And AMR Management doesn't expect guys to jump ship or call in sick?

[Autothrust Blue]

The Delta case is referenced in ALPA's Pilot-To-Pilot training. I know I have that powerpoint somewhere around here, but Todd is correct.

Court held ALPA responsible for not directly communicating to their pilots that it is illegal and to knock it off. From what I recall, a simple statement indicating that the DAL MEC does not and did not support any actions by their pilots would have been sufficient, but none were ever communicated.

Now, move on...just don't do it. I'm not interested in becoming a hostage because of some rogue jackass who has some vengence for the Company. Allow the Association to steer and command the negotiations, with input FROM the pilots. That's what you elected them (us) to do.

when I worked at Eagle, and there was ostensibly a sick out, Eagle ALPA did put out a message to that effect--"that's not legal and we don't support it."


Sent from Seat 3D

 

[Pilotforhire587]

Then they're probably going to be stuck with imposed terms for 10+ years.



Balls are great and all. But brains are better.

We all see how well brains have worked over the last 10 years.... Just saying.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

We all see how well brains have worked over the last 10 years.... Just saying.

Seemed to have worked pretty good to me. I don't see too many major airline pilots out of work. And CBAs are making the climb back to where they belong. "Live to fight another day" is a strategy that has succeeded.

 

[Pilotforhire587]

American Airline Pilots' Slowdown Wins a Victory, Despite What You Read in the DMN

By Jim SchutzeTue., Sep. 25 2012 at 10:42 AM

Mitchell Schnurman is a really good business reporter. The Dallas Morning News scored a major coup recently when it hired him away from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He's an ace, the author of serial scoops on airline industry management.

But as we see again in today's paper, Schnurman is strangely obtuse when he starts handing out moral advice to the rank and file. Schnurman posts yet another in what is fast becoming a regular series of preachy epistles to the pilots union, scolding them for their rogue slowdown action at American Airlines.

He says, "The negative publicity couldn't be much worse, as cancellations made national and local headlines. ... Plenty of pilots who are doing their jobs must be embarrassed, too. They often talk about getting the respect they deserve, especially from management, but these tactics put their interests ahead of everyone else's."

Funny. For all this finger-wagging and tch-tching in the paper this morning, I still don't see the real story about American Airlines. I am scouring my very expensive print version of the paper. Nope. Not there. I go back over the web page as well, navigating around the "Ask Mitch Manners" column to look for some news.

No. Not there, either. Maybe they'll move themselves to get it up by the time my item gets posted on Unfair Park.

So as a last resort I go to my usual source for big Dallas business stories that the local paper doesn't like: The Christian Science Monitor. Sure. There it is, big and bold! I thought I saw that mentioned on TV just before the lights went out in my head last night: Management at American has agreed to go back to the bargaining table with the pilots!

That's the real story today. That's the news. The headline at the top of the front page of any honest morning paper in this town today should be: IT WORKED!

Damn straight. By dragging the company out to the edge of the cliff -- and only by that! -- the pilots have been able to push a stubborn management team off its arrogant dime. Management was determined to cover its own incompetence with blood drained from the pilots' contract. The pilots showed them that the blood would be their own.

Is that really how it's done? Do you really threaten to harm the company if they won't talk? Do you really threaten to shut it down? Of course you do! How in the hell do we think labor ever got management to talk in the first place?

The labor movement and unions in this country have weakened to the point of near extinction in the last 20 years because union members have lost the courage and resolve that the American Airlines pilots found again in this dispute.

It ain't tiddlywinks. Americans were able to form unions and fight for decent pay in the first place only because workers weren't afraid of an ultimate shootout. They had the courage to go out to that line and face the management goons sent there to beat and even kill them, if that's what it took.

Maybe it's time for working and middle class Americans to stop *****ing about the plague of income disparity gnawing at the very fiber of our society. Maybe it's time people remembered that in this world you get what you're willing to fight for.

Not take. Not steal. Fight for. An honest day's wages for an honest day's work. And when management, acting under Wall Street rules, tries to turn that principle on its head -- comes up with a plan by which the CEO gets a larcenous bonus for doing a lousy job while labor gets the shaft -- then, yes, labor has to be ready to toe that ultimate line.

In today's America on any given day, it can seem like management has all the tricks and the ammo. They rewrite the laws themselves. They stack the courts with cronies. And they fill their newspapers with propaganda.

But as the American Airlines pilots have reminded us, labor always has the ultimate weapon. The one leverage. The last resort.

Shut it down.

I want to print and frame copies of this and then get it hung in every crew room in the country!

 

[Pilotforhire587]

So management invited the pilots back to the table and then 12 hours later sent APA a letter threatening legal action if they didn't stop writing stuff up. As the APA spokesman said... baseball bat with an olive branch wrapped around it.

yeah, that bat is more like a tiny stick that would break in half if AMR tried to hit something with it... Writing stuff up? I am sorry, it was broken, that's what they teach me to do in Ground School EVERY YEAR.

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

yeah, that bat is more like a tiny stick that would break in half if AMR tried to hit something with it... Writing stuff up? I am sorry, it was broken, that's what they teach me to do in Ground School EVERY YEAR.

Federal courts have ruled an increase in maintenance write ups (especially over items that would probably be covered under a NEF program) are in fact job actions in the past. In fact, so far as I know every single time an operator has made this claim and it has been observably true that maintenance write ups have gone up prior to some instigating action the federal courts have agreed with them (the airline) about it.

You may be under the mistaken belief that the federal courts care about what the FAA says.

 

[jtrain609]

Federal courts have ruled an increase in maintenance write ups (especially over items that would probably be covered under a NEF program) are in fact job actions in the past. In fact, so far as I know every single time an operator has made this claim and it has been observably true that maintenance write ups have gone up prior to some instigating action the federal courts have agreed with them (the airline) about it.

You may be under the mistaken belief that the federal courts care about what the FAA says.

So if you write things up, it's a job action, but if you don't write things up, it'll cost you your job?

 

[Stone Cold]

So if you write things up, it's a job action, but if you don't write things up, it'll cost you your job?

Says the freaking lawyers, apparently. Can we all agree to hang ALL lawyers by noon tomorrow and return some semblance of sanity to life??

 

[jtrain609]

Says the freaking lawyers, apparently. Can we all agree to hang ALL lawyers by noon tomorrow and return some semblance of sanity to life??

YES! I AM A HUGE ADVOCATE OF THIS POSITION!

(I haven't graduated yet )

 

[BEEF SUPREME]

It was like, swap into an aircraft,there's a mechanic onboard.

He's not fixing much because he's pressured to defer it and make it legal.

You're running late and you have this doofus "Operation Clockwork" that the agent is freaking out about to get the airplane boarded.

Catering hasn't arrived yet and the jet is still dirty. Stews are pissed.

Jet gets partially cleaning, catering hasn't arrived.

You get into the cockpit and find boatloads of MELs, many which contradict one another and say that "if X is working" it's legal, but X is MEL'ed as well so you call maintenance and they're busy.

Flight plan somewhat shorted you on fuel and you know you're going to end up holding going to Philly but flight control says "dude, you'll be sweet" so skipper is on the line trying to get a realistic fuel load.

You find more things wrong with the airplane, boarding is almost complete and the agent throws the final paperwork at you, the numbers are off and you never got the NOTAC about the dangerous goods,

That's what bankruptcy is like.

Every leg.

And it's always YOUR fault.

Nevermind the pleasure of walking into the Patel, dog tired after a multiple leg day of the above for a 9 1/2 hour layover and the hotel wants YOUR credit card imprint in case the airline doesn't pay the hotel.


Sent from my Colecovision Adam

Daayyyyymmmm!

 

[derg]

Daayyyyymmmm!

And going bankrupt, not going bankrupt or getting into or out of bankruptcy is completely out of your control.

But they'll point fingers at your pilot group first.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

So if you write things up, it's a job action, but if you don't write things up, it'll cost you your job?

If you've always been writing everything up from the beginning, then there is no problem, because there is no change in status quo. The problem comes in when pilots let things slide as the normal course of business, but then start writing things up when labor relations aren't to their liking. Then the status quo changes, and the judge gets pissed. If you always write everything up, regardless of the labor relations environment, then you're at no risk.

 

[jtrain609]

If you've always been writing everything up from the beginning, then there is no problem, because there is no change in status quo. The problem comes in when pilots let things slide as the normal course of business, but then start writing things up when labor relations aren't to their liking. Then the status quo changes, and the judge gets pissed. If you always write everything up, regardless of the labor relations environment, then you're at no risk.

That wasn't my point. My point was that the labor law affects the union as a whole, where the FAA rules affect pilots individually.

 

[Nick]

If you've always been writing everything up from the beginning, then there is no problem, because there is no change in status quo. The problem comes in when pilots let things slide as the normal course of business, but then start writing things up when labor relations aren't to their liking. Then the status quo changes, and the judge gets pissed. If you always write everything up, regardless of the labor relations environment, then you're at no risk.

I think I said earlier in the thread, that's the stress-free method I have employed.

$300 to send a mechanic over at an outstation to write a dozen words and sign his name? Not my problem.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

That wasn't my point. My point was that the labor law affects the union as a whole, where the FAA rules affect pilots individually.

Actually, both affect pilots individually. Arbitrators have enforced the status quo requirement of the RLA by upholding terminations of individual pilots who management claimed engaged in one-man illegal job actions. In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Which is a very good reason why you should always write things up, regardless of the labor relations climate. That's the only way to truly protect yourself at all times.

 

[ClearedToThe]

Actually, both affect pilots individually. Arbitrators have enforced the status quo requirement of the RLA by upholding terminations of individual pilots who management claimed engaged in one-man illegal job actions. In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Which is a very good reason why you should always write things up, regardless of the labor relations climate. That's the only way to truly protect yourself at all times.

Try telling that to the CA on the last leg of a 4-day who has a tight connection to make his commute. Funny how things get wrote up in that situation now that one's carrier is imposing harsh labor terms. Safety first right?...only if your company is screwing you royally apparently.

 

[FXMXC]

If you've always been writing everything up from the beginning, then there is no problem, because there is no change in status quo. The problem comes in when pilots let things slide as the normal course of business, but then start writing things up when labor relations aren't to their liking. Then the status quo changes, and the judge gets pissed. If you always write everything up, regardless of the labor relations environment, then you're at no risk.

Yep funny how that is..It is a double edge sword. Pilots have been known to sit on minor write ups until they get to an MX base and thats cool I mean no pilot is going to sit on a real MX issue. But lets face it when I worked the line I could really if I wanted to keep almost every a/c on the ground or at least delay it if I wanted to go by the book. We all strive to keep the a/c moving but in reality if we really wanted to be "legal" we could grind most operations to a halt. We as mechanics and pilots walk a tightrope know we have to balance legal and safe with keeping the operation profitable and moving. But in cases like this it really makes you think you should have done it by the book the whole time. I know when we were on strike in 2005 AMFA mechanics I saw things that I would have never believed. How the FAA turned a blind eye to real problems there seems everyone was bought and paid for.. Bush was president and was in the pocket of NWA management as was the FAA. Some pilots at NW sat on write ups during the strike afraid of going into BK which happened anyway. Certainly opened my eyes. I wish the AA guys best of luck they will need it.

 

[derg]

Having been thru the joy that is bankruptcy, of its broken, write it up.

If the general public thinks a plane is maintained just as well as its maintained after they stop paying their bills in bankruptcy, I'm sorry but I've got some awesome beachfront property I'd like to sell them in Flagstaff, Arizona.

There reaches a point where you stop carrying things back to the maintenance base and bending over backwards to make things work.

If you're not flying an airworthy jet and you get busted, the company will not have your back and the union cannot have your back.

Protect yourself.

Been there, done that.

 

[derg]

"YURRRRR on a work action!"

"Call it what you want but the fuel flow indicator is inop and so is the fuel tank indication in that wing, which conflicts with the MEL. And looks like the APU isn't starting either... And we've still got an open writeup from the last crew. What would you like?"

 

[derg]

"YURRRRR on a work action!"

"Call it what you want but the fuel flow indicator is inop and so is the fuel tank indication in that wing, which conflicts with the MEL. And looks like the APU isn't starting either... And we've still got an open writeup from the last crew. What would you like?"

I went through crap like that daily.