocating baseball-style arbitration to head off costly strikes.

Sonny Hall, president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department, said he is "deeply insulted and offended" by American Airlines' campaign to "destroy workers' rights."

Hall was referring to a May 9 column by Will in the Washington Post. The column said the airline industry could "benefit from mandatory, binding arbitration of the sort baseball has." It noted that each side would make a proposal and the arbitrator would pick one or the other. Because the arbitrator could not split the difference, Will said that the process would pull each side toward the other.

"Meanwhile, United pilots recently won a 28 percent raise, just before the company lost $600 million in the first half of 2001," Will said in the column. "Other carriers' pilots want parity. Other workers want their earnings pulled up by those of the pilots.

Turbulence ahead. Situation normal."


And where is our fearless leadership? Check this out:

'Conquerors of the Skies' don't fly economy (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1021543299213&call_page=TS_Business&call_pageid=968350072197&call_pagepath=Business/News&col=969048863851) :rolleyes:

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[Raas767]

I think some of you are missing the point. If this happens ( a BIG if) there would be no point of even having a union. Sort of like having a gun with no bullets.
Do I detect a note of cynicism from you former TWA guys? In my book a 100% raise beats the unemployment line any day of the week.
Welcome aboard.

[TowerDog]

The TWA guys made out good on this one.
Huge pay rise and job security. (As much as ya can have after 9/11 anyway.)

What morons like DownIn3Green thinks is irrelevant: He is the one that issued death threats on PPRuNe a while ago because of ignorance on seniority integration between AA-TWA....:rolleyes:

As for Don Carty wanting to ban the right to strike.. No sh!t, that would almost have been like free labor for managment.

Ask the guys over at Cathay how it works in reality.

[AA717driver]

Raas--No TWA pilot got a 100% raise. We were flying 80+ hours in the same number of days as we are now for 70 hours. Many people were sitting reserve and flying on days off, working 6 or 8 days a month for 100 pay hours. Also, those who were involuntarily displaced from the right seat(about 100 people) took a big pay cut due to the difference in flight hours.

Contrary to what was being dissiminated by APA during the integration meetings, TWA arguably enjoyed the highest quality of life in the industry. We had a great bidding system(I didn't agree but most people loved it), we had good relations with our management(most transgressions could be settled with a conversation with the Chief Pilot--not a termination proceeding), we had great people to fly with(again, contrary to APA rhetoric, TWA hired very high quality people--not every pilot had a burning desire to fly for AA, some did and some wanted to work elsewhere but a lot of people were very happy where they were)--in short, life was good.

TWA was not going out of business in Jan. '01 as was testified to by our CEO in the bankruptcy hearings. Boeing had agreed to assume responsiblity for the $100M note and replace senior management(see why Compton said that in court?) and gain concessions from the unions.

Would TWA have survived 9/11? Probably like AWA did--with loans, concessions and a forced merger with a less stable carrier than AA.

I believe, in the end(17 years from now), I will have had a better career because of the merger with AA. A friend offered to get me on at AA in '98(he was friends with Cecil). I politely declined--Great move! I would have had a better seniority number but wouldn't even be close to holding captain. I am happy that this deal came together but I feel it's necessary to correct misconceptions about how TWA was and how the deal happened.

A 100% raise? No way. A 50% raise? Only when a TWA FO upgrades to CA and that hasn't happened yet.

Tim Carmichael, STL/S8T/CA
Sen. # 11, 809
APA member since 4/01

[TowerDog]

AA 717driver:

I know 4 guys that left TWA in recent years to start on the bottom with other companies.

Sure wonder why they left if things were as great as the picture ya are painting: "Highest quality of life in the industry"

:D :D :D

[AA717driver]

People judge quality of life differently.

Look, I'm not going to get into a pissing contest about who's airline is better to work for. But I won't sit still for this 'looking-down-your-nose' attitude because someone's airline happens to have been managed better than mine. TWA's balance sheet sucked because management had been robbing it since the '60's.
AA's balance sheet looks good because Bob Crandall did everything he could to build it into the monolith that it is during the '80's.

If TWA's Board of Directors had listened to Bob in the '70's, our roles would be reversed. Woulda, Coulda...

I'm happy this happened. I'm not happy with some of the 'holier-than-thou' bullsh*t. Most AA people I've met on layovers are great. They have dispensed with the rhetoric and moved on.TC

[Raas767]

AA717Driver.

That was a good post but let me throw some stuff in here.

A. AA bought TWA for one reason and one reason alone: UAL's proposed purchase of US Airways. Had that gone through it would have put AA in an almost disastrous competitive disadvantage. Due to the failure of that merger AA is now stuck with an airline it would rather not have. (Sorry)

B. The history of AA aquisitions is crystal clear. Buy an airline liquidate the assets, keep the people. Reno, AirCal, Trans Carib and now TWA.

C. Your pay, retirement, and carreer expectations have gone up astronomically. Before the purchase you realy didn't have any. Regardless of what you say, in the long run TWA was dead. Some of you might think you got a raw deal because of your overall loss of seniority, but it goes both ways. You have everything to gain from this purchase. Those of us that have been here for awhile have assumed a huge potential liability in the form of diminished career movement loss of profit sharing and staggering integration costs that will put a burden on this corporation for a long time when it can least afford it.

D. All of the above is academic. You are here and I applaud your decision to join APA. We face huge challenges ahead for our profession which I tried to highlight with this thread. We need to fight side by side.