Technicians Update

October 7th, 2020

Force Majeure award AMFA v Alaska Airlines

Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

Several members have asked, given the recent arbitration award won by AMFA, if that would apply to our CBA. We reached out to our Legal Counsel to have them review the award and the language to see if the application would be similar. 

Whether or not the pandemic caused a triggering of the force majeure clause was never in question before the Board in that award. The ruling only applied to whether paragraph #4 was subject to force majeure. Unfortunately, the pandemic is considered a force majeure event, and it applies to both Article 1 and LOA 18 of our CBA as you will see below in the review from our Legal Counsel. 

According to Counsel, "the issue in the case was not whether COVID-19 constituted a force majeure event, but rather whether or not the no-furlough clause contained in paragraph 4 of LOA #9 was even subject to the force majeure language found in paragraph 2 of the LOA #9.  The arbitrator found that it was not."  

As to the other cities on the system Counsel concluded "It is clear however, that LOA #9 does not provide any protection from force majeure, and that all the other stations on the Alaska system would be subject to the force majeure language. This in spite of the fact that all the other stations also have the exact same no-furlough protection contained in paragraph 1 of LOA #9."  

Further in reviewing applicability to the UA Technicians Agreement, Counsel states "As for any application to the IBT-UAL MX CBA, the no-furlough language found in LOA #18 and in Article 1, § 10.b. is clearly tied to the force majeure language contained in those same exact locations. Moreover, there are no stations excluded from the force majeure language found in LOA #18 and in Article 1, § 10.b., which is the opposite of the AMFA-Alaska case. That is why the award from Arbitrator Horowitz has no application to the IBT-UAL CBA and is not of any use to us." 

Finally, Counsel concludes that "While the Award from Arbitrator Horowitz is in favor of the Union, it has absolutely no application to the IBT-UAL MX CBA." 

Fraternally, 

Vinny Graziano
International Representative
Airline Division
International Brotherhood of Teamsters.