AGE 65 now LAW!!!

[Mooneymite]

Managing change.

Please Write Your Alpa Reps To Recall Prater. If It Is Not Brought Up At The Next Local Meeting, Bring Up A No Confidence Vote And Remove Them. Thank You!

Huh?

Recall Prater?

You would have preferred Prater to support a discriminatory law?

The Age 60 rule was going to be changed whether Prater fought it or managed it.

It was a "third rail issue" for him. No way to please everyone. He took the high road on a difficult trip. The man should be congratulated, not recalled.

Sorry that you feel the way you do about age 60. However, don't let your personal hurt get in the way of objective evaluation.

 

[PCL_128]

You would have preferred Prater to support a discriminatory law?

Age 60 wasn't discriminatory, as the Supreme Court already ruled, but that's really irrelevant. What is relevant is that the President of the Association should follow the direction that he receives from the membership. The membership told him that they didn't want ALPA's policy changed, so he shouldn't have gone against the will of the membership.

 

[Mooneymite]

Wisdom and majority rule.

........ The membership told him that they didn't want ALPA's policy changed, so he shouldn't have gone against the will of the membership.

Fortunately, ALPA doesn't work that way. We elect people that we think have good sense and they act in our best interest.

If ALPA were strictly "majoirty rule" as you seem to think, we wouldn't need an ALPA president at all. We could just set policy by electronic poll and some mindless minion would carry out the will of the majority.

In this case, Prater did the right, as well as, the prudent thing. The majority can always be counted on to serve the interests of the majority...that's the basis for bad laws. That's the reason we are fortunate to live in a republic, not a democracy.

Performance, not age, should determine when a pilot must retire. Prater has the wisdom to know this.

 

[Lear70]

Fortunately, ALPA doesn't work that way. We elect people that we think have good sense and they act in our best interest.

Ummm... last I checked, ALPA wasn't a Republic. ALPA is designed to work as directed by the majority of the membership. Specifically, each LEC/MEC is directed by their membership by polls and/or resolutions. Those LEC/MEC chairs then are "SUPPOSED" to direct policy in Herndon.

The ALPA president isn't supposed to venture out IN DIRECT VIOLATION of the membership's direction. Here, he did a straw poll, then ignored it and acted as directed by the Executive Council, who also didn't act as directed by their individual pilots.

If ALPA were strictly "majoirty rule" as you seem to think, we wouldn't need an ALPA president at all. We could just set policy by electronic poll and some mindless minion would carry out the will of the majority.

Hardly. The job of ALPA president is to promote safety, assist in negotiating CBA's, and represent the membership's interest on Capitol Hill. Period. It's that last part in which there is a problem. The pilots spoke and he went off on his own plan, backed by most of the MEC/LEC chairs and vice-chairs who are also nearing retirement. The needs of the few evidently outweighed the needs of the many.

In this case, Prater did the right, as well as, the prudent thing. The majority can always be counted on to serve the interests of the majority...that's the basis for bad laws. That's the reason we are fortunate to live in a republic, not a democracy.

Performance, not age, should determine when a pilot must retire. Prater has the wisdom to know this.

Like I said before, I agree on the age 65 increase, but Prater's self-serving interests and the interests of the other near-age-60 MEC and LEC leaders have been clearly evident in his actions on this issue and there's going to be some fallout from it.

One of the things that lead to Allen Philpot's removal as NPA president was the age 65 support without polling the entire membership or having a transparent polling process whereby the "majority" they claimed were polled was not clearly an unbiased, truly random sample. I predict a similar fallout for Prater from many of the regional carriers, as well as many MEC / LEC leaders at Legacy carriers who supported it as well without polling their membership on such an important issue, even though there's no way to close the barn door on this one.

If you are an elected leader and you don't act on behalf of the majority of your constituents, you're not going to be the elected leader for very long, or you're going to undermine support at its base level.

In this case, what you have is Prater shouting for people to get millitant, then he cuts their legs out from under them by helping promote legislation that will financially damage the majority of the people he's trying to drum support from.

Not very smart when looking at the long-term plan. F/O's tend to make up about 60% of your voting demographic. Turn them off and you just killed any real support you need. And people wonder why we can't get more than a 40-60% voter turnout for elections...

 

[PCL_128]

Fortunately, ALPA doesn't work that way. We elect people that we think have good sense and they act in our best interest.

As a former ALPA rep, I think I'm far more familiar with how ALPA works than your are. ALPA can't poll the membership on every single issue before taking action, but when they do poll the membership, they need to follow the membership's guidance.

Prater has the wisdom to know this.

Prater is an incompetent buffoon that never should have been elected in the first place. He got into office by playing some dirty politics at the BOD meeting last year and trading votes with another MEC.

 

[Mooneymite]

ALPA pollitics

........Prater is an incompetent buffoon that never should have been elected in the first place. He got into office by playing some dirty politics at the BOD meeting last year and trading votes with another MEC.

HaHaHaHaHa!

I don't know how far back your ALPA experience goes, but based on your post, I'd guess not very far. As best I can remember, all ALPA BOD politics is "dirty politics" according to your useage! The only difference is "successful", or "un-successful" dirty politics. The election of just about every ALPA president I can remember involved sculdugery.

Prater was in a no-win situation. The age 60 thing was going to change no matter what ALPA did. He could come on board and help manage the change, or he could stand in front of a freight train. Watching Praeter get run over might have pleased a majority of the membership, but it would not have served it.

Prater was skillful enough to get elected; I think he played his cards right on the age 60 rule. It will probably cause his defeat, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, no matter what he did. Maybe that's his reward for his successful sculdugery at the BOD.

If you believe that ALPA is run democratically, you are wrong or naive. You'll do better sitting on Santa's lap than responding to ALPA straw polls, or Wilson (engineered to get a specific response) polls.

 

[Booster]

http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=10072

 

[Wesb737fo]

BUCK FUSH!!!!!!!!!

and all you other pieces of feces who supported this. I, along with my plenty of others appreciate getting effed out of a lot of money. :angryfire

oh....you forgot to say ....and Merry Christmas.

 

[ATRCA]

Do you renounce your US citizenship and take down your flag everytime the US gov't doesn't do it your way...

Maybe someone will come up to you and say no ALPA pin in 8 years huh? and you can let him have it...

Yeah, your right. You just go ahead and keep blaming the membership and in short order ALPA will lose another major carier. I know, I know us line pilots are just a bunch of dumb $hits and you Nat'l guys have it all figured out.

Well, I was a member of an idependent union (IACP) and I have heard calls for a return. Let the falures continue and ALPA will finds itself with some serious problems. Maybe then all you full time trip loss tools can go back to work. There is no hiding the discrace Nat'l had become.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

I'm actually 45, and I've been saying they shoud change the age since I first found out about it, when I was in my 20s.

I MAY be changing jobs, but not to Emirates-my buddy just started the 1 year 777 capt upgrade program.

I interviewed at NJA recently.

cliff
YIP

 

[Lear70]

Cool... good luck to you, buddy! :beer:

p.s. what the heck is a 1-year upgrade program? I thought the DECA 767 7-month training program was long and that is as a new-hire...

 

[HS125]

Prater was in a no-win situation. The age 60 thing was going to change no matter what ALPA did. He could come on board and help manage the change, or he could stand in front of a freight train. Watching Praeter get run over might have pleased a majority of the membership, but it would not have served it.

Prater was skillful enough to get elected; I think he played his cards right on the age 60 rule. It will probably cause his defeat, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, no matter what he did. Maybe that's his reward for his successful sculdugery at the BOD.

I have no dog in this fight, I left 121 10 years ago and never looked back. But, you're the first one that I've seen (in my opinion) get it right.

Age 60 was headed out the door 2 years ago and Prater wasn't going to stop it. ALPA had two choices; 1) Fight a loosing battle, or 2) Take part in writing the law to protect the majority of ALPA members.

Look closely at the law;

1) Those pilots that have reached age 60 and have retired cannot come back and reclaim their seats and seniority. Thus, protecting the junior pilots from a real cluster f***.

2) Those pilots that have reached age 60 and have retired can be hired at another 121 carrier and continue to fly until age 65. so they get protected too.

3) The law specifically states that there will be no more stringent rules to obtain a medical once reaching age 60. The only requirement will be that a pilot age 60+ will need to go get a physical every 6 mos. Something that they are probably already doing. So all pilots are protected from an overzealous FAA.

and

4) If I read the law correctly, ALPA is protected from law suits from those pilots who have already retired. So the ALPA membership is protected.

5) Once again if I read the law correctly, the airlines are prohibited from changing the current bargaining agreements based on the law change. Leaving it up to the unions to negotiate any contract changes. So your contracts are protected until the membership decides how to handle the changes.

Looks to me like Prater did his job.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

Normal FOs (like me, if I went) can't upgrade until 3 yrs at Emirates. The have a DEC program, if you meet the captain mins (8000 TT, for example). If you meet the DEC capt mins, but, for whatever reason, like my buddy, don't want to do DEC (the interview/sim is much harder), you can go into a program where you'll fly the 777 for a year as an FO, and then go to capt-U don't have to wait the normal 3 years.

cliff
YIP

 

[jhill]

The FAA has been screwing around with this for four years, doing nothing. Congress got tired of the discriminatory and arbitrariness of the regulation and changed it. Period.

If you are going to argue this at least do it right. You can 't say 60 is discrimination and say 65 isn't. 65 is just as "arbitrary " as 60 you dum$ A$$

 

[jhill]

oh....you forgot to say ....and Merry Christmas.

Relax G.. You will feel better when you start going to those meetings and saying the "Serenity Prayer".. If you don't know it you can Google it or just wait it out.