A federal judge found that a summer sick-out and work slowdowns by some United Airlines pilots was an illegal job action and said she would issue a preliminary injunction against their union.
United had blamed the sick-outs alone for the cancellation of 329 flights between July 19 and July 27. The nation's third-largest carrier said that cost it about $8 million in lost revenue and $3.9 million in operating profit.
It also argued that some pilots were carrying more fuel than needed and taking so-called work-to-rule actions, such as refusing to take off in planes with minor mechanical issues that did not require immediate attention under federal rules.
United filed the lawsuit against the union and four individual members on July 30, and announced Monday's ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Joan H. Lefkow on Tuesday.
The United branch of the Air Line Pilots Association union has been angry over what it says is United's refusal to reverse concessions they gave in 2003 during United's bankruptcy reorganization, including 40 percent pay cuts. The union had denied encouraging sick-outs or slowdowns, which are barred by the Railway Labor Act, the labor law governing airline labor relations.
But Lefkow made it clear in her ruling that she didn't believe them.
The case required her to parse carefully-worded union statements to pilots to figure out whether ALPA leaders were trying to discourage unnecessary use of sick time, as they claimed, or whether they were really sending coded signals to pilots that they should maximize the use of sick time.
It didn't help that beginning in February the union began including in every update a quote from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," _ that you can fight with a small army as well as a large one, "it is merely a question of instituting signs and signals."
"This quote plainly suggests that ALPA's 'army' _ the pilots _ should look for 'signs and signals' from ALPA as to what actions they should be taking in the 'fight' against United," Lefkow wrote.
That included phone calls to pilots to encourage them to call in "fatigued" instead of sick, because a fatigue call gets a pilot out of a flight no-questions-asked. The airline said fatigue calls more than doubled beginning in June, from one a day to more than 2.5 per day.
She also cited language from union publications saying pilots should "fly the contract," "know the contract," "honor the contract," saying they were understood in the business to mean "work-to-rule," an attempt to interfere with the airline's operations. She placed the blame for this with Master Executive Council Chairman Stephen Wallach, saying he "personally intended these phrases to signal ALPA's direction to engage in a job action."
Lefkow placed the recent dispute in the context of United's fights with its aviators dating back to a 1985 strike. She wrote that for two decades after the strike, pilots who had crossed the picket line endured "theft and damage of flight bags and other personal belongings; pouring liquids, urinating, or defecating into the flight bags of non-striking pilots," and other forms of ostracism.
"The continued ostracism and harassment of non-striking pilots in the two decades following the 1985 strike created a widely held perception among United pilots that any pilot who did not follow the majority, or ALPA, party line would be subject to similar conduct," she wrote.
The United branch of ALPA issued a statement saying it has "already advised the United pilots that it remains essential not to engage in any form of economic action involving United Airlines."
In an e-mail to workers on Tuesday, Chief Operating Officer John Tague blamed the trouble on "ALPA and a very few of its members."
"While there is always room for discussion and tough give-and-take about our business, deliberate actions that unfairly or unlawfully impact our customers and employees _ and that keep us from achieving our full potential _ will not go unchallenged," he wrote.
Shares of United parent UAL Corp. rose 34 cents to close at $11.03 Tuesday.
