AirTran Airways pilots ARE now ALPA!!

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

Time will tell....right now it seems the prudent thing to do. Hate to hear two years from now, "what in the hades were we thinking????!!!".

 

[PCL_128]

You will regret joining ALPA. A few years from now as you watch ever larger jets in AirTran colors flown by contract companies, you will wonder how in the hell it happened.

Hate to break it to you, but ALPA didn't do that, your fellow pilots did. ALPA doesn't force crappy scope on anyone. Pilots negotiate it and vote for it all on their own.

 

[ATLboeing]

Hey Lear,

I'd like to hear your take on this. (First of all, glad to hear about the high voter turnout. We're moving in the right direction.)

I'm a little worried about what might be going on with Allegiant, PAR Capital, and the fact that we're adding a bunch of cities that seem to be out of character with AirTran. Did we piss off our management team enough that they've started the ball rolling on some massive whipsaw plan in the future? I was part of that big scheme at Mesaba when they threatened to shift flying to BigSky.
Absolutely nothing against the Allegiant guys. You've got a good product and a niche, I just don't want to see us played against each other.
Our management has seemed to outsmart us at every corner and I get the feeling they've got something up their sleeve.

 

[BeCareful!]

Hate to break it to you, but ALPA didn't do that, your fellow pilots did. ALPA doesn't force crappy scope on anyone. Pilots negotiate it and vote for it all on their own.

Well, PCL, that might be a bit naive of you. ALPA has had this "play nice with everyone" thing going on for a while. You think Bill Couette (EGL) is going to hold a tough stance SCOPE? Not that he's the be-all-end-all there at National, but he is on the Executive Board. It's a sign of the times that ALPA is representing mostly regional airline pilots. Are you arguing this? Or are you aware of it?

Sure, in the most idealistic sense, each ALPA pilot group is purely atonomous and allowed to fight like hell for what it thinks is right. Is this the pure truth? The whole truth? Not really. ALPA National is clearly involved in the plan of attack on management, and mostly their intentions are good, but for who? Here are some comments by Duane Woerth:
Management has a strategy to further divide us and ratchet us down – they call it “brand management.” We need a counter strategy and we need it yesterday. What I believe we need is brand governance for pilots within the brand. Traditional scope fences will still be necessary outside of the brand, but inside the brand it is going to require a paradigm shift to what I call “the next generation of scope.”
This next generation of scope sets contractual standards for brand eligibility. This scope focuses more on the quality of the contract rather than merely on the quantity of small jet aircraft. To remove management’s financial incentive to develop even more substandard subsets within the brand and accelerate the proverbial race to the bottom – which they think they’ve got right now – all of us need to work on a coordinated brand scope strategy.


So you're telling me that National isn't involved in the shaping of SCOPE policy? I think they are, and I think it influences the thinking of the individual ALPA groups.


This could go on forever but I'll cut to the chase: I think ALPA does a poor job of educating the membership of the importance of fighting for the profession, sacraficing if necessary to make sure that future generations will have major airline jobs, not just the crumbs left after the whipsawing is finished.


I still wish you guys well though! Anytime a group stands up and overwhelmingly votes for their future it's an important step. It means you have the group's attention, and I hope you use this opportunity wisely.


BC

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Our management has not outsmarted us, they have just plain bullied us. If they are doing something as huge as merging with another carrier at this time in this market, it is because of a huge market advantage or because somebody is going to make a lot of money off the merger. While I strongly believe ALPA will be an asset to us during our negotiations I don't think it changes managements strategy in the slightest. What they will probably do is try to divide the pilot group by using the management puppets on our seniority list to try to divide our group. Hopefully the strong voter turnout and show of unity will make them realize we will not just roll over on our back submissively while managment continues to take advantage of our hard work and dedication.

 

[Lear70]

Hey Lear,

I'd like to hear your take on this. (First of all, glad to hear about the high voter turnout. We're moving in the right direction.)

I'm a little worried about what might be going on with Allegiant, PAR Capital, and the fact that we're adding a bunch of cities that seem to be out of character with AirTran. Did we piss off our management team enough that they've started the ball rolling on some massive whipsaw plan in the future? I was part of that big scheme at Mesaba when they threatened to shift flying to BigSky.
Absolutely nothing against the Allegiant guys. You've got a good product and a niche, I just don't want to see us played against each other.
Our management has seemed to outsmart us at every corner and I get the feeling they've got something up their sleeve.

You *SHOULD* be worried. You're exactly right, management has played union leadership and our legal team and outsmarted them at almost every turn. They have repeatedly been 2 steps ahead until lately, and I *DO* believe something's afoot with PAR and Allegiant on some level...

This is why ANY Section 1 needs to have HOLDING COMPANY SCOPE provisions, binding the holding company from purchasing another airline, changing the name to AirTran Vacation Express or something similar so that the brand recognition is there, our reservations people selling the product, and then shifting more and more of our 717's over to the new operations, furloughing our pilots, and saying "They're cheaper in crew costs, you'll have to match them to stop this erosion of your flying".

I believe that's VERY possible, and we'll probably know more in the next few months.

The downside is, even if they don't move fast with it, it'll scare a large portion of the pilot group with just the acquisition/merger/code share, and they are likely hoping that it will erode the larger push from the pilot group of late to a low enough level to where there's not enough people participating in union activities to make a difference. THAT is what we need to work the hardest on, increasing participation and hardening the resolve of our pilots, and we need to do it as quickly as possible.

If they move forward with it, we only have two real alternatives:

1. Cave to their demands.
2. Push for legal release to work action (CHaOS or even full-scale strike as a last resort) before they can fully transfer enough flying to support the business plan.

It'll be a race once they move forward with an outsourcing plan (and, of course, IF they move forward with an outsourcing plan). Can we get to release before they can shift enough planes to cover enough of our flying if we walked...

Don't count on the court systems to protect any kind of Scope provisions unless we write specific protections against these kinds of moves. There's already existing precedent from a judge ruling that "code share is not scope violation", you'd have to state that "code sharing IS a scope violation" in your CBA Section 1 to protect against this.

Our MEC is very aware of what the company is doing, ALPA's legal and negotiating staff are likely watching it very closely. It might be a shot across the bow to scare the pilot group, or it might be a move to undermine our negotiations and outright replace us IF we continue pushing for improvements. Either way, it doesn't change our strategy, just makes us speed up our push for self-help release if they move forward with even a "code share".

The game's afoot...

 

[FDJ2]

Hate to break it to you, but ALPA didn't do that, your fellow pilots did. ALPA doesn't force crappy scope on anyone. Pilots negotiate it and vote for it all on their own.

Very true. However, ALPA, as the largest pilot union, is a convenient scape goat for frustrated pilots. At the end of the day, ALPA is what you make of it.

 

[FDJ2]

This next generation of scope sets contractual standards for brand eligibility. This scope focuses more on the quality of the contract rather than merely on the quantity of small jet aircraft. To remove management’s financial incentive to develop even more substandard subsets within the brand and accelerate the proverbial race to the bottom – which they think they’ve got right now – all of us need to work on a coordinated brand scope strategy.

Sounds like a noble objective to reduce the incentive to outsource and prevent whipsawing of feeder carriers.

You almost make it sound like a bad thing that MEC's would get together and work on a comprehensive industry wide strategy that would remove management's incentive to outsource. The goal is to reduce outsourcing not propagate it and prevent whipsawing of feeder carriers as they race to the bottom to gain additional flying or protect what they've got. At the end of the day it is up to each MEC to set their own negotiating goals and achieve them, IMO, this is a good one.

 

[PCL_128]

Well, PCL, that might be a bit naive of you.

No, it's just fact. ALPA National has no say in what happens at the local level. They can provide advice, but they can't make any decisions. All decisions are made at the local level by the MEC and the pilot group.

It's a sign of the times that ALPA is representing mostly regional airline pilots. Are you arguing this? Or are you aware of it?

ALPA's pilots are about evenly split between regional, Canadian, cargo, etc... carriers and "mainline" carriers now. It's actually a slight majority in favor of the majors now that AirTran is joining up.

Sure, in the most idealistic sense, each ALPA pilot group is purely atonomous and allowed to fight like hell for what it thinks is right. Is this the pure truth? The whole truth?

Yes.

ALPA National is clearly involved in the plan of attack on management, and mostly their intentions are good

Of course ALPA National is "involved," but it's not to the level of determining strategy and policy at the local level. Again, they can only provide advice, not make decisions. You could argue that they've provided bad advice, and in certain circumstances I would agree, but you can't claim that they've made the bad decisions about scope. Local groups have made those mistakes.

This could go on forever but I'll cut to the chase: I think ALPA does a poor job of educating the membership of the importance of fighting for the profession, sacraficing if necessary to make sure that future generations will have major airline jobs, not just the crumbs left after the whipsawing is finished.

Hey! We agree! ALPA has done a poor job of that sort of education. Education of the membership is always one of ALPA's weak points, and not just on this issue. Much more work needs to be done in this area.

 

[1Speedbird]

EAL pilots

Just curious as to the number of former Eastern pilots that crossed the picket line are still on the property.

Will ALPA greet them with open arms and a "thats water under the bridge attitude"