Repealing the RLA

[kellwolf]

The problem is that allowing labor to simply refuse to go to work when they disagree with an interpretation means that labor has the ability to shut down the operation. In other words, pseudo-strike. That gives labor all of the power, and there is no way that any lawmaker would ever agree to such a thing. There has to be a balance of power between labor and management.

I can see that, but my problem is when there's a BLATANT violation of the contract. If I KNOW I'm right to stand my ground, why should we have a "fly now, grieve later" mentality? That just allows the company to violate the contract when they see fit to make the operation run, say "Ooops, we messed up" 6-9 months down the road when you eventually get to the grievance hearing, and you might get a couple of bucks or an extra day off. End result is the company got away with violating the contract when they needed to, which was the whole point of having whatever they violated in place to begin with.

For example, let's say (before Part 117 for simplicity's sake) your contract said you were a pumpkin after 14 hours of duty. You duty on at 7 am, and it's now 7:30 pm. Your flight is delayed, and you'll go past 14 hours of duty by the time you're scheduled to land. Company says "Nope. You dutied on at 8 am since your flight in the morning was delayed." You've got the schedule in your hand that says you started at 7 am. Math is universal in this case, so you're 100% in the right. Company is still pushing. CP isn't answering, and the on call duty manager is a scheduling supervisor, so we know which way they're pushing you. No FARs are being violated since you'd be done inside of 16 hours, so the FAA doesn't really care either. However, your union rep says "Fly it. We'll grieve it later." Why is this the case? Everyone can friggin add 7+14 to get "You're timed out." It's not my fault there's a snowstorm in JFK and my ORF flight is delayed. But if I say "I'm not doing it," even though I'm 100% right (and there's really no "interpretation" here), I get in trouble for it. That's my biggest beef with CBAs in the current environment. There are ironclad rules there, but when put in a situation where the company is violating them, we've really got no teeth if they dig in and say "Do it." And yeah, this did happen to me. Yeah, I filed a grievance. I got a whopping 1:30 at JM pay 6 months later for the one leg I flew. The company didn't have to cancel their flight, so I'm sure they were over the moon that that's all they had to shell out. They'll take that deal any day of the week......

 

[BobDDuck]

For example, let's say (before Part 117 for simplicity's sake) your contract said you were a pumpkin after 14 hours of duty. You duty on at 7 am, and it's now 7:30 pm. Your flight is delayed, and you'll go past 14 hours of duty by the time you're scheduled to land. Company says "Nope. You dutied on at 8 am since your flight in the morning was delayed." You've got the schedule in your hand that says you started at 7 am. Math is universal in this case, so you're 100% in the right. Company is still pushing. CP isn't answering, and the on call duty manager is a scheduling supervisor, so we know which way they're pushing you.

The trick is to have a big enough contract enforcement committee so you can reach somebody all the time. An EVERY guy or gal on that committee must know the contract with such certainty that if they make the call to the scheduling supervisor and say "hey, you guys are wrong" it gets listened to. If you don't have that in place then you are right. Lots of times you get pushed into a corner.

 

[deadstick]

I'm no lawyer, but this is an excerpt from the SC right to work statute. I don't expect you, or even JTrain to be well versed in each state's laws, but it has always been my understanding that agency shop is illegal in SC (my home state).

Obviously I defer to JTrain on this, and if my interpretation is incorrect, please let me know how.

Section 41-7-50 below prevents contracts that require agency shop (or any other violation of SC's right to work laws).



http://www.scstatehouse.gov/query.php?search=DOC&searchtext=41 7 10&category=CODEOFLAWS&conid=6808051&result_pos=0&keyval=793&numrows=10

SECTION 41-7-30. Labor organization membership as condition of employment. [SC ST SEC 41-7-30]

(A) It is unlawful for an employer to require an employee, as a condition of employment, or of continuance of employment to:

(1) be or become or remain a member or affiliate of a labor organization or agency;

(2) abstain or refrain from membership in a labor organization; or

(3) pay any fees, dues, assessments, or other charges or sums of money to a person or organization.

SECTION 41-7-50. Labor organization contract violating right to work provisions. [SC ST SEC 41-7-50]

It shall be unlawful for any labor organization to enter into or seek to effect any agreement, contract or arrangement with any employer declared to be unlawful by §§ 41-7-20 or 41-7-30.

HISTORY: 1962 Code § 40-46.4; 1954 (48) 1692.

Kinda why Boeing built the plant in Charleston.

However, I will say the RLA is a Federal Law, which overrides any state law.

Unless it deals with pot. Then the administration will let it ride.

This is an interesting disconnect. I'll never understand why any airline pilot is conservative. It's clearly not in their favor, yet I fly with hard core GOP voting guys all the time.

It's like my wife's patients who are on Medicare, yet vote Republican. Really? How does that make sense?

Because some can look beyond a single issue.* Flying at an airline is something many will do for only 20 or so days a month for 30 years. Our children's lives and retirement will suck if the country has gone to crap.


* Full disclosure: I don't watch Fox News or listen to Rush.

 

[HVYMETALDRVR]

I can see that, but my problem is when there's a BLATANT violation of the contract. If I KNOW I'm right to stand my ground, why should we have a "fly now, grieve later" mentality? That just allows the company to violate the contract when they see fit to make the operation run, say "Ooops, we messed up" 6-9 months down the road when you eventually get to the grievance hearing, and you might get a couple of bucks or an extra day off. End result is the company got away with violating the contract when they needed to, which was the whole point of having whatever they violated in place to begin with.

For example, let's say (before Part 117 for simplicity's sake) your contract said you were a pumpkin after 14 hours of duty. You duty on at 7 am, and it's now 7:30 pm. Your flight is delayed, and you'll go past 14 hours of duty by the time you're scheduled to land. Company says "Nope. You dutied on at 8 am since your flight in the morning was delayed." You've got the schedule in your hand that says you started at 7 am. Math is universal in this case, so you're 100% in the right. Company is still pushing. CP isn't answering, and the on call duty manager is a scheduling supervisor, so we know which way they're pushing you. No FARs are being violated since you'd be done inside of 16 hours, so the FAA doesn't really care either. However, your union rep says "Fly it. We'll grieve it later." Why is this the case? Everyone can friggin add 7+14 to get "You're timed out." It's not my fault there's a snowstorm in JFK and my ORF flight is delayed. But if I say "I'm not doing it," even though I'm 100% right (and there's really no "interpretation" here), I get in trouble for it. That's my biggest beef with CBAs in the current environment. There are ironclad rules there, but when put in a situation where the company is violating them, we've really got no teeth if they dig in and say "Do it." And yeah, this did happen to me. Yeah, I filed a grievance. I got a whopping 1:30 at JM pay 6 months later for the one leg I flew. The company didn't have to cancel their flight, so I'm sure they were over the moon that that's all they had to shell out. They'll take that deal any day of the week......

This. And in the case I mentioned, just a slap on the wrist for the company no fine and they knew they were blatantly violating it, they just wanted the flight out on time.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

"Fly it. We'll grieve it later." Why is this the case?

Because the opposing party is in control of your employment. If you refuse it flat out, then they can fire you and allow the arbitrator to sort it out later. You can certainly do that if you like, but it's usually not the smartest move, because like I said, the company usually has an arguable basis for their interpretation. And when they explain that arguable basis to an arbitrator, he's not going to be so sympathetic with your decision to simply not go to work. You might get your job back, but probably without any back pay. Is a few months without pay worth it to prove your point? Probably not.

But hey, I'm not opposed to taking the risk under certain circumstances. If I absolutely know that I'm in the right, then I have no problem telling them that I'm simply not going to do it. But I also understand that I risk termination by doing so.

 

[Maurus]

I understand the fly it then grieve it thing but the process needs to be faster. XJT is currently taking advantage of the slow process by just not restoring rolled days off at all. If the penalties hit them faster they may think twice before ignoring the contract.

 

[jtrain609]

I understand the fly it then grieve it thing but the process needs to be faster. XJT is currently taking advantage of the slow process by just not restoring rolled days off at all. If the penalties hit them faster they may think twice before ignoring the contract.

Rdo's are nothing. What about manually adding flying to schedules AFTER PBS has ran in order to bring everyone down to min days?

 

[surreal1221]

Rdo's are nothing. What about manually adding flying to schedules AFTER PBS has ran in order to bring everyone down to min days?

lol...oh that's rich.

Who negotiated your folks SmartPref PBS garbage language? I imagine they didn't utilize our subject matter expert(s).

 

[Maurus]

Rdo's are nothing. What about manually adding flying to schedules AFTER PBS has ran in order to bring everyone down to min days?

Exactly. Also just completely ignoring the line building portion of our contract as well for March. I actually benefited from it but tons of others got screwed.

Until the grievance process finally unfolds it will essentially be like section 21 does not exist.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I understand the fly it then grieve it thing but the process needs to be faster.

How fast do you expect? You have to remember, we're at the mercy of arbitrator schedules. Sometimes they aren't available for 6+ months.

 

[Maurus]

How fast do you expect? You have to remember, we're at the mercy of arbitrator schedules. Sometimes they aren't available for 6+ months.

I'm just curious but how fast would they come down on an illegal work action?

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[jtrain609]

I'm just curious but how fast would they come down on an illegal work action?

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The difference is that a court would be dropping the hammer on an illegal work action, not an arbitrator.

 

[BobDDuck]

How fast do you expect? You have to remember, we're at the mercy of arbitrator schedules. Sometimes they aren't available for 6+ months.

For a while we would just schedule an arbitrator for a case date every 2 months and tell them we'd let them know what it was about later.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

For a while we would just schedule an arbitrator for a case date every 2 months and tell them we'd let them know what it was about later.

Yeah, we got to that point, too. Of course, you can still only process about 4-6 arbitrations a month, and that's really working your ass off. When you get a huge caseload, it takes a while to get them all handled.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I'm just curious but how fast would they come down on an illegal work action?

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You have to remember that an illegal work action strands hundreds of thousands of customers and can have devastating effects on local economies (and even national economies for "mega carriers"). Courts take emergency action to stop that. You losing your day off because of a scheduling interpretation disagreement doesn't quite meet the same threshold.

 

[Maurus]

You have to remember that an illegal work action strands hundreds of thousands of customers and can have devastating effects on local economies (and even national economies for "mega carriers"). Courts take emergency action to stop that. You losing your day off because of a scheduling interpretation disagreement doesn't quite meet the same threshold.

Well an illegal job action can be much more subtle than that. You are just trying to make the comparison seem far apart by using the two extremes. It could be as simple as a write up campaign or just finding ways to cost the company money while not hurting the passengers.

Personally I am not all that pissed about not getting my days back but seeing management not restore RDOs, cancel vacations, modify the PBS awards for our relief lines, ignore line building requirements all in about 1 month makes me wonder why they can't get the grievance expedited if management goes off the deep end eventually.

Really that is all that needs fixed with the grievance process. Hire some more people to take care of this stuff so it is done in a reasonable amount of time.

I'm not saying that pilots should do an illegal job action, I'm just using it as an example where labor gets hit nearly immediately but management can ignore a contract and have time to prep. Not to mention the delay discourages pilots from thinking that ALPA cares. That is a constant complaint I hear. "The company does X and ALPA does nothing!"

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Well an illegal job action can be much more subtle than that. You are just trying to make the comparison seem far apart by using the two extremes. It could be as simple as a write up campaign or just finding ways to cost the company money while not hurting the passengers.

Whether it's a strike or a write-up campaign, the end result is the same: passengers who are not a party to your dispute are suffering the consequences. The law is specifically written to avoid that as much as possible, as it should be.

makes me wonder why they can't get the grievance expedited if management goes off the deep end eventually.

Again, even if you expedite a grievance, you could still be looking at 6+ months to get to the arbitrator, then another 3 months to get his ruling. There is no such thing as rapid results when you have to have a neutral third party figure out who is in the right. There's no way to avoid that.

Really that is all that needs fixed with the grievance process. Hire some more people to take care of this stuff so it is done in a reasonable amount of time.

There are only so many arbitrators to go around. And frankly, most of them suck and you wouldn't want anything to do with them. The problem isn't union staff or company staff, the problem is getting arbitrators scheduled.

 

[surreal1221]

Actually, the problem is being a pilot in the first place.

A larger problem is when your only skill is as a pilot.

This condition causes one to think they have power where, in reality, they do not.

 

[jonny]

I signed the petition. Not because I think the RLA needs to go away, but much like the old rest rules from the 50's and 60's, the RLA needs to be revised. I can't think of another way to even get it to show up on radar other than over 100,000 people saying "this isn't right and needs to be changed or tossed and re-done based on the facts of what air travel has become." This ain't 1936, and this ain't the railroad.

 

[DL31082]

The grievance process unfortunately is long, but some of that is because of the company. We can present them with a case at pre-grievance. Then we talk again at a grievance hearing. They can choose to either give us a decision or wait until it times out and it automatically becomes a denial.

The it goes to one of the 4 mediation sessions each year. We do one a quarter. That schedule is because the mediator isn't immediately available so we schedule then at the end of the year for the next year. If a decision still isnt reached we go to the arbitrator. That can take a while trying to line up his schedule. It's a pain and it takes awhile, but a lot of the timeline isnt under the control of the union.