December 7, 2000
ALPA Website
Christmas Party
Readback Violations
TRO’S and Bankruptcies
We’ll Arbitrate
ALPA Website
Due to a staff resignation we’ve only been making small changes to the AWALPA
website for the last month. We now have another person assigned to updating it for us and
you should begin to see more news and some simplification on the site. The main ALPA
website continues to be updated regularly as always.
Christmas Party
The party is on for next Thursday night at Rockin’ Rodeo in Tempe. Now that you
know your schedules, make plans to be there. Tickets are still available at the ALPA
office. And thanks again to our Membership Committee for putting this together for us.
Readback Violations
We’ve had two readback violations this week. Maybe this is just a blip on the
radar and it won’t happen again, but maybe not. Get those clearances right or run the
risk of a license action.
TRO’S and Bankruptcies
This week Northwest, United and Delta filed for temporary restraining orders against
unionized employee groups who were alleged to be engaging in slowdowns. Since all the
unions involved have urged their members to remain on the job, it’s hard to
understand who’s being restrained. There’s no doubt that companies are putting
judges on their speed dial, but there’s a lot of doubt about how that achieves labor
peace. Running to the courts is a poor excuse for running your company.
Another example of the legal profession at work is bankruptcy courts. It’s my
guess that bankruptcy lawyers are just getting warmed up. Legend and National both filed
for bankruptcy this week. Legend is shut down while National continues to operate. Our old
friend Mike Conway says everything is fine at National and that they just lack deep
pockets. Speaking of pockets, I hope National employees are watching theirs. Beware of
that sucking sound. You did know that employees are unsecured creditors and thus fall to
the bottom of the creditors list, didn’t you? No union contract? Too bad.
No one likes to see other airline employees suffer. Our sympathies and best wishes go
to all those affected.
We’ll Arbitrate
Our differences with the company over PBS implementation will result in yet another
legal process. In accordance with our 1998 PBS implementation side letter we are going
forward with an expedited arbitration on the matter. The company believes that the 56%
approval on the satisfaction survey is sufficient to continue using PBS on bid 175 and
subsequent. The MEC believes that the Association must approve this implementation, which
we do not. We believe that we have a strong case which will prevail. We have placed copies
of the relevant agreements on the bulletin board and in the upcoming Fenix Flight
so that you will better understand our argument. We also expect to publish a Just the
Facts on this next week.
One of the arguments many pilots have had against PBS is that such an automated system
is vulnerable to unfair manipulation by Crew Scheduling. So the fundamental issue is
trust. Now we have to resort to a legal process to resolve this. How does that make pilots
trust PBS or any other company scheduling tool?
The merits of PBS are questionable. The merits of keeping to your agreements are not.
Your MEC is hard over on that point.
That’s all for this week. The next hotline will be Thursday, December 14. Thanks
for listening.
Thanks for listening.
| MEC Hotline | ||
| This is MEC Chairman Roger Cox with the MEC hotline message for Thursday, December 7. Topics tonight are:
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