Alpa Strikes Back!!!

[BluDevAv8r]

Per diem does count as part of the salary. If you spent $40/day on food then your spending way too much. You can treat yourself to a nice dinner and still come in under

No, per diem is reimbursement for expenses incurred while travelling away from domicile. Compensation shows up on your W-2 in a different box than per diem for a very good reason. Per diem isn't compensation. But hey, if you can keep some of your per diem and want to count it as "income," knock yourself out. Sometimes I spend more than my per diem and sometimes less...but I never would add in my per diem as part of my "salary" for the year. Profit sharing yes...per diem no. Heck, if we are talking about per diem, why don't we lump in our 401k matched money too?

-Neal

 

[PurpleTail]

No, per diem is reimbursement for expenses incurred while travelling away from domicile.

I count per diem as income. Not for me but it is definately income to my 'massage therapist' in China:blush: That is a reimbursable expense!

 

[Ty Webb]

I count per diem as income. Not for me but it is definately income to my 'massage therapist' in China:blush: That is a reimbursable expense!

You get "happy ending" with that, GI Joe?



.

 

[Black Hawk]

per diem is reimbursement for expenses incurred while travelling away from domicile. -Neal

Maybe the ALPA office staff is upset that they only get to work for an hour or two then have to go sit in a coffee house, unpaid except for per diem, for an hour or two while they wait to do their job again for an hour or two and then get to sit around unpaid for another hour or two. That thing about showing up for work 45 minutes early to sign in and do paperwork for the company that is also uncompensated might grate on them as well. If the fax machine isn't running they don't get paid either. But they do get that $1.50/hr per diem.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?t=53627

There are many issues, as anyone who reads my posts knows, on which I am highly critical, there's a lot of misinformation and lack of information evidenced by the replys in this thread.

In the original post, only 4 of the jobs listed are filled by pilots, i.e., President, 1st VP, VP Admin and VP Finance. The President is full-time and salaried. His salary is determined by the Board of Directors, each of whom is an elected pilot representative. There are guidelines that govern the President's salary. One of them is that it may not be less than he could earn flying the line at his respective airline, including night and international differential pay where applicable.

The current President is a senior NWA Captain of the B747-400, international, equipment 1/2 day, 1/2 night. He is at the max pay level for his company. His basic hourly rate is $232. He has an 2.4% defined benefit retirement plan and profit sharing (now negligible). His international per diem rate is $2.05 per hour. If he were to fly the max of 1000 hrs per year, which he could do if he chose, his base pay would be $232,000, plus the international and night/day overrides. On top of that he would draw per diem of an estimated 250 hrs/mo. That's just the base and does not include the value of retirement contributions made by the company or any other fringe benefit.

I happen to have a personal friend who flys the same airplane for the same company. He is also senior enough to be on the highest pay scale. I don't know exactly how many hours my friend flys in a year, but I do know that it is NOT the maximum (he's lazy). His W2 last year was in excess of $350K. I'd like to see you tell him that he's overpaid.

The ALPA President has to live in DC, whether he wants to or not. He gets allowances to cover those costs. As presient of ALPA he can't live in a tenement and deal with the people that he has to. So, he gets an apartment, which I believe is in the Watergate building. It's expensive, as is all housing of quality in DC. Of necessity, he has to entertain a lot of politicians and airline executives. His expense allowances are not inconsistent with what that costs. He gets a car, paid for by ALPA, and someone to drive it (although he often drives himself). Having a driver sort of helps when you have to go to so many events on "the hill" and run so many errands on an almost daily basis. He's a politician, dealing with the high and mighty in DC, and they don't eat at Mac Donald's. To me, his expenses are justified. If you want to play in the big leaguse in Washington, it costs big money to do it.

I'm no fan of the current ALPA President, but his compensation is not really that far out of line for the job he is expected to do. You all need to be realistic. If you expect the man to be dealing with Senators, Congressmen, the Secretary of Transportation and Labor, etc., none of which he would have to do flying the line, then you have to pay for it.

The other 3 National Officers on the "evil" list are all earning salaries in accordance with what they could earn at their respective airlines.

Most, if not all of the other salaries listed apply to members of the so-called ALPA staff. These people are not pilots. Some of the lawyers and top level Administrators do have very high compensation. As in every company, some may be worth it and some not, depending on how you see what they do. There are two or three that I personally think are higher than they ought to be.

Enter a part of the equation that many of you don't appear to realize. Most of the other staff employees listed are unionized. Yes, that's right, they belong to labor unions themselves. Their "contracts" are the product of collective bargaining with ALPA. Many a time these negotiations have come very close to a strike as ALPA officials strive to control costs. Usually ALPA "caves" at the end. Now use your imagination just a little and think of what it would be like in terms of PR if ALPA, itself a labor union, was to be shut down by a strike. For practical reasons, that can't happen. Consequently, the staff have negotiated some very good contracts. By the way, the lawyers that are called Contract Administrators (CA's) are themselves members of their union.

Someone said the Contract Administrators aren't necessary. That just tells me that person doesn't have a clue. These people often represent several airlines each. They are involved in all contract negotiations. They play a role in every major grievance. They defend individual pilots before the FAA enforcement people. On top of that they often have to literally baby sit dozens of elected pilot representatives, who have the political power but are more often than not highly incompetent in labor relations and representation. Remember, the "representatives" are pilots. They are great at flying airplanes, but given the apathetic attention to their selection that is prevalent among pilot groups, a great many of them are not the shining kinghts in armour that you seem to believe. They do the best they can, but without the CA's the truth is they would not do much of anything but spin their wheels. Join the IBT or the IAM and you'll know what I mean. In my opinion, these people earn their money more than anyone on that list.

The CA's bosses are the high salaried "attorneys" on the list. Some of those aren't worth a plug nickle from my perspective, but they don't get there because they're smart. Remember seniority, the pilots shield? Well, they have the same system. Sometimes you get what you ask for and that is no less evident in the ALPA staff than it is in the left seat of airliners. Not all Captains are beacons of light, and neither are all lawyers. However, your "number" puts you into a lot of places you might not otherwise reach. Everything has an up and a down side and seniority is among those things.

Flight Pay Loss (FPL) is one of the highest if not THE highest cost items. The reps are volunteers. You can't expect them to give up all their off days and drop trips to attend required functions with zero compensation. When they do have to drop a trip for union work, the airline continues to pay them and the union reimburses the airline. That is the source of FPL. Not only does the union have to pay the airline the pilots trip pay, but it also has to pay the cost of that pilots' fringe benefits. Sometimes this fringe benefit override can be as high as 40% although recent concessions have lowered that. However, the override is a contractual percentage so it does not cost the union less until the contract is renegotiated. These factors are all a part of the cost equation.

One 717 fellow refered to fetherbedding reps and booze at MEC meetings. I don't know his experience, but as far as I know, ALPA doesn't pay for booze at local or MEC meetings. I'm not saying the booze is never there, but in almost every case that part of the bill is paid for by the participating pilots, not by the union. At national functions, that is not the case. I've never seen a local representative (within his own airline) get an expense reimbursement that included alcohol. Obviously I can't speak for everyone.

As for the BOD meetings. Yes, they are held in Florida. There are three prime reasons for that. 1) hotels in the Washington, DC area are a lot more expensive than they are in FL. 2) ALPA doesn't normaly hold its BOD meetings in non-union facilities. That limits the choices. 3) Finding a facility large enough to accomodate an ALPA BOD meeting is not as easy as it looks. Apart from that, pilots have to get to these meetings so, holding them in locations that do not have good airline access is not very bright.

None of what I've said is intended to "justify" anyting, but rather to explain some of the factors to those that may not understand. ALPA is far from perfect, but the allegations of corruption made on this board are not justified. ALPA's books are not secret from its members. You may not like what the union or some particular union official is doing, but they are NOT lining their own pockets with the pilots money. That is an unfounded allegation that has no basis in fact. There are no Jimmy Hoffas in ALPA.

We have as pilots many reasons to complain about ALPA's failures at the bargaining table and its internal politics but, in my opinion, fiduciary corruption is not one of them.

As for the efforts and the work of ALPA's staff, i.e., non-pilot employees, with very rare exception it is nothing but outstanding in both dedication and quality.

To those of you so eager to tear it down I say this: Don't sh_t where you eat; particularly not in public.

 

[BluDevAv8r]

Yes, I included per diem. The pay rate was $63 an hour with over 1,100 credit hours, 980 hours of flying. I also did 4 months of 24/7 per diem from base hopping early in the year.

Wow...not exactly tons of time off if you flew 980 hard hours, eh? But yea, as I said above in another post, I don't really think it is accurate to lump per diem into one's W-2 for the year...but whatever makes you happy.

I didn't read the quote directly, you could be correct about his quote. Either way, there should be NO concessions given where they're not absolutely needed. NWA has yet to prove how the concessions they were awarded will put them in the black. MSA has been consistently profitable yet the MSA MEC last time I heard was considering a 6% pay cut? WTFO?

Last I heard...and this comes from an officer at National...is that the Mesaba MEC isn't considering anything of the sort, but he could be misled of course. Who knows. Very dynamic situation. But I don't see Wychor giving in so easily.

Quite honestly, I wasn't that impressed with the XJT contract.

What weren't you so impressed by with respect to the XJT contract? Were you just looking at the rate table or did you read the entire agreement cover to cover? The XJT contract is the only ALPA contract in the last 2 or 3 years that I can think of that had pay rate increases...let alone more than 10% increases at DOS (XJT's had 11% for CA's and 15% or higher for all FO's except year 1, which was 10%). Leaving rates aside, the contract has solid job security language, an excellent vacation provision, industry-leading trip trading language, very robust 401k/B-Plan provisions, 12 days off minimum for lineholders (12 days off for reserves 5 months of the year), and many many other quality of life and compensation improvements (too numerous to mention). On top of all of that was a $30 million retro package which gave Captains on average about $15,000 to $20,000 in one check within a month of DOS. Is the contract perfect? Of course not. But it is the best 50 seat jet contract out there right now.

As far as I know, the XJT NC is made up of pilots as well, which I still believe to be a bad idea.

The core XJT NC was made up of 3 pilots and assisting them were 3 lawyers (2 of whom were the Director of ALPA Representation and the Asst. Director of Representation) as well as many other sub-committee members and ALPA staffers. I've seen what happens when an MEC lets the lawyers do all of the negotiating with little to no pilot input or access and the results aren't pretty. Pilots should be in charge of the process.

Oh yeah, the ALPA attorney is around, for what he's worth (nothing). I have almost 20 outstanding grievances over the last 5 years and the ALPA attorney hasn't done squat with them. Additionally, he's lost so many disciplinary grievances that I PREFERRED our Grievance Chair to do my grievances, rather than the attorney, and recommended to other pilots who were in disciplinary process to get a non-ALPA attorney to represent them.

I don't know your contract administrator but if you don't feel like he is doing a good job, then you should contact Wake Gordon and talk to him about it.

That's the kind of representation (or lack thereof) I'm talking about. ALPA has a GREAT research department, lots of good info for the NC, but no real negotiating help by someone WHO NEGOTIATES FOR A LIVING, which is what the MEC should use their money for.

That simply isn't true, as evidenced by my above comments highlighting that we had 3 professional negotiators with us for the bulk of our negotiations and never less than 1 at any time from start to finish. That is what they do....negotiate for a living.

-Neal

 

[T1bubba]

Too late!

Like your contract? It would've looked a lot different if your negotiators had showed up at the table with no clue about the value of each individual item in the deal.

Look at SWAPA's LM-2 statement and check out how much you paid ALPA for the gouge.

Southwest is a good airline, with good pilots, and a good union. But SWAPA doesn't have the resources or the organization in-house as ALPA does...so they hire ours. ALPA goes outside to hire professional pollsters, so the situation isn't unique to SWAPA.

Are you implying that ALPA told the company what to offer us during our 2002 contract extension (our current contact)? Or were you saying that ALPA guided us during the 1994 contract that the extension was based on?

I guess I'm missing the connection between anything we've negotiated so far and ALPA. If you meant the current contract research, we're still several months away from opening our negotiations. It remains to be seen whether anything ALPA (or anything the other consultants have provided us) will prove useful.

T1

 

[BEflyin]

In the words of the great Mitch Hedberg, "I'm against picketing, I just don't know how to show it".

 

[Exskydiverdrivr]

Hey furloughed dude, am I correct in thinking that if all flight instructors would simply quit applying at regionals- the regionals would dry up and go away? This in turn would create more business for the large carriers, thus enabling you (and no one else) to claim your birthright as an "Airline Pilot".

Yes of course- now we're on to something! OK, All regional pilots, (myself included), must resign ASAP and apply at Home Depot so this TOOLBOX can get a real job again.

You're flamebait is almost as bad as De'Angelo's. With the exception of laughing at the ALPA office strike.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Are you implying that ALPA told the company what to offer us during our 2002 contract extension (our current contact)? Or were you saying that ALPA guided us during the 1994 contract that the extension was based on?

Neither. ALPA provided your negotiators with data and analysis to put a "value" on each item in your contract, both in terms of staffing (number of pilots needed to operate the airline if specific items are changed), and in terms of dollars (how much each item is worth in a year, and over the term of the contract). Example: The staffing and cost impact of changing the number of guaranteed days off for Reserves.

I guess I'm missing the connection between anything we've negotiated so far and ALPA. If you meant the current contract research, we're still several months away from opening our negotiations. It remains to be seen whether anything ALPA (or anything the other consultants have provided us) will prove useful.

For the connection, contact your reps or your negotiators. They can tell how much they use/used. I just know they pay for it.

As for the "usefullness" of their services, I suppose repeat business is the surest indicator.