Arnie Gentilly, a 24-year veteran of US Airways, says that the pilots didn't decide to head out on their own just because they hated the Nicolau award. They'd been frustrated for years, he says. After the company filed for bankruptcy in 2003, the pilots had agreed to an awful contract just to stay in business, with a 53 percent pay cut and incredibly onerous working hours.
Now they were being asked to play a junior role to pilots with less experience?
Jamie Peachey
Ron Gabaldon rejects the idea that pilots from the former America West have less experience.
Jamie Peachey
Attorney Patrick Van Zanen says many of the claims against his clients are "ridiculous."
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"The Nicolau award was the straw that broke the camel's back," Gentilly admits.
The West guys say they, too, had their complaints about Nicolau's award. "Nobody on our side was happy with it," says Braid, a pilot who came up through the America West system. "They're calling him 'St. Nick,' like he gave us a gift." Not so, Braid says — it's more that the West pilots understood the process had been fair, that no one was going to get everything they wanted. Unlike the East guys, they'd come in knowing that they'd have to compromise.
Plus, there was the principle of the thing.
"We knew whatever [Nicolau] came out with, we had to live with," says fellow West pilot Szmal. "We took that chance."
Unfortunately for the West pilots, though, they'd be forced to join the new union whether they wanted to or not.
In the airline industry, unions are optional. It's called an "agency shop." If you want to work as a pilot, you are required to pay union dues.
And because there were twice as many East pilots, as long as they stood united, they didn't really need a single West pilot's support to break away — and require the West guys to pay dues to an organization that had been formed, in essence, to screw them over.
The East guys selling the new union made just one trip to Phoenix to discuss their plans — an effort they quickly abandoned under intense questioning from West pilots. The meeting is enshrined in a series of 15 YouTube videos, titled "Can't Take the Heat." (Some of the videos have been viewed more than 4,000 times.)
Already, West pilots were convinced they were getting the shaft. Several made it clear that they would not pay dues, or participate, in the new union.
"I believe [forming a new union] is the quickest way to a new contract — and, eventually, unity," one of the East pilots told the assembled pilots.
"Never!" the West pilots cried. "No way!"
"Now," the East pilot continued, "Many of you have told us that you prefer anarchy, and you will not pay dues to us, and you'll undermine us."
"You're undermining ALPA," one West pilot angrily retorted.
"You're fundamentally undermining us!" another shouted.
Toward the end of the meeting, a West pilot asked what would happen if the West pilots refuse to pay dues to the new union. Sure, technically, they could get fired. But, the pilot asked, "Would you think that [US Airways CEO] Doug Parker would just fire 1,800 pilots? Would they lay us off?"
"They could," the would-be union leader replied.
The union organizers had originally planned to stay until 4 p.m., but the meeting grew so toxic, they left more than two hours early.
"What about a closing statement?" one West pilot called as they prepared to go. "Tell us why I need to vote for you."
"Are you guys going to walk out?" another West pilot shouted.
"Sorry, guys," the East pilot said.
"It's not four o'clock yet!" a West pilot shouted.
A few weeks later, U.S. Airlines Pilot Association, or USAPA, was voted in as the official representative of all US Airways pilots. The East pilots had won.
But that didn't mean the West guys were about to roll over.
You have to be careful while reading the new union's RICO suit against the West-based pilots. After all, this is a lawsuit that accuses a bunch of respected pilots of extortion — then offers absolutely no evidence to back up the claim.
What is clear from the suit, however, is that in the three months since USAPA took over as the bargaining agent for US Airways pilots, a tense situation has flared into open warfare, with plenty of bad blood on both sides.
The USAPA guys put up a toll-free line for pilots to get information from union leadership, at no cost. But the America West pilots knew that "no cost" to them could mean "big cost" to the start-up union.
According to the suit, the West pilots began flooding the line in hopes of bankrupting the "scab" union. In one month's time, the line received a whopping 13,986 calls. And it was pretty clear that guys weren't just calling to get information: One guy, a pilot in Dayton, made 393 calls in a one-week period. Another guy, based in Phoenix, rang up a staggering 1,481 calls over two weeks.
The West pilots openly bragged about their shenanigans.
"I took some advice from another thread and called their hotline," one pilot wrote on a West-controlled message board in April. "I did some research, and it costs them seven cents a minute. After 9 p.m., cell phone usage is free and I can run two lines at once, plus my home phone . . . Oh, yeah, and I passed some pay phones, dialed it, and left. So, just today, I probably cost them an easy $30 to $40. If we all do this . . . holy crap!"
