ALPA Salaries...............

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Everything is legislative.....

U.S. Rep. DeFazio (D-Ore.) and nine other members of the House Aviation Subcommittee today expressed concerns about recent decisions by the administration to encourage and allow foreign ownership of U.S. infrastructure and industries that are critical to national security.

In a letter to President Bush, the House Aviation Subcommittee members urged the administration to reconsider its decision to allow Dubai Ports World to take over operations at six U.S. ports and to drop a proposed rule change that would allow foreign investors to control U.S. airlines.
The letter echoed ALPA's deep concerns about the administration's recent policy proposals regarding foreign control of U.S. airlines. The Association has lobbied aggressively against the rule change and has worked closely with members of Congress to stop its implementation. H.R.4542, the House bill to block the administration's foreign control proposal, now has more than 150 co-sponsors.

"The proposed change would result in U.S. citizens only having to have 'actual control' over safety and security decisions," the letter said. "Economic decisions, day-to-day operations, market strategy, and purchase of aircraft could be controlled by foreign officials. It is impossible, however, to isolate safety and security from the financial, commercial, and management decisions that foreign investors would be allowed to control. This proposal by DOT poses similar security questions as the port ownership actions."
"I'm pleased there's been so much attention on the ports issue recently," said Rep. DeFazio, "but people need to be aware that the administration is attempting to allow foreign governments and interests to control other important U.S. industries, like the airlines, as well. These policies put commercial interests and corporate profits above national security."
The letter was signed by Reps. DeFazio, Costello, Holden, Brown, Johnson, Pascrell, Capuano, Carnahan, Berkely, and Norton.

"The fast-track NPRM is alarming and irresponsible," says ALPA's president, Capt. Duane Woerth. "We salute Rep. DeFazio and the co-signers of this letter for taking a stand on this important issue."

 

[dsee8driver]

So...what does this have to do with ALPA SALARIES!!

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Perhaps they are being EARNED!!!

Of course, one has to know the value of post #1. If you don't then you probably think ALPA salaries are too high. Why? Becuase like any short term instant gratification type, we want it all and we want it NOW!

 

[j41driver]

So for DW's fighting the establishment on ALPA members' behalf he should be compensated more than twice what the highest paid ALPA pilots make? An ALPA secretary should make upwards of $50K/year while ALPA regional FO's make considerably less? I call BS on that one.

 

[PCL_128]

So for DW's fighting the establishment on ALPA members' behalf he should be compensated more than twice what the highest paid ALPA pilots make? An ALPA secretary should make upwards of $50K/year while ALPA regional FO's make considerably less? I call BS on that one.

Several things:

1. Captain Woerth works about 20 times as much as any pilot, is forced to reside in the DC area, and shoulders all of the blame for every little problem that he has no control over. He not only earns what he makes, he deserves more as far as I'm concerned.

2. Much of the ALPA Herndon staff is unionized. They negotiate with the ALPA Officers and Legal department for their compensation package. Do you suggest that ALPA should act as our managements have behaved and try to extract draconian concessions from our hard-working staffers in Herndon? That would provide an excellent example. Again, these staffers work their butts off for the ALPA membership and deserve every cent.

3. Comparing these staffers to regional FOs doesn't make any sense. Starting a career as a pilot has always required a ridiculously low salary for the first few years. Starting as a paralegal or financial analyst does not. To attract the top quality talent that we do, ALPA needs to offer competitive compensation packages to these professionals so they don't go elsewhere.

4. These salaries are only public knowledge because a bunch of anti-labor politicians decided to pass legislation to require this extra reporting from labor organizations a couple of years ago. Their intent in passing this legislation was to sow discontent in the labor ranks so as to undermine the labor movement. Judging by the posts on this board, they have accomplished their objective. You are allowing a bunch of politicians that could care less about you and your family to undermine your Association and your collective strength. Don't fall for their ploys.

 

[BE90flyer]

Several things:

Comparing these staffers to regional FOs doesn't make any sense. Starting a career as a pilot has always required a ridiculously low salary for the first few years. .

Only becasue idiots like you take the fast track at Gulfstream Academy and undercut the value of a real pilot. PCL, you are the reason I quit the airline business. When someone like you can spend money and buy your job I lost all respect for being an airline pilot.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Only becasue idiots like you take the fast track at Gulfstream Academy and undercut the value of a real pilot. PCL, you are the reason I quit the airline business. When someone like you can spend money and buy your job I lost all respect for being an airline pilot.

Huh? I started my airline career before there was PFT and I started at a "ridiculously low" salary. ($1,500/mo)

Your "cause-and-effect" argument needs some facts. Can you make your point without inaccurate generalizations?

 

[BE90flyer]

I will back up my statement with facts only if PCL backs up his statement that

"Captain Woerth works about 20 times as much as any pilot"

 

[Occam's Razor]

I will back up my statement with facts only if PCL backs up his statement that

"Captain Woerth works about 20 times as much as any pilot"

So now we're back in the 3rd grade?

How about we all agree that it is impossible to establish how "hard" any pilot works? I understood his point.

If I understand your's correctly, PCL's method of getting his job ruined your career. Is that a fair analysis?

If so, Show me.

 

[BE90flyer]

"PCL's method of getting his job ruined your career" No, I lost repect for my job, there is a difference.

The airline I worked had a reputation for only hiring higher time, experienced pilots. Soon after I got hired they changed the hiring methods and now people with 300 hours who went through an accelerated course but has no prior experience flying anything professionally started sitting in the same seat as me doing the same job as I was. With that I lost respect for my job and decided to quit.

 

[Occam's Razor]

"PCL's method of getting his job ruined your career?" No, I lost repect for my job, there is a difference.

Agree. There is a difference. I didn't go to a service academy...I went to OCS. Some of those who "did it the hard way" resented those of us who didn't. Not all of them expressed those feelings...but some did. A few of them really resented taking orders from me. Probably a "respect" thing going on there too, huh?

The airline I worked had a reputation for only hiring higher time, experienced pilots. Soon after I got hired they changed the hiring methods and now people with 300 hours who went through an accelerated course but has no prior experience flying anything professionally started sitting in the same seat as me doing the same job as I was.

Interesting! At my airline, many of the senior captains I first flew with were hired in the 60's with 250-300 hours. One of our Chief Pilots used to respond to the question, "Where'd you fly before you came here?"...with, "I didn't".

I've flown with several FNG's (I gave OE on our "entry jet") that were there because Fate had smiled on them, and they were in the right place at the right time. Others fast-tracked their way to the "Show" by being born to rich parents who $ub$sidized their training.

With that I lost respect for my job and decided to quit.

Neither the guys we hired in the 60's with very low time, or the guys we hired in the 90's with much more caused me to lose respect for my profession. I never resent somebody getting a good deal. I only resent when I get a bad deal. There's a difference there too!

It sounds as if you might have had other factors influencing your decision. There's a lot of that going on right now.

Blue skies!

 

[dsee8driver]

Several things:

3. Comparing these staffers to regional FOs doesn't make any sense. Starting a career as a pilot has always required a ridiculously low salary for the first few years. Starting as a paralegal or financial analyst does not. To attract the top quality talent that we do, ALPA needs to offer competitive compensation packages to these professionals so they don't go elsewhere.

This sounds like the crap Delta is telling their pilots.

 

[81Horse]

... many of the senior captains I first flew with were hired in the 60's with 250-300 hours. ...

You're talking about my old man now.

I had to have four times as much flight time just to get a job flying night bank freight in a Lance. Over the mountains, in the snow, uphill both ways! I used to wear a body bag while I was flying -- I didn't want to leave a mess.

buh-dump. Thanks -- you're a great crowd! I'll be here all week.

Pretty sure the old man's rolling over in his grave these days, BTW. When he got hired at about 300 hours TT, the first thing he did was go out and buy a Corvette -- at 300 hours, I was just real happy if a student offered to buy lunch.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Somebody needs some self respect.... and it isn't Occam

 

[BE90flyer]

Interesting! At my airline, many of the senior captains I first flew with were hired in the 60's with 250-300 hours. One of our Chief Pilots used to respond to the question, "Where'd you fly before you came here?"...with, "I didn't".

Maybe, but the difference is they did not pay for their jobs. The situation was different back then. PCL paid a lot of money to get his job.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Maybe, but the difference is they did not pay for their jobs. The situation was different back then. PCL paid a lot of money to get his job.

But what does that mean outside of your own smug universe?

Look when I was flying Part135 my buddies were paying 10K to get a turboprop job at a 121 regional. While they were flying for a real airline, with union protection and professional fellow pilots showing them the way...... I was getting hammered by small business owners who expected me to sacrfice my professionalism just so he can widen his profit margin.

PFT and PFJ are individual financial and business decsions! They do not affect the professionalism or airmanship of an aviator. In fact they may help, because the individual aviator is getting a jumpstart into the professional world.


In the idealistic world, sure we don't want PFT and PFJ.... but we don't live our own world. We live in the grey real world.

We need realistic, pragmatic, informed, tolerant professional aviators to make this job a career again. Look guys, when the economic cycle comes back positive are you going to be informed and prepared to get back what we lost?

When the good times come back management has a clear agenda to keep this profession ratched DOWN! If you remain distracted on GIA and ALPA salaries, we will be reduced to mindless, valueless boobs on the flightdeck.

Get real. Get informed. Get effective!

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

In U.S. airline fights, pilots often the last workers standing

Source: Comtex News Network (Associated Press Worldstream)

Airlines are a big union industry, and the big dog in every airline union fight is the pilots. So it's not surprising that they ended up as the last holdouts in the pay-cut negotiations at Northwest and Delta airlines.

The biggest pilot union, the Air Line Pilots Association, has a reputation for being a tough negotiator, but the list of its largest members reads like a who's-who of recent airline bankruptcies _ US Airways Group Inc., UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp.

On Friday, Northwest and its pilots reached a pay-cut deal. Delta's request to throw out its pilot contract was headed for a mediator.

To stay alive, bankrupt airlines have leaned _ hard _ on employees for pay cuts and more flexible work rules. Pilots, who can make $150,000 (?124,800) or more, have been a prime target, putting ALPA in one of its toughest fights since its founding in 1931.

ALPA isn't showing any signs of backing away from the fight. President Duane Woerth rallied Northwest pilots in Minneapolis on Feb. 23, telling them that the airline industry is poised for better times and that they'll be a part of it.

Mechanics and flight attendants generally haven't been able to shut airlines down with strikes. Pilots can. And they know it.

"They are hard and sophisticated negotiators," said Ben Hirst, who was Northwest's vice president for labor relations during a round of concessions in 1993.

"The difficulty in negotiating with them is, if they believe their position is right, they really will take it to the mat," Hirst said. "There's a lot of testosterone."

ALPA can throw a phalanx of lawyers, analysts and actuaries at high-stakes negotiations like the ones last week with Delta and Northwest airlines.

The pilots union has a history "of looking at the airline from an economic standpoint, from an investment standpoint, of really trying to understand the business they're negotiating with," Hirst said.

Woerth said several full-time staffers were working with Northwest union negotiators in New York, and about 60 staffers worked full-time on Northwest talks at ALPA headquarters, with plans to shift their attention to Delta talks next.

But all those union experts can't force airlines to make money. Older airlines (the ones started before government deregulation in the late 1970s) have been in deep trouble in recent years, pummeled by a punishing mix of terrorism fears, rising fuel prices, and discount carriers who grab lucrative routes and often pay their employees less.

The only time that was nearly as bad for ALPA was when Continental broke a pilots' strike in 1983, said George Hopkins, a recently retired airline labor historian at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois.

"But I think now is worse. At least there was a semblance of congressional support for labor unions in the 1980s," he said.

And he said pilots face a danger at least as bad as pay cuts now _ slashed pensions. Federal rules force pilots to retire at age 60, before they're eligible for Social Security or Medicare. So their pension is crucial to their retirement, but those payments are slashed when bankrupt carriers slough off their pensions on the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

While ALPA is the largest pilots' union, it isn't dominant. Pilots at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines _ the United States' largest _ and Southwest Airlines Co. each have their own unions. And many of the newer discount carriers are not ALPA-represented.

"ALPA has been slowly eroding in overall power," said Alan Bender, who teaches airline labor relations at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. And a loosening of rules barring foreign airlines from flying within the U.S. could hand more pilot jobs to non-ALPA pilots, he said.

Hopkins, the historian, said ALPA hasn't had a friend in politics since Republicans took over Congress in 1994, and unions generally have been representing a shrinking share of the work force.

"I have a good deal of respect for Woerth. He's a keen student of the history of his union and his profession," Hopkins said.

"He understands where the industry has been, and where it's at right now. But I don't think anybody knows where it's going."

 

[BE90flyer]

Look at the state of the airline industry as it applies to being a pilot. And you are proud of the work ALPA and Woerth does for us pilots?

Keep drinking your alpla kool aide and nothing ever bad will happen to you.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Look at the state of the airline industry as it applies to being a pilot. And you are proud of the work ALPA and Woerth does for us pilots?

Keep drinking your alpla kool aide and nothing ever bad will happen to you.

Can you expand? Your post has no substance.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Look at the state of the airline industry as it applies to being a pilot. And you are proud of the work ALPA and Woerth does for us pilots?

Keep drinking your alpla kool aide and nothing ever bad will happen to you.

Can you explain to me what force on this planet can prevent bad things from happening to our profession?

No union, even one you can conjure up in your mind, can counter all of the forces aligned against us right now.

ALPA is not an uber-condom. It's not penicillin. It's not your mommy or your blanky.

If you choose to be pissed at what is causing the problems in our profession, that's your choice. Blaming the group fighting the problems is stupid.