90s diverted to Skywest

[sstearns2]

As a non-union carrier SkyWest pilots are "at will" employees, have no

contract, have no grievance process, have no safety committee, do not have
legal help or advice, and the list goes on.

The ASA MEC representative is being intellectually dishonest. Here’s the wikipedia definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dishonesty

Skywest employees are ‘at will’ employees. I’ve been working for Skywest for just over 5 years and I know several pilots who have made serious mistakes both in the operation of the airplane and in their dealings with other employees. None were fired. All were retrained or disciplined in a reasonable way and put back on line. There is also a process whereby a terminated employee can request a review of their case by a panel of management and pilot representatives.

We do have a grievance process. It’s called a PIC, policy interpretation complaint. You file it online and a pilot representative takes it to management.

I don’t believe we have an official safety committee, but we do have pilot representatives that work on safety. The best example of this is our ASAP program. It’s basically a super NASA reporting program. Skywest pilots file hundreds of these per year and it’s saved a few peoples careers in addition to letting Flight Standards know what to work on.

Skywest pilots have gotten company provided legal help in the past. I’m not sure of the depth or breath of the legal help, but the company has paid to defend pilots against the FAA before. Also, the current and previous SAPA presidents are very experienced lawyers.

My intent is not to say that ALPA is better or worse than Skywest’s current pilot representation group, but to point out that the ASA MEC is not presenting the whole story about Skywest’s pilot representation, he is being intellectually dishonest.

Thanks for reading this, especially the last paragraph.

Scott

 

[amcnd]

Ive been with a ALPA airline for 6 years and now at SkyWest. I will take SkyWest any-day over what I went through with ALPA!!!

 

[Ponchus pilot]

Skywest employees are ‘at will’ employees. I’ve been working for Skywest for just over 5 years and I know several pilots who have made serious mistakes both in the operation of the airplane and in their dealings with other employees. None were fired. All were retrained or disciplined in a reasonable way and put back on line. There is also a process whereby a terminated employee can request a review of their case by a panel of management and pilot representatives.

We do have a grievance process. It’s called a PIC, policy interpretation complaint. You file it online and a pilot representative takes it to management.

I don’t believe we have an official safety committee, but we do have pilot representatives that work on safety. The best example of this is our ASAP program. It’s basically a super NASA reporting program. Skywest pilots file hundreds of these per year and it’s saved a few peoples careers in addition to letting Flight Standards know what to work on.

Skywest pilots have gotten company provided legal help in the past. I’m not sure of the depth or breath of the legal help, but the company has paid to defend pilots against the FAA before. Also, the current and previous SAPA presidents are very experienced lawyers.

My intent is not to say that ALPA is better or worse than Skywest’s current pilot representation group, but to point out that the ASA MEC is not presenting the whole story about Skywest’s pilot representation, he is being intellectually dishonest.

Thanks for reading this, especially the last paragraph.

I dont know why all threads in the regional boards always turn into Union bashing. Here is what most pilots including many union members dont understsand. Your union is only as stong as your pilot group. I have many friends at Skywest and they like many aspects of working there. Your management seems to be good and employee relations are not bad. What you have to realize is that everything that you have could be taken away if its not written down in a contract and if its not written down you are at the mercy of management to do what they wish. Now they have not done that in the past 35 years but it does not mean they wont in the future.

Now answer me this one question. As pilots in service of Skywest I understand why you might be aprehensive of ALPA. Why not have an inhouse union and put things in writing?

Ive been with a ALPA airline for 6 years and now at SkyWest. I will take SkyWest any-day over what I went through with ALPA!!!

That might be true. If you know how unions work you should know that each company and Union has their own contract. Your union got you the best they could at the time and it would have been much worse if you didnt have a union. Just because you worked for a crappy airline that had bad management it does not mean that Unions dont work. As bad as Mesa is at least they have a contract and if I'm correct they make a little more that skywest pilots in some instances.

 

[Hootie9750]

As bad as Mesa is at least they have a contract and if I'm correct they make a little more that skywest pilots in some instances.

HAHAHAHA! Mesa doesn't pay for any sort of weather cancelation, plus they only pay for average flight times...no matter what. The only instance I can think of a Mesa employee making more than anyone is a 10 year Mesa captain probably does make more per hour than a CFI.
Mesa sucks!! Spread the news!

 

[atrdriver]

The ASA MEC representative is being intellectually dishonest. Here’s the wikipedia definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dishonesty

Skywest employees are ‘at will’ employees. I’ve been working for Skywest for just over 5 years and I know several pilots who have made serious mistakes both in the operation of the airplane and in their dealings with other employees. None were fired. All were retrained or disciplined in a reasonable way and put back on line. There is also a process whereby a terminated employee can request a review of their case by a panel of management and pilot representatives.

We do have a grievance process. It’s called a PIC, policy interpretation complaint. You file it online and a pilot representative takes it to management.

I don’t believe we have an official safety committee, but we do have pilot representatives that work on safety. The best example of this is our ASAP program. It’s basically a super NASA reporting program. Skywest pilots file hundreds of these per year and it’s saved a few peoples careers in addition to letting Flight Standards know what to work on.

Skywest pilots have gotten company provided legal help in the past. I’m not sure of the depth or breath of the legal help, but the company has paid to defend pilots against the FAA before. Also, the current and previous SAPA presidents are very experienced lawyers.

My intent is not to say that ALPA is better or worse than Skywest’s current pilot representation group, but to point out that the ASA MEC is not presenting the whole story about Skywest’s pilot representation, he is being intellectually dishonest.

Thanks for reading this, especially the last paragraph.

Scott

You can say they are being intellectually dishonest if you wish, but the fact is that all those things that you mentioned you have because management has given them to you. There is nothing that says they can't take them away from you. I'm not saying that they will, or ever would, but they could. That is one advantage to a union with a contract. It is legally binding. The agreement that you have is not. I'm not saying that your agreement isn't good, and in some areas better than ours, but it is not legally binding. It can be taken away, whether it will be or not.

 

[Eric]

Yeah, it is legally binding until the company violates it and tells you with a smirk on their face to grieve it knowing what a pain that is and then it's grieved and essentially re-interpreted and you are flying 3 naps in a row and then some because what management initially inteded wasn't what was in the contract and now it is due to the re-interpretive grievance process.

How about that for a run-on!

 

[atrdriver]

Yeah, it is legally binding until the company violates it and tells you with a smirk on their face to grieve it knowing what a pain that is and then it's grieved and essentially re-interpreted and you are flying 3 naps in a row and then some because what management initially inteded wasn't what was in the contract and now it is due to the re-interpretive grievance process.

How about that for a run-on!

Yeah, that is a grievance that we lost. There have been a lot of grievances that we ahve won as well. I'm not saying that our current contract is perfect, it is obviously not, that is why we are trying to negotiate a better one. But at least we DO have a grievance process, that is protected by law. Skywest may currently have a process to address disputes with their agreement, but it is subject to managements whim.

 

[CFIT]

Yeah, that is a grievance that we lost. There have been a lot of grievances that we ahve won as well. I'm not saying that our current contract is perfect, it is obviously not, that is why we are trying to negotiate a better one. But at least we DO have a grievance process, that is protected by law. Skywest may currently have a process to address disputes with their agreement, but it is subject to managements whim.

So you have some grevs you've lost and some you've won, that's no different that the PIC situation at SkyWest. From what I've read ASA ALPA can't get a contract set due to management, can't get released due to the mediator, and contract policies get stomped when the company needs to. So how again is ALPA going to make things so much better for SkyWest pilots?

 

[Dubya]

It is unbelievable that people still think that just having a union and a "contract" will save their jobs. I wonder if all the TWA, Eastern, PanAm, Braniff, etc.etc. and so on...thought the same thing.

SkyWest does have a safety committee...it's called ASAP I believe.

SkyWest does have an inhouse union...it's called SAPA I believe.

W

 

[Gobi Gred]

SAPA is NOT A UNION. A pilot group representative maybe, but not a union.

 

[Peter Griffin]

As a non-union carrier SkyWest pilots are "at will" employees, have no
contract, have no grievance process, have no safety committee, do not have
legal help or advice, and the list goes on.

Just want to clarify some of this. We have a "contract," just not the same as a union one. And the compnay does stick to its word which is laid out in our "contract." As a matter of fact, it reads just like any union contract. ASA types seem to think this changes about ever other day, but really it remains pretty much the same, sometimes getting better, sometime worse, but usually better than industry average. But, I will admit, this is a little wishy-washy for some people, because its not LEGALLY binding, even though 99.9 percent of the time its applied. Which brings me to my second point - there IS a grievance process here. If you feel you are wronged, you can talk to your CP. Most issues can simply be worked out by giving so and so a call (i.e. just call payroll if they forgot something). If you really think that you got screwed, you can go to your CP or your SAPA rep. If you REALLY screwed up, you still generally wont get fired unless you committed the 2 cardinal sins - lied or cheated. All of this works 99.9 percent of the time as well. We also have a safety committee. It is called ASAP, and run through the company. It is very similar to the NASA program, but more specific to SKYW. It is an excellent program designed to get us to talk about problems we are seeing on the line while giving us some immunity from the FAA. UNLIMITED legal advice is one of our optional benefits and costs a miniscule amount per month (I believe it is under 10 dollars, but dont quote me).

Im curious to see what the rest of the "on and on list" is and if we have it in some form or another. I have generally not gotten involved in the ASA vs. SKYW discussions, but this was blatently wrong in my opinion. There is so mis-information from both sides on this whole thing that nobody seems to stop and get the facts first.

 

[Dubya]

SAPA is NOT A UNION. A pilot group representative maybe, but not a union.

Ok. So now tell me what it is that a "union" does? I could have sworn it was to represent pilots?


W

 

[Stifler's Mom]

SAPA is NOT A UNION. A pilot group representative maybe, but not a union.

I spoke with a senior Captain from SKW about SAPA, and he described them as "a group of people who continually have the wool pulled over their eyes by management."

 

[atrdriver]

Just want to clarify some of this. We have a "contract," just not the same as a union one. And the compnay does stick to its word which is laid out in our "contract." As a matter of fact, it reads just like any union contract. ASA types seem to think this changes about ever other day, but really it remains pretty much the same, sometimes getting better, sometime worse, but usually better than industry average. But, I will admit, this is a little wishy-washy for some people, because its not LEGALLY binding, even though 99.9 percent of the time its applied. Which brings me to my second point - there IS a grievance process here. If you feel you are wronged, you can talk to your CP. Most issues can simply be worked out by giving so and so a call (i.e. just call payroll if they forgot something). If you really think that you got screwed, you can go to your CP or your SAPA rep. If you REALLY screwed up, you still generally wont get fired unless you committed the 2 cardinal sins - lied or cheated.

You apparantly need to re read my post. I didn't say that Skywest didn't have a working agreement. Nor did I say that management violates it with any consistancy. What I said is that the protections that you have are all given to you by management. Your "grievance" process is granted to you by the company. I'm not saying that they would ever take it away, but they could, and if they decided to there is nothing that could be done about it. Same thing with your working agreement. I don't think that they would ever just throw it out, but they could, and there is nothing that could be done about it. That is one advantage of a Union. Notice that I didn't say ALPA, I sais a Union. ALPA does not have an advantage as far as representation goes, but they do have an advantage as far as expertise goes.

Skywest obviously has a lot of good things in regards to their pilots. I sincerely hope that all those good things continue to be offered. But, if one day JA walks in and says "These pilot just make way too much money", there is nothing that you can do to stop him from taking action. That may or may not ever happen, but if it ever does it will be too late for a union.

 

[Peter Griffin]

You apparantly need to re read my post. I didn't say that Skywest didn't have a working agreement. Nor did I say that management violates it with any consistancy. What I said is that the protections that you have are all given to you by management. Your "grievance" process is granted to you by the company. I'm not saying that they would ever take it away, but they could, and if they decided to there is nothing that could be done about it. Same thing with your working agreement. I don't think that they would ever just throw it out, but they could, and there is nothing that could be done about it. That is one advantage of a Union. Notice that I didn't say ALPA, I sais a Union. ALPA does not have an advantage as far as representation goes, but they do have an advantage as far as expertise goes.

Skywest obviously has a lot of good things in regards to their pilots. I sincerely hope that all those good things continue to be offered. But, if one day JA walks in and says "These pilot just make way too much money", there is nothing that you can do to stop him from taking action. That may or may not ever happen, but if it ever does it will be too late for a union.

Re-read it? I was responding to a letter you were quoting in your original post. Regardless, I wasnt trying to launch an attack on you personally. I was just trying to clarify the items presented in the MEC letter.

I think the main difference between ASA and SKYW is their attitudes. The corporate culture at ASA seems to be predominately pessimistic, and SKYW is predominately optomistic. I dont even blame ASA employees for being that way. I worked for another airline that was very negative, and it was no fun. While you are willing to bet on the fact we NEED a union just in case the .1% chance SKYW management decides to just throw everything away, SKYW employees (not all, but, IMHO, a majority), would rather put just a little faith in the 30 years of trust this team has built with their pilots. You're right. They could just take everything away - but why? Just to prove they have power? Cut costs on the backs of their employees? If they wanted to do that, it would have already happened, especially in todays environment. I dont think SGU wants to become the next Mesa/Freedom/Geauxjet - because it doesnt make good sense and fit the values of this company. They have proven they can still be profitable while treating their employees well. Ill get off my soapbox now :erm: