Fired From Virgin America

[Kharma Police]

The likelihood of getting canned at a Legacy carrier, with solid union representation, just for asking a question or some other frivolous reason is zero.


Lear, the "shiny and pretty" thing is a fast upgrade in a shiny new jet at a start up, the downside is a lack of good representation when you get in trouble or some manager has it in for you.

Don't associate what happened to you at Airtran with "just as black as some legacies."

I guess you don't remember NWA getting a Judge to seize a couple of F/As computers because of CHAOS? What about Delta's "Queen of the Skies"? It's all the same play book, regionals, majors, legacies.

 

[Captain Overs]

Was at airTran about a year and a half, grievance and civil suit pending, but it's a long, drawn-out process. Will be a toss-up to see which happens first, the arbitration or a new contract T.A. at airTran which *should* (DFR issue) bring all the "hostages" back (people who were vocal about the T.A. and have found themselves on the streets... there's more than just me).

I'm flying Lears again, just finishing sims and getting ready for OE.

Overs, you can laugh all you want, and there IS more to the story... a lot more that the company did that shows personal malice that I can't talk about right now but, rest assured, it WILL come out in the civil suit(s).

Yes, there's always two sides to the story (I believe I was the first person to say that), but sometimes the person crying "foul" is in the right. Or do you automatically assume that ALL companies are ALWAYS doing the morally- and ethically-correct thing?

Shall we talk bankruptcies and pensions? Because there's PLENTY of material there to show corruption... It's big business; they do what they think they can get away with and, if you're in the way, too bad.

Lear,

Sorry to hear about your situation. I wasn't referring to you in my post. I just get a kick out of someone coming on here and talking about someone else getting fired with all the "facts." If the person who got fired posted, I would tend to put a little faith into it.

I'm sure your grass will be greener elsewhere. Good luck.

 

[PCL_128]

I guess you don't remember NWA getting a Judge to seize a couple of F/As computers because of CHAOS? What about Delta's "Queen of the Skies"? It's all the same play book, regionals, majors, legacies.

Both cases involved FAs, not pilots, and the CHAOS situation didn't involve any terminations that I'm aware of (Occam could probably answer that definitively). A lot of guys here don't want to admit it, but the fact is, we don't get anywhere near the representation from the NPA that ALPA provides. I don't have any faith whatsoever in the NPA to protect my job if the company were to try to wrongfully terminate me. I had no such concerns at my previous ALPA carrier. I always knew that ALPA would be able to back me up. FDJ2 is right. Trying to compare the representation of independent unions, or even worse, no union at all, is ridiculous.

 

[Kharma Police]

Both cases involved FAs, not pilots, and the CHAOS situation didn't involve any terminations that I'm aware of (Occam could probably answer that definitively). A lot of guys here don't want to admit it, but the fact is, we don't get anywhere near the representation from the NPA that ALPA provides. I don't have any faith whatsoever in the NPA to protect my job if the company were to try to wrongfully terminate me. I had no such concerns at my previous ALPA carrier. I always knew that ALPA would be able to back me up. FDJ2 is right. Trying to compare the representation of independent unions, or even worse, no union at all, is ridiculous.

I think the APA as an independent union has more teeth than any ALPA carrier. The resolve of the members make the union not the boys in Herndon.

 

[www.]

AA717 - You may be correct & don't assume that these guys were not fired, or so mistrusted that they came to work one day and found they were locked out of their own offices by their fellow managers.

One was famous for trying to divert FAA enforcement actions against the Pilots' Certificates to keep the Company's Certificate clean. He would tell the pilots he had things handled with the FAA if they just would not involve the union. Then he would go to work documenting a case against his pilots, making up wild allegations and just outright lying about the "facts."

The union would give pilots common sense advice that the FAA does not delegate its' enforcement authority to airline managers - no more than traffic cops let private individuals enforce traffic laws. By the time the pilot put 2 + 2 together this manager would already have a "deal" made with the FSDO that made the pilot the scape goat. Legitimate safety concerns were swept under the rug while everyone wondered how a pilot could be so crazy as to have performed the things management had "documented."

Some in the FSDO knew how this guy operated and would give the pilots the benefit of making their case, or even better, did a little safety investigation on their own. But, many of the government workers were too happy to allow this manager to do their jobs for them and just went along.

He turned up at Virgin America and many hoped he had turned over a new leaf with the new job. These details are only provided in the event that the M.O. is the same.

And which former winner from ASA would this be?

 

[PCL_128]

I think the APA as an independent union has more teeth than any ALPA carrier. The resolve of the members make the union not the boys in Herndon.

The APA talks a big game, but they have yet to show any results. Besides, the APA has 11,000 members and is decades old with a much better infrastructure than any other independent union. Even with all of that, they still depend on contracted services from ALPA. The members make a big difference, but the members have nothing to do with how secure your job is, or how effective the legal department will be in getting your job back after an illegal termination. I support Mike Best 100%, and I know he'll work hard to improve the Legal department, but the truth is that we'll never be able to have anything even approaching what ALPA has available to their members, and management knows it. Our jobs are simply not as safe as the jobs of legacy pilots represented by ALPA.

 

[MECH]

Both cases involved FAs, not pilots, and the CHAOS situation didn't involve any terminations that I'm aware of (Occam could probably answer that definitively). A lot of guys here don't want to admit it, but the fact is, we don't get anywhere near the representation from the NPA that ALPA provides. I don't have any faith whatsoever in the NPA to protect my job if the company were to try to wrongfully terminate me. I had no such concerns at my previous ALPA carrier. I always knew that ALPA would be able to back me up. FDJ2 is right. Trying to compare the representation of independent unions, or even worse, no union at all, is ridiculous.

The legality of CHOAS has never been tested in court yet. So there are some questions if it is a legal job action. But so far no employee has been permentantly terminated while supporting a legal job action.

 

[FDJ2]

I guess you don't remember NWA getting a Judge to seize a couple of F/As computers because of CHAOS?

No, fill me in, were they terminated? Were they arbitrarily fired? Were they involved in a legal job action? There is a big difference between having a judge seize your computer and being terminated. Please give us some details.

What about Delta's "Queen of the Skies"? It's all the same play book, regionals, majors, legacies.

Delta's "queen of the skies"? Did she have union representation?

 

[Kharma Police]

The APA talks a big game, but they have yet to show any results. Besides, the APA has 11,000 members and is decades old with a much better infrastructure than any other independent union. Even with all of that, they still depend on contracted services from ALPA. The members make a big difference, but the members have nothing to do with how secure your job is, or how effective the legal department will be in getting your job back after an illegal termination. I support Mike Best 100%, and I know he'll work hard to improve the Legal department, but the truth is that we'll never be able to have anything even approaching what ALPA has available to their members, and management knows it. Our jobs are simply not as safe as the jobs of legacy pilots represented by ALPA.

I think we should look into and consider ALPA at AirTran. At least hopefully we would not be screwed as bad if we were bought by another ALPA represented airline?

 

[UALX727]

I agree.