Well, date of hire works great for a merger of two very similar carriers, but that's a rarity if not an impossibility.
For a period of time, some of the most senior America West pilots were "junior" to some of the least senior, furloughed pilots at USAirways. Date of hire would have meant that, technically speaking, the senior captain at America West could displace to first officer or even get furloughed and the US Airways pilot who has been on furlough comes back to work.
Of course, "technically speaking".
But then you can staple, like American did with TWA, which didn't work out very well and there are lawsuits-a-plenty.
You could acquire like Southwest did Muse Air and American Trans Air and just gut the operation.
You can have "no bump no flush" language, or language similar to what Northwest had when it merged with Republic but I won't EEEEEEEEVEN try to exhume that corpse and try to describe it.
Ours at Southernjets, in a very VERY simple explanation, was what you could hold before the merger would be would you would be able to old AFTER the merger. So if you were a bottom of the barrel reserve on the DC-9, after the merger, you would still be a bottom of the barrel reserve on the DC-9 and categorized with similar bottom of the barrel reserves on similar equipment at the other carrier.
Some people expected date of hire.
Some expected to keep their "number", which was hilarious because one gentlemen I had the "pleasure" of having my quiet lunch interrupted when the list came out was 5,000 of 5,100 (or something like that, these are NOT exact numbers obviously) and "numerically expected" to be 5,000 of 11,000 and moving from reserve FO on the 757 to, widebody international captain.
Seniority list integration is a messy business, especially when you mix arrogance ("We have super premium flying and we don't consider your widebodies true widebodies"), greed ("break out the Swingline stapler and staple them!"), groupthink ("We saved YOU guys, you should be happy you aren't furloughed!"/"We were the stronger carrier, but the banking interests ran us through bankruptcy and financed your acquisition of us because it was cheaper than letting YOU go bankrupt and they liked your management more than ours") and pride ("We are a better airline, thus, we should bear the spoils").
We had a smooth SLI. Not too many lawsuits, everyone is largely "Meh.... same as it ever was", yes, there are still people on the DALPA forum exhuming dead horse corpses and beating the tarnations out of it, but then there are also those in our profession that would bitch about "Free Taco Tuesday" because it's being held outside of the SIDA and they have to take their shoes off when going through the checkpoint.
Blarg.
I'll tell you this, that if USAPA expects to waltz into negotiations with the APA without their own house in order holding onto delusions of what they want to do with the Nicolau award, they're going to get their hats handed to them.
'Merrkun don't mess 'round.
For a period of time, some of the most senior America West pilots were "junior" to some of the least senior, furloughed pilots at USAirways. Date of hire would have meant that, technically speaking, the senior captain at America West could displace to first officer or even get furloughed and the US Airways pilot who has been on furlough comes back to work.
Of course, "technically speaking".
But then you can staple, like American did with TWA, which didn't work out very well and there are lawsuits-a-plenty.
You could acquire like Southwest did Muse Air and American Trans Air and just gut the operation.
You can have "no bump no flush" language, or language similar to what Northwest had when it merged with Republic but I won't EEEEEEEEVEN try to exhume that corpse and try to describe it.
Ours at Southernjets, in a very VERY simple explanation, was what you could hold before the merger would be would you would be able to old AFTER the merger. So if you were a bottom of the barrel reserve on the DC-9, after the merger, you would still be a bottom of the barrel reserve on the DC-9 and categorized with similar bottom of the barrel reserves on similar equipment at the other carrier.
Some people expected date of hire.
Some expected to keep their "number", which was hilarious because one gentlemen I had the "pleasure" of having my quiet lunch interrupted when the list came out was 5,000 of 5,100 (or something like that, these are NOT exact numbers obviously) and "numerically expected" to be 5,000 of 11,000 and moving from reserve FO on the 757 to, widebody international captain.
Seniority list integration is a messy business, especially when you mix arrogance ("We have super premium flying and we don't consider your widebodies true widebodies"), greed ("break out the Swingline stapler and staple them!"), groupthink ("We saved YOU guys, you should be happy you aren't furloughed!"/"We were the stronger carrier, but the banking interests ran us through bankruptcy and financed your acquisition of us because it was cheaper than letting YOU go bankrupt and they liked your management more than ours") and pride ("We are a better airline, thus, we should bear the spoils").
We had a smooth SLI. Not too many lawsuits, everyone is largely "Meh.... same as it ever was", yes, there are still people on the DALPA forum exhuming dead horse corpses and beating the tarnations out of it, but then there are also those in our profession that would bitch about "Free Taco Tuesday" because it's being held outside of the SIDA and they have to take their shoes off when going through the checkpoint.
Blarg.
I'll tell you this, that if USAPA expects to waltz into negotiations with the APA without their own house in order holding onto delusions of what they want to do with the Nicolau award, they're going to get their hats handed to them.
'Merrkun don't mess 'round.
