Anti union pilots.....I don't get it.

[PCL_128]

If ALPA is a union, why do Mesa, AWAC, Pinnacle, Comair, etc. all have different contracts? The reason is because each of these pilot groups acts independently of the others when it comes to contract negotiations. The pilot groups are provided with resources from ALPA National, but it is the pilots on property who negotiate the deals. Why is this? Why does our union leave it to us (pilots who have no background in union/management negotiations or sometimes even business) to negotiate our futures without the solidarity and expertise of our national union?

Because this is the way that the pilots want it. Go to your next Local Council meeting and bring a resolution that calls for ALPA National to negotiate all contracts for each airline. If you aren't the only pilot there besides your reps (a very likely possibility, since so many ALPA pilots are apathetic and don't attend meetings), then someone else will probably get pissed off because you want to put power in the hands of National to handle your own contract. You see, pilots want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be able to negotiate their own contracts and handle their own problems at their airlines, but then they want to blame National when everything doesn't work out as they hoped it would. For every pilot that wants to see a national seniority list, or a national contract, or yada, yada, yada, there's another pilot that wants to keep everything in control of their own MEC.

 

[MusicMan]

It's folly to call it a union then. It's a bunch of separate entities all giving money to a club which allows the entities to use it's nationally recognized name. That is all.

 

[PCL_128]

It's folly to call it a union then. It's a bunch of separate entities all giving money to a club which allows the entities to use it's nationally recognized name. That is all.

No, that is not all. Anyone who says that is woefully uninformed about how ALPA works. The resources that are available through Herndon allow each individual MEC to accomplish their objectives. Without the National organization, these individual MECs would be practically helpless. Even all of the independent unions industry-wide use ALPA National resources through services agreements because they can't do it without ALPA's help. As Rez frequently says, people have the wrong expectations and understandings about what ALPA is. ALPA is a toolbox, a group of resources. MECs can draw from these resources and pick tools from the tool box to help their pilots and to make progress in improving the profession. At the National level, ALPA works with congressmen, senators, government agencies, etc... to benefit pilots at that level. ALPA isn't just a name that is franchised out to different MECs. There's a whole lot more to it than that.

 

[TinGoose1]

PCL,

You obviously haven't spoke with any US Airway / America West pilots about the benefit of a common union. Being anti-ALPA isn't the same as being anti-union. I'm pro union, but anti-ALPA. Your going to realize someday that ALPA is out for ALPA, not your specific airline. Speak with Delta and Comair pilots about sharing a common union. Unionism is a great strength for any labor group, but ALPA doesn't have the ability to represent both sides of a conflict. For this reason, most airlines would be served well to have their own union. You don't have to be anti-union to be anti-ALPA.

-TG

 

[PCL_128]

PCL,

You obviously haven't spoke with any US Airway / America West pilots about the benefit of a common union.

Spoken with plenty of Airways pilots. Most of them are completely ignorant and are just trying to pin blame for their problems on someone else, even though they need to be looking in the mirror to see who it really is who caused their seniority issues.

Your going to realize someday that ALPA is out for ALPA, not your specific airline.

ALPA National deals with issues that affect he entire profession and provides assistance to MECs on their own issues. Your own MEC is there to take care of issues specific to your pilot group. If you think that ALPA National is all about yourself and your own airline, then you have obviously dreamed up some incorrect expectations about what ALPA is supposed to be about.

Speak with Delta and Comair pilots about sharing a common union.

The problems between these two pilot groups can be laid squarely at the feet of JC Lawson and the rest of the CMR leadership. ALPA National had nothing to do with it.

For this reason, most airlines would be served well to have their own union.

Having been an ALPA rep, and now working at an airline with our own in-house union, I can assure you that that is not at all true. Not to mention that most pilot groups couldn't even afford to support their own union.

 

[capt. megadeth]

btw- Mega-- do you know the history behind UPS one payrate for all airplanes. I really like it for the same reasons as above (as long as you don't lose out on the concept of bigger a/c = bigger compensation- but let the whole pilot group benefit, not just those flying it.) But i don't know how it came to be there.

No, I don't but that's a good question. I'll ask when I go to work again. It's really great because you have people strictly bidding for domicile and QOL not chasing money around as well.

 

[capt. megadeth]

If I have to choose between the two, I will side with the one that provides for me.......

Joe,
You should really apply for UPS management....they'd love you.

 

[capt. megadeth]

Thats the typical liberal rant. The big bad corporations would work you to death and then take your children and do the same.

There are some big bad corporations that realize treating your employees well is good for business.

Uh, I am the last person you would call liberal and I agree with PCL's statement. Do you really think there is a company executive out there that cares about YOU???? Ha ha ha.....don't make me laugh.

Maaaaaaybe Southwest....name another one....they are becoming harder and harder to come by.

 

[pilotyip]

What should management at UPS do to make you less unhappy? The UPS job is at the absolute top of the food chain in terms of making it, but that is not good enought when you get there?

 

[JPAustin]

SHUT UP!

NO! YOU SHUT UP!

Sorry, had to say it.

 

[SKYWRJGUY]

1) Why would Mesa need to fire anybody when their attrition rate is up near 30% (I heard about 500 of 1700 pilots). Of course, with firing comes the cost of hiring and training, so I can see why companies are so eager to fire people: they want to spend additional money in hiring and training replacements, not to mention absorbing costs associated with termination. If all companies fired everybody, they'd be loaded with cash.

"Spoken with plenty of Airways pilots. Most of them are completely ignorant and are just trying to pin blame for their problems on someone else, even though they need to be looking in the mirror to see who it really is who caused their seniority issues"

2) A year ago these guys were probably lauded for being club members, but now they're trying to oust ALPA (or the likes), all of a sudden they're ignorant. For 20+ years they were brilliant, then they got the dumb pill. If management could just fire all them, and hire replacements (consistent w/ [1] above), the company would be rolling in the money.

So long as employees think management is out to get them, management will seem to be out to get them.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

So long as employees think management is out to get them, management will seem to be out to get them.

That is an insult to every pilot at UAL and DAL that has taken huge concessions.. which kept those carriers alive and kept your job, if not provided security for your job. How disrespectful and ungrateful.

 

[PCL_128]

For 20+ years they were brilliant, then they got the dumb pill.

No, most union members are completely ignorant about how ALPA works, how the RLA works, what their contract says, etc.... It's not just Airways guys. It's a pandemic.

 

[antisocialist]

Can anyone here give me an example of a successful union industry? Can anyone here give me an example of a non-union industry where highly trained professionals have been forced by management into a "race for the bottom" and are now working for minimum wage? Pilots in general, and union pilots in particular, live in a vacuum. Only in a union industry can destroying your own company be the way to greater pay. God forbid you should actually work harder and smarter for more pay. We wouldn't want a merit system in America, now would we? Can you just imagine a bunch of non-union professionals (i.e. technology, medicine, law, finance, accounting, etc.) sitting around bitching that "management is out to get us!" "We should perform really poorly until they give us a pay raise!" Or any other socialist nonsense that comes out of pilot mouths?

 

[pilotyip]

Unions have a place

Can anyone here give me an example of a successful union industry? Can anyone here give me an example of a non-union industry where highly trained professionals have been forced by management into a "race for the bottom" and are now working for minimum wage? Pilots in general, and union pilots in particular, live in a vacuum. Only in a union industry can destroying your own company be the way to greater pay. God forbid you should actually work harder and smarter for more pay. We wouldn't want a merit system in America, now would we? Can you just imagine a bunch of non-union professionals (i.e. technology, medicine, law, finance, accounting, etc.) sitting around bitching that "management is out to get us!" "We should perform really poorly until they give us a pay raise!" Or any other socialist nonsense that comes out of pilot mouths?

I am a union realist. I am ex-union ALPA and Teamsters, both companies Transamerica and Zantop out of business. I have seen what unions can do and what they can not do. Unions are why we have many of he working rules at union and non-union airlines. From what I have seen unions protect the weak performers. At profitable companies, NJ and UPS, FedEx unions can ensure that management shares with its employees. At marginal companies unions can not make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear. Whenever I see the, militant union talk on this board I go back to my union companies that went out of business and inject a note caution.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Can anyone here give me an example of a successful union industry? Can anyone here give me an example of a non-union industry where highly trained professionals have been forced by management into a "race for the bottom" and are now working for minimum wage? Pilots in general, and union pilots in particular, live in a vacuum. Only in a union industry can destroying your own company be the way to greater pay. God forbid you should actually work harder and smarter for more pay. We wouldn't want a merit system in America, now would we? Can you just imagine a bunch of non-union professionals (i.e. technology, medicine, law, finance, accounting, etc.) sitting around bitching that "management is out to get us!" "We should perform really poorly until they give us a pay raise!" Or any other socialist nonsense that comes out of pilot mouths?

It is what it is.....

One can argue that we are simply hourly blue collar workers.. if that is what we want to be we can do that...

If we want to define ourselves in more of a professional status we can do that too....

Which pill? The blue one?

 

[antisocialist]

Pilotyip,

Thank you for a polite, logical and respectful reply. All too rare from union supporters.

Thanks,
Antisocialist

 

[antisocialist]

It is what it is.....

One can argue that we are simply hourly blue collar workers.. if that is what we want to be we can do that...

If we want to define ourselves in more of a professional status we can do that too....

Which pill? The blue one?

Here's how unions define us as simply hourly blue collar workers: Date of hire seniority lists.

Here's how to define ourselves in more of a professional status: Abolish seniority lists and pay based on education, training, experience, and professional accomplishments.

Why does a furloughed pilot with 10,000 hours and a pocket full of type ratings get paid $19/hour sitting in the right seat at a regional just like a 300 hour CFI? It is completely illogical. If you could move into the a comparable paying position with another company think of the power you would have. If you didn't like your pay and working conditions at airline ABC then you could move to ariline XYZ without starting over. Do you think that if an account manager from Deloitte and Touche crossed over to Ernst & Young that he would have to start over as an intern? That's what our industry does.

It'll never happen in my lifetime but it would have the same positive effect on our industry that it has had on every other industry in the free world.

 

[SkyNation]

antisocialist,

you're speaking with WAY too much sense and insight for this board and the majority of it's audience

 

[antisocialist]

Sorry SkyNation, I just keep thinking I have heard this economic theory somewhere before. Oh yeah, now I remember. Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto, "Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.” It didn't work for Russia and Eastern Europe, and it won't work for us.