What is the dirty laundry?
1.3b. Wow... if you don't BK ALPA and thus get pennies on the dollar, then pilots not even born will fund your pay out. If the profession continues to decline then, less wages will be available to fund your payout.....
ALPA trying to raise wages, but if they spend time and money with your lawsuit that defeats the purpose..... it seems your litigation is biting the hands that feeds.
Too bad USAIR left ALPA, they have taken your money and ran!
What responsibilities does the TWA MEC accept.... waiving their LPP for example.... Also, if ALPA had a goal of bringing in house unions onto the fold, is that dirty laundry? What is the dirty laundry that you speak of...
Finally, were is the APA and AMR is all of this? It would seem AMR has more cash than ALPA....
I'll reply to your entire post. ALPA National is a business just like any airline, and run by career minded, narcissistic, Prima Donna's - just like any airline.
What do you get for your dues every month? You get a glossy magazine that the afore mentioned Prima Donna's get pictured in doing "important" work like studying runway incursions or taxiway markings, too bad we don't have an FAA to do those things. Much of this work seems to be done at 4 and 5 star hotel's on weekend junkets supplied by your dues. At least you get a cool WE ARE ALPA sticker to put on the side of your flight bag.
If you want to believe that incompetent ALPA leadership has nothing to do with the complete run-down of this industry then keep hitting the crackpipe. If you want to believe that the difference between ALPA staying solvent is a TWA lawsuit and not the fact that many pilot groups have large numbers vocally advocating leaving ALPA if they haven't already, again, go ahead.
I suppose we should just let this one go? Let the fact that ALPA sold the TWA pilot group out for the hopes of getting the entire APA membership under their penumbra slide by and act like it didn't happen? It didn't affect you afterall, fellow narcissisist, so why the h#ll should you care? You and most of the un-affected, grimly interested bystanders have no idea of the hardship and pain that so many of my fellow former colleagues have experienced. And at the end of the day it wasn't justified, and certainly ALPA had a duty to defend TWA with all of it's available resources, not the mild petty interest it displayed. TWA was the first airline to ever strike against it's management for the sake of ALPA by the way (in the mid 1940's) and what did that get them?
I hold no malice towards APA, hell, I have an APA number. I paid my dues to the union right up to the day I got furloughed. I always respected the fact that their union did what it could to protect and defend the job's of their membership extant at the time of the list integration. If ALPA had done the same for us, then fine. But the fact is, our TWA MEC was essentially working alone on this issue, and all ALPA National did is what it always does, provide a lot of lip service while it pursues it's own ulterior motives. All that 2/3 of the TWA pilot group got out of this whole TWA/AA thing was a recall number that isn't worth the paper it is printed on. We will never get recalled, and I have heard that there are intrigues afoot to rescind those recall rights anyway. That is unsubstantiated by any thing official, but it wouldn't suprise me.
As far as you or future pilot's paying our lawsuit, won't happen. There won't be an ALPA for them to join. Hopefully, they will have an effective pilot's union to join that won't just take them for their money and placate their little ego's with ariticles talking about "how important pilot's are" or "the hero in the cockpit".
Maybe the next generation of pilots will actually have a union that does something to better the industry and the work place like Dave Behncke envisioned and his union originally did.
