Fellow Atlas Crew Members,
Since we have many new crewmembers, I wanted to recirculate a two-part update that we originally sent out in April 2018. Please read below for a recap of the union history at Atlas and Polar. More to follow.
The following is a short but detailed account of the labor history at Atlas and how we got to where we are today. Since there is a great deal of false and intentionally misleading information being propagated, it is important to set the record straight again, especially for pilots who are new to Atlas. In this message, I will attempt to cover our 19-year negotiating history as briefly as possible and still give you an accurate perspective of what management is attempting to perpetrate on our pilot group and families, yet again.
In late 1999, Polar Air Cargo achieved its first union CBA under ALPA with a priority put on work rules and quality of life provisions, rather than compensation.
In 2001, Atlas Air purchased Polar Air Cargo from General Electric and thus began a somewhat disjointed merger and acquisition process. Although Atlas had purchased Polar, its leadership did not know exactly how to integrate Polar. Throughout the initial years of being under the same management structure relations grew strained â not only between the Polar MEC and Atlas MEC, but also between the Polar MEC and Atlas management in Purchase, NY. Atlas management worked constantly to leverage the pilots, pitting both groups against each other. While this worked well for management, it was to the detriment of the pilots. Polar’s CBA became amendable in 2002 and after three years of manipulating the pilot group and stonewalling at the negotiating table, the Polar pilots chose to strike in 2005. The successful 20-day strike came to a close only when both the Atlas and Polar pilot groups finally started working together. Unfortunately, this strike was followed by the worst back-to-work agreement in the history of ALPA.
The agreement was reached in part due to ALPAâs mistaken assumption that the company would react positively to the Atlas and Polar MECs acts of good faith in the post-strike negotiations. The main component of the unionâs demonstration of good faith was to prematurely take down the Polar picket lines, which gave away precious union leverage at the bargaining table even before negotiations began. The results were predictable: after a 20-day successful pilot strike in which the Polar pilots bravely risked everything and put their careers on the line, the resulting negotiation yielded nothing more than what the company had offered before the strike.
In 2002, the Atlas pilots achieved their first union CBA. It provided better compensation than the Polar contract, but it contained some inferior work rules and quality of life provisions. Both CBAs were fashioned from the ALPA first time contract blueprint. They were very basic and trailed behind the rest of the industry by a wide margin.
In 2004, before the Polar strike, Atlas and Polar had been thrust into bankruptcy after years of upper management officials’ excessive compensation and a long history of loading up the company with massive debt, mostly attributed to aircraft acquisitions. Both Atlas and Polar managed to come out of bankruptcy that same year after erasing over $900 million dollars off the balance sheet, a sizable amount for an airline with only 46 aircraft.
Along the way, the Atlas pilots were also able to negotiate modest raises, but nothing remotely close to any industry standard. Atlas and Polar pilots could not get on the same page and thus continued to play into the companyâs hands. In 2008, in response to ALPAâs anti-ACMI-carrier attitude, a movement was started by the Atlas pilots to seek representation with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). Atlas, of course, was and is built upon the ACMI business structure. The move was successful and in late 2008, the Atlas and Polar pilots left ALPA and became part of the Teamsters.
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Before both pilot groups left ALPA, the arbitrated merged seniority list between Atlas and Polar was delivered to Atlas management, thus triggering the amalgamation process and an arbitrated CBA. This is the same trigger we want to avoid this time or we will be forced into another low-level arbitrated CBA. The seniority list trigger compels the arbitration process and starts the nine-month clock that management so desperately wants to provide for a rapid amalgamation on its timeline. The Teamsters thus inherited a CBA process that already had a nine-month clock with amalgamation via an arbitrated CBA already built in.
When the integration of Atlas and Polar was first announced, management initially offered a “dual track” expedited system and promised a CBA in nine months, further indicating that management would not hold an arbitrator to the “amalgamation standard” (sound familiar?). The Atlas and Polar pilots sat down at the table in good faith, expecting management to honor its promises to expeditiously negotiate a new joint CBA. Atlas management, of course, did nothing of the kind. The promised nine-month process took close to two years. In the arbitration process, from people who were under oath, we learned that Atlas intentionally delayed the CBA for over a year at the apparent behest of DHL and was actively trying to sell Polar off. In the resulting arbitration, virtually the first words out of the company’s high-priced “Hollywood” lawyer was an admonition that the arbitrator did not have the authority to go outside the parameters of the Atlas and Polar CBAs, thus triggering the very “amalgamation standard” that the company initially said it would not advocate for. Finally, in September of 2011 an amalgamated five-year CBA was produced. This Agreement is still in effect today.
The merger of the two airlines never occurred and to this very day, as everyone can all plainly see, Atlas and Polar have never been merged. Atlas management benefited from the misapplication of the provisions of both CBAs in order to take advantage of the merger provisions at the table and yet never actually merged the airlines as promised. This manipulated process produced a combined CBA based on a template of two first-time contracts. The combined Atlas/Polar CBA is now woefully behind the rest of industry. While everyone was relieved that the process was finally over, all understood that management had distorted a provision in the scope language of both CBAs to keep pilot work rules and pay well below industry standard.
In Part II we will describe the history of the current negotiations.
Remember, always be “ALL-IN.”
Fraternally,
Bob Kirchner
