Long and worth reading. From John Nikides, LAX f/a The Final 48 Hours… As you can imagine, I have received numerous questions as to my feelings about the TA. I also have witnessed many exchanges on Facebook pages, both pro- and anti-TA, but chose not to wade into the waters at that point in time as I was sensitive to the perception amongst many members that… 1. APFA reps would, of course, support the agreement without question, and 2. APFA reps have an agenda separate, and opposed, to the interests of the people they represent, and 3. APFA is trying to coerce the membership into voting yes. For those of you who do not already know, I do not fall to coercion or manipulation. Nobody in the APFA leadership has prompted or asked me to comment. I am writing to you as John Nikides, the APFA member and flight attendant, and NOT as John Nikides, APFA LAX President. I will be a flight attendant long after I leave my union position, and my commitment to APFA is only secondary to my commitment to my fellow flight attendants. I have been here a long time. I have voted on many agreements. My history proves that regardless of my union position, my support for any given agreement is NOT unconditional. I voted NO on the Foreign National Agreement; NO on the April 22, 1995 agreement; NO on the mid-90s Scheduling Initiatives; NO on TA 1 in 1999; and NO on the RPA of 2003. For anybody not familiar with 2003, my strident opposition to the RPA and the way in which it was handled is memorialized in depositions and court documents. In most of these cases, I was holding a union position at the time, and chose to plot my own course when it came to voting. I am a born contrarian and am impervious to threats or being mesmerized. Some of you reading this will agree; some of you will, perhaps, not agree; and yet others will say, “Who cares what he has to say?” But, the question as to my feelings about the agreement WAS asked repeatedly, and I decided to finally share those feelings as I entered the LAX Road Show meeting room yesterday and the day before. To be honest, I had no intention of speaking, but my silence was, in fact, being misunderstood. What began as my decision to stand back out of respect for the membership, and for the sensitivity towards union pressure, was often misunderstood as opposition or discontent. It became obvious to me that I could no longer simply sit back and say nothing. I am voting Yes. Some of you will choose not to read any further and that is your right. Others will continue reading, and my hope is that they understand that, ultimately, my commitment is to this membership and the people I represent. I owe nobody at APFA. My vote is my vote. Period. I am but one man…and one vote. It is my ardent belief…even in light of my, in some cases, fervent, opposition to several APFA agreements…that nobody enters negotiations thinking, “I am going to aim for a sub-standard agreement.” Each agreement has represented the blood, sweat and tears of a group of people who tried to get the best agreement possible. I was amongst the first group of B-scalers. I will admit that I bore a grudge for many years against the 1983 Negotiating Team, as well as against the Yes voters in the 1983 B-scale contract balloting. It ate away at me, but finally, I realized that they did what they could given the circumstances at the time, both within the airline and outside. Was it the best contract? For me, certainly not. But I know that there were many A-scalers for which it represented the best possible outcome for their own particular circumstance. After 3 years on B-scale, and with promises from APFA that they would eliminate B-scale, I walked picket line after picket line as SFO Vice-Chairperson to bring about that end. After contentious negotiations with an intransigent management team, and after a near-strike, I was crestfallen when a member of the Negotiating Team revealed to me that we had “won” a 9 year merge. As a 24 year old, with 3 years of seniority, I remember thinking, “I should live that long.” There has NEVER been an agreement with which I have been completely happy. Each agreement contained provisions I liked; provisions I hated; provisions about which I was neutral and provisions that were conspicuously absent but which were a priority to me. Even the much-touted 2001 agreement held its share of disappointments for me. The 2001 agreement was rich in advancements in wages; improvements to International Crew rest; and a reduction in the retirement age to 60. It was, however, short on scheduling improvements and advancements in quality of work life issues. While wages were slated to improve over the course of the agreement, scheduling provisions, the reserve system, and TTOT remained essentially “old school.” Pay protection still remained out of reach, and the only change was an increase of the “Last 5 Days” provision to 7 days. My comments are not intended to discredit or denigrate past negotiating teams, but are meant to illustrate that whatever agreement they reached would be found to be lacking by somebody, and that, at the end of the day, it is the decision of each individual as to how their ratio of satisfaction to dissatisfaction will shape their vote. However, life is about risk and consequence. With EVERY contract vote, we have run the risk that the consequence will be an ultimately inferior result. However, with EVERY previous contract vote, we had a viable alternative. Arbitration in this case, with its inherent limitations, will not yield a better outcome, and that is a viewpoint shared by each of the experts, APFA attorney Rob Clayman, AFA Staff Attorney Joe Burns and Airline Economist Dan Akins. My belief in their contention that we will ultimately lose in arbitration does NOT come from blind faith. It is borne from my knowledge of their work and of their qualifications, and also from personal experience. Following our strike in 1993, the outstanding issues were sent to arbitration. APFA’s case was expertly presented. They painted a picture of an impoverished work force comprised of approximately 5000 A-scale flight attendants who had not seen a raise since the mid-1980s and a much larger group of B-scale flight attendants who would have to work 9 years before they could make a living wage. Further, even when B-scalers merged, it was to a wage scale that had not increased since 1983. Were the arbitrators persuaded by our heart-wrenching story? Did the arbitrators realize that this group of hard-working people who made American Airlines number one deserved the very best? Were the arbitrators moved by our unity and solidarity in essentially shutting down American Airlines during 5 historic days in November 1993? Did they feel compelled to reward us for our sacrifices? No. Somewhere in my union archives, I have a copy of that arbitration decision. Despite all we had done…despite how much we deserved it…despite how aggrieved we were…despite the masterful job our attorneys had done, even going so far as putting struggling flight attendants on the stand to testify with their heart-breaking stories…the arbitration panel set our wages BELOW United’s. The written words of the arbitration panel still echo in my mind…American’s flight attendant wage scales had never exceeded United’s therefore, in their opinion, they could not and would not award us wages in excess of those enjoyed by United flight attendants. We deserved the best…we worked for the leading airline…but we were very coldly and clinically subjugated to second-class status behind United based only on history. Did we get what we deserve? No. And why is that? Because life is inherently unfair. That is not a cop-out. It is not an abdication of my right to fight for what I want and deserve. It is reality. In the instant TA, it is not a question of “Do we deserve it?” Of course, we deserve it. Of course we should get everything we want. But is that possible? This is not Section 6 negotiations. Arbitration…particularly as we learned following the strike…is cold, clinical and blind to what we DESERVE. Arbitration looks at the facts and circumstances with an eye every bit as calculating as the one we face at the negotiating table. During normal Section 6 negotiations, the consequence of voting down a tentative agreement results in the risk that you will continue to chase your own tail at the negotiating table for a further indeterminate period of time. In the case of this TA, the consequence that will most assuredly follow the risk of voting it down is a certainty, and that certainty is that we will ultimately receive LESS. That is not a threat. That is not a scare tactic. That is not strong-arming. That is reality. And, as we learned following our strike, the arbitrators’ professional responsibility is not to determine if we deserve it. They do not rule based on the fact that we are good people who have sacrificed for so long. They simply care about doing a job that, to them, is very straightforward….to award a contract that falls within strict economic parameters. They MAY empathize with us…but they are prevented from doing more than what they are permitted to do according to the Negotiations Protocol Agreement (the very agreement that allowed us to move forward with this merger…to exit bankruptcy successfully and on our feet…and to be in the position of negotiating a far better contract a short 11 months after exiting bankruptcy.) Do I want more? Yes. Is it possible under this set of circumstances? Not according to everything I have learned. Am I willing to roll the dice on the off-chance that those tasked to look out for our interests are lying to us? Sometimes, yes…but not this time. Arbitration as a backstop was a necessity in order to gain the support of the creditors for the merger. Failing the merger, neither AA nor US, as standalones, could have competed against the Deltas and Uniteds of the world, and on the AA side, we would still be staring at Tom Horton’s face leering at us from the home page of Jetnet, knowing that his Robber Baron tactics and mismanagement would ultimately land us back in bankruptcy. I am NOT risk-adverse. The normal consequence of risk is often an unknown. In this case, the consequence is known and defined. I am a born fighter. I will undoubtedly go to my grave fighting. But life has proven to me that battles sometimes result in a win; sometimes in a lose; sometimes in a draw; and sometimes in a pyrrhic victory. Given the circumstances of our current situation, I would prefer a conditional win…one in which I did not get everything I wanted…as opposed to the certainty of an out come which promises me far less. Am I willing to die on my sword today when I have before me a contract that, while not perfect, offers me scheduling enhancements as well as the opportunity to claw back from some of the losses we suffered over the last decade? No. Am I willing to put the money I will most assuredly lose back into Doug Parker’s pocket? Again, no. Am I asking you to simply settle for less? No. You do not have to like it. Am I asking you to give up your fighting spirit? No. There will undoubtedly be more battles, but this contract will put us in a better position to weather those battles. The decision is yours. Yes to a contract which is not everything we may have wanted, but which places us above our network peers. Or No to force, perhaps, a pyrrhic victory which will undoubtedly result in a working agreement inferior to the one before us.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 01:08:33 +0000
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