ALPA Scab-list

[Typhoon1244]

Guys, look at airlines like Gulfstream. Mesa. Look at what's happened at Delta...and they have a union! Do you honestly think that airline managements would show restraint in screwing their employees if there were no unions? Are you kidding me?

...we can talk about safety and work rules all day long, you do not need a national union to do that.

Better read up on ALPA history: saffety is precisely why they came into being. Nobody else was doing anything about it!

 

[Timebuilder]

The truth of the Del Smith quote is not that it was his money specifically, but that most people who work for a company have no ideas about their business that extend beyond their pay stub. If they had to make payroll, using the company's money, it would be a revelation for most people. Even a shock.

The better idea is for workers to refuse to offer their services to unsafe or otherwise unscupulous operators. If no one agrrees to work, then an operator is forced to change. Sure, that's a utopian view of capitalism, I admit. Pilots can and do make an impact on carriers and their management styles. Happy pilots attract more pilots. It's a matter or word of mouth and industry reputation that can make or break a carrier from the labor cost standpoint.

Just as we like to inform new pilots about PFT and the carriers who rely on it, we can also draw conclusions about which carriers are safe and pay a decent wage. Southwest is a good example of some of the best labor relations you can have. Rather than the adversarial relationship established by pilot union leadership over the past thirty years, Southwest shows that a good relationship can exist with pay and safety that are fair and reasonable in a competitive market. If owning an airline was a wise investment (which it very likely is not) then the most succcessful airline in the world would be one owned by workers who banded together and pooled their monies and made the wisest choices possible in the forming and running of their airline. Most people with a specialty like flying airplanes lack the special education, connections with finance, and business expertise necessary to run an airline. Now if no pilot group has successfully pooled their resources and produced the world's best and most profitable airline for whom they can work, then how can another pilot group have the business sense to know the difference between being paid fairly and bleeding their company dry to the point of being noncompetitive?

When ALPA started it did indeed make a signifigant impact on raising safety. There is no denying that. But, as the od saw goes, that was then and this is now. The safety aspect has been taken over by the FAA. What was once an effective group focused on safety has become marginalized by their own shortsightedness with respect to smaller aircraft, and by the market with respect to discount operators that have brought wages down to earth and placed them on a level playing field with earnings.

ALPA is not the only union group who is behind the power curve. Take the trade unions in Philadelphia, for example. Often, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, a very impressive structure on the site of the old Reading Railroad train shed, is empty. Why? Convention planners have learned that the trade unions here are predatory, and can take the cost of a convention and, are you ready for this, nearly TRIPLE the cost of the event. So, convention events are going elsewhere. Smooth, Philly. Very smooth.

SAG and AFTRA exist only in a handful of cities, where they once ruled entire networks. Viacom, the company that owns MTV, is 100% a non-union company.

The truth is that people are now able to have jobs, fly airplanes, make movies, produce TV and radio, all without unions. They aren't getting voted in. People are figuring out that unions are shrinking, and it is unwise to shrink with them. If everyone voted in a union in every walk of life, competition could be maintained. If people are already happy, like at the ABC affiliate in Philly, they never vote in the union. Be competitive, have a job. Be uncompetitive nowdays, and you can find yourself saying "I had a union job."

How many pilots are saying that right now?

 

[Typhoon1244]

If people are already happy, like at the ABC affiliate in Philly, they never vote in the union.

Companies tend to have the unions they deserve. Anytime you find an extremely militant labor organization (Northwest, for example), you can bet it was generated by unfriendly management.

I've noticed Southwest's union seems pretty docile...could it be that they know how to treat employees over there?

 

[vetteracer]

Very interesting thread and some very good discussion.

I have never belonged to a union. Have never been in a position where I had to make a choice. Also I have never flown 121 or airlines.

I studied business in college and of course studied unions. It would seem today that many unions don’t have the argument they had 50 years ago. The FAA police operations with a tight fist, as they generate revenue from the fines. I think in many forms the government has taken over the SOME issues of the worker and of course are profiting from fines, tax etc. I have seen and studied many companies that are driven and destroyed by parasite leaders.

A good example is a local energy company. They were a very profitable publicly traded company that paid a good dividend and had a good track record. Enter new CEO and others that made commissions and options from brokering the buyouts of other companies. You guessed it. They spent the company broke so they could make 1% on the sale.

It will be interesting to see if this tightening of corporate responsibility will have any impact on the future of how companies are run. I think that CEO etc should be responsible to the point of criminal prosecution if things go badly in the event of blatant pocket filling. It is criminal to see them walk out the door with a bag of money telling the press that "well, I guess I was just not a smart leader". Too bad it is not a crime to be stupid.

Mark

 

[de727ups]

Now that's a laugh..

I like your posts, in general, but...

"The safety aspect has been taken over by the FAA."

Uhhh....Ummm. Geezzzz. I hope this never is accepted as the stats quo. The federalies are much less effective than unions in improving the lot of the average line puke when it comes to safety...IMHO.

 

[Publishers]

Del Smith

In his case, it was truely his pocket. He ownes or at least did when I was there 100% of the company. He founded it, he made it what it is, and he has no stockholders. What he was pointing out was that you would have a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of running these companies if you were making the decisions with your money.

As to the safety issues, I think in this kind of industry, that has to be federally regulated and not a union issue. It has to be across the board and a fair playing field must result that is safe for the consumers and is not influenced by union or non union issues.

I am currently writing a safety program for a carrier that is more stringent than the FAA and more customized for the individual situation. Like strikes, most smaller companies cannot survive a significant accident in todays legal environment.

Southwest does just fine with a union. That said however, the fact is that they do a bunch of things right besides that. In the airline business, you have to get a good many things right to eek out an acceptable profit. The pilots or any individual labor group are but a small part of these many issues. Some of the moronic posts on here are examples of people who the airline that they worked for would not have hired them had they an inkling of how self centered, self serving, and basic decency lacking they were.