US Airline Pilots Association - US Airways Management Position

US Airways Management Position

US Airways Attorney Robert A. Siegel made the following statement to the court on 2/21/12 Court Document 164:

Given that the integrated seniority list was accepted by US Airways as required by the Transition Agreement, which is binding on US Airways’ pilots (whether represented by ALPA or USAPA)

The Transition Agreement established a process for integration of the seniority lists – namely, “final and binding” arbitration between the East Pilots and West Pilots “in accordance with ALPA Merger Policy.” (Sep. Stmt. at ¶¶ 10-11.) But it also created an obligation on the part of US Airways to accept the integrated seniority list generated through that agreed-upon process so long as the specified conditions were met, and it thereby created prospective substantive rights that inured to the benefit of the pilots and not just process rights. (Doc. No. 156-1 at ¶ 10.) Once ALPA (as the pilots’ representative) presented the integrated seniority list to US Airways and US Airways accepted it, if not sooner, those substantive rights materialized and were not, as USAPA would have it, a mere “tentative agreement between ALPA and US Airways on a bargaining proposal.” (Doc. No. 152 at 16:27-17:1.) Thus, even if USAPA’s proffered distinction between “substantive rights” and “process elements” had support in the RLA jurisprudence, which it does not, the Transition Agreement undeniably created “substantive rights” with respect to seniority integration and USAPA inherited that status quo when it replaced ALPA as the pilots’ representative.