Scope Bribe

Here is Today's report on negotiations from Terry Maxon.
American Airlines says nope on APA contract proposal, but agrees to pull ‘scope’ changes
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By Terry Maxon
Follow @tmaxon
tmaxon@dallasnews.com
5:28 pm on November 18, 2014 | Permalink



We’re hearing from both the pilot and airline side Tuesday that American Airlines turned down the contract proposal from the Allied Pilots Association and put its original proposal back on the table.

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However, AA also pulled its controversial proposal to change its “scope” clause. (Note this is dated Tuesday, Nov 18th, so it means that the company has also pulled the scope change, not just the ask for 81 seats. The new company proposal is no change to scope at all. AA scope will be the same as Delta and United)

The APA board of directors is meeting Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the contract negotiations and decide if there’s anything to take to the membership for a vote.

The airline has told union leaders that if APA can’t accept the contract proposal, American is okay with going to the next step, binding arbitration.

The change in the scope clause affected how many regional jets of a certain size could be flown by regional partners. The current APA contract puts airplanes with 30 to 65 seats in that category. American proposed raising it to 70 seats. In face of pilot unhappiness, it dropped that proposal.

Both the airline and APA proposals would give pilots a pay raise that put rates higher than Delta Air Lines, but the APA proposal would give pilots substantially more than the airline proposal. The union put in an extra 10 percent, roughly speaking, because American doesn’t pay profit-sharing while Delta does.

In related news, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants board of directors meets Wednesday at a Grapevine hotel to map out the union’s strategy for its arbitration hearings with American.

APFA members voted to turn down a proposed contract. According to an agreement between the union and the airline, the matter now goes to binding arbitration, with hearings to begin Dec. 3.

The union told members in a Tuesday hotline that APFA leaders and American Airlines representatives sat down Monday with National Mediation Board members to prepare for the arbitration.

In both the pilot and flight attendant cases, the unions and the airlines are trying to combine the separate contracts of US Airways and American. The two carriers merged in December 2013, but the two airlines still have separate contracts for pilots, flight attendants and other employee groups.
 
Scope was never on the table this was all just a ploy to make it look like the company conceded on scope. "We want 81 seats", "ok ok, same seats just more rjs", "ok ok, you win guys. We wont change scope AND you get a pay raise right now! See we did the right thing"

They know the over 60 crowd will see the dal + 6% and want to sign up. Never mind that the contract still doesn't have a min day or any other work rule or the fact that if we wait we might get more money in a year.

We all got played.
 
skyw82 said:
Scope was never on the table this was all just a ploy to make it look like the company conceded on scope. "We want 81 seats", "ok ok, same seats just more rjs", "ok ok, you win guys. We wont change scope AND you get a pay raise right now! See we did the right thing"

They know the over 60 crowd will see the dal + 6% and want to sign up. Never mind that the contract still doesn't have a min day or any other work rule or the fact that if we wait we might get more money in a year.

We all got played.
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We aren't negotiating a contract. That isn't for many more years.

Going to arbitration won't give you a min day or any other work rule improvement unless it comes out of the pay side of the equation.

Parker's offer, sans scope, is a good offer and it blows me away that guys are sticking up their noses to it. We turn it down, we will get less for half a decade. Remember, there are multiple TA's that have already been agreed to that would disappear if we went to arbitration as well.

On the companies side, very little is being given up. Night time sim slots for landing currency? You'd turn down the pay raise now just in the off chance you have to do three bounces at 2 am? International and domestic ops together? We already do that on the Airways side. In fact, most of what they have on the table, would probably be considered cost neutral to an arbitrator.
 
wheelsup said:
We aren't negotiating a contract. That isn't for many more years.

Going to arbitration won't give you a min day or any other work rule improvement unless it comes out of the pay side of the equation.

Parker's offer, sans scope, is a good offer and it blows me away that guys are sticking up their noses to it. We turn it down, we will get less for half a decade. Remember, there are multiple TA's that have already been agreed to that would disappear if we went to arbitration as well.

On the companies side, very little is being given up. Night time sim slots for landing currency? You'd turn down the pay raise now just in the off chance you have to do three bounces at 2 am? International and domestic ops together? We already do that on the Airways side. In fact, most of what they have on the table, would probably be considered cost neutral to an arbitrator.
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domestic and international would result in a loss of jobs. There is also the hard two hours short call concession.
there should be no concessions at all, none.
 
skyw82 said:
domestic and international would result in a loss of jobs. There is also the hard two hours short call concession.
there should be no concessions at all, none.
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We could easily lose that in arbitration. And a lot more.

The two hour callout especially would be easy to implement. You're not even working under the There really is no cost value of that at all, and AW has a 2 hour call out and LUS has a 90 min one. Same with the night time landing currency. Really no cost at all, it's not like it has a value like min day, or a hard pay rate.

The purpose of these talks is to combine all 3 contracts into one. And do it on a cost neutral basis if no agreement is made. People are forgetting that, and think these are standard contract negotiations.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
No, it's definitely not good for the senior people. Say you're a senior guy, your last two legs get canceled, and now you have the opportunity to get home a day earlier than planned. You show up at the gate to non-rev or jumpseat, and some jackwagon 20 years junior to you has the seat reserved. Pure BS.

Seniority over all else. It's the great equalizer.
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Have you ever been a part of a system like Airways?
 
I'm all over the map about it. On one had I totally agree..we are not sec 6 and we should be happy with the rates we are getting. I do feel that the other stuff will be lost in arbitration with no benefit to us monetarily at that point. On the other hand, I feel the company is good at trying to gauge from what us just exactly the minimum it will take to cross the threshold to accept a TA. Smart on them. It sounds like they still want to bargain...we need to not give in so quick. I don't think arbitration is beneficial for either side. These guys are smart..the profits for this company will be around for a long time. They want to lock us in for years while some of the biggest profits the industry has seen will probably take place. We need to make sure to play our hand right. Let's see how this week unfolds.
 
I have to agree with Wheels up. There is a real danger in going to arbitration. The arbitration language is cost neutral, meaning the company can get cuts, it couldn't get otherwise to make a "cost neutral" contract.

The new pay rates come with some dowers. "Reasonably available by surface transportation" now becomes a hard 2 hour report. There are other other issues as well. However, holding tight and allowing an arbitrator to decide on a Decade long agreement that will only rise on the combined pay rates of Delta /United is not the best option. It is my understanding that United will not likely have a contract by Jan 1 2016, so the combined Delta / United rate will be lower than whatever it is Delta gets.

The offer on the table is current Delta + 10% and 3% for each year after. This is really like "Let's make a deal." "Come on Down", do you want Delta + 10% and 3% a year thereafter or do you want what's behind door number 2. It could be a shiny new car or it could be a billy-goat.

My humble suggestion would be for APA leadership to spell out what exactly the company asks are, what in the the contract the pilots will be giving up, and in particular how high Delta rates would have to go to beat this deal in arbitration. Then at least we have a better picture of the "gives and gets". I would make my decision then.
 
It's delta plus 3%, not 10%. And they will leapfrog us and so will united.

If going the route of arbitration means we get to section 6 quicker (to negotiate a real contract with real work rules), then I think that outweighs the one year of a pay raise. I believe the MOU ends in 2018 where the proposal ends in 2019.

Then again by then we will probably be in an economic downturn. That's why I laugh when Dougie talks about higher pay rates over profit sharing as it's better for when we aren't making money. In the real world when we aren't making money they get concessions or bankruptcy contracts.
 
AAPalmTree said:
I'm confused. On the last page you were knocking the Jumpseat reservation system and now you're saying you're not familiar with it...
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No, I was knocking the generic idea that seniority shouldn't be used in determining jumpseat or non-rev priority. I don't know the specifics of the Airways system, which is what you asked. But if those specifics involve anything other than pure seniority, then I wouldn't be in favor of it.
 
Zapphod Beblebrox said:
I have to agree with Wheels up. There is a real danger in going to arbitration. The arbitration language is cost neutral, meaning the company can get cuts, it couldn't get otherwise to make a "cost neutral" contract.

The new pay rates come with some dowers. "Reasonably available by surface transportation" now becomes a hard 2 hour report. There are other other issues as well. However, holding tight and allowing an arbitrator to decide on a Decade long agreement that will only rise on the combined pay rates of Delta /United is not the best option. It is my understanding that United will not likely have a contract by Jan 1 2016, so the combined Delta / United rate will be lower than whatever it is Delta gets.

The offer on the table is current Delta + 10% and 3% for each year after. This is really like "Let's make a deal." "Come on Down", do you want Delta + 10% and 3% a year thereafter or do you want what's behind door number 2. It could be a shiny new car or it could be a billy-goat.

My humble suggestion would be for APA leadership to spell out what exactly the company asks are, what in the the contract the pilots will be giving up, and in particular how high Delta rates would have to go to beat this deal in arbitration. Then at least we have a better picture of the "gives and gets". I would make my decision then.
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A lot of people are just repeating the anger that they've seen someone else express. If enough people post on forums and social media that "This is a POS contract, slap in the face, total BS"! then it spreads on. I wonder what other airlines have for short call reserve callout? Im not sure how reasonable it is to believe that mgmt. wouldn't want to fix the loophole of "reasonable ground time". How common is landing currency in a sim after midnight? Are we really read to give up 20K+ just this year, just so in the off chance one year you don't have to go to the sim at nighT? I can see the idea of wanting a shorter contract and hopefully they can negotiate that. We all look back to our regional days and everyone wants to be the tough guy who voted "NO!", but I don't think this is a situation where we want to stomp on it and think were going to be in a better position in arbitration.
 
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