Anyone know this guy running for ALPA pres?

[Rez O. Lewshun]

John Prater is a TRUE unionist, a real stand up guy, a pilot's pilot.

FULL TERM STRIKER!!!

He is also one to bring all parties together to create some sort of concensus amoung the group rather than allow continued infighting to prevail.

While he has always been a major pilot, yet he respects the plight of regional pilots as well and, IMO, beleives a pilot is a pilot no matter what he equip his is on. At least that's my take based on my many years of dealing with him.

I am not his personal cheer leader, in fact I haven't spoken with John in over 5 years, but I will say that every time I have had a question as to the direction of our contract whether at COEX or at CAL he always returned my calls promptly and provided sound advice based on reality. He stands up to management in a manner that is productive to pilots, yet in a way that keeps mgmt on their toes.

Good stuff....

I believe he will be the one to save ALPA.

One clown doesn't run the show... nor does he stop it. If ALPA is to be saved it will be done by all 66,000 of us. Not one guy.

While anything is better than worethless, John is more than a solid alternative. I would pit him up against any ALPA candidate ever.

Anybody but DW is a dangerous mantra. This is not to say that JP is not a better choice... Let's be pragmatic about our selection of the next ALPA President.

Btw, I am not an "ALPA-ist", I do not drink kool-aid, I am just calling it like I see it. I don't even wear my ALPA pin (as long as D. Woerthelss is pres)Honestly, I really mean it when I tell you John Prater is probably the best candidate to run for ALPA in 30 years. I truly hope he wins.

Lot's of guys don't wear thier pin for various reasons. It is hard to tell who is a scab and who is a one man boycott for _____________. [insert your favorite issue].

Do you not display the American Flag becuase of Bush or Clinton or whatever the is the US policy de jour of disagreement?

ALPA is more than one guy. Now more than ever, we should all be wearing our pins in remembrance and honor of our fallen crews on September 11th. This includes the AA crews

Hmmmm... I think I'll call his campaign HQ and volunteer.

When all 66,000 of us take this attitude we will be a force to recken with. Management and gov't will have to listen. We will be more effective than an SOS.

 

[PCL_128]

Anybody but DW is a dangerous mantra. This is not to say that JP is not a better choice... Let's be pragmatic about our selection of the next ALPA President.

Agreed.

P.S. Not wearing an ALPA pin is not a statement of protest against ALPA. Not wearing your ALPA pin is a statement to management that you are not unified. Is that really the message that you guys want to be sending? Put on the pin and stand in unity with your fellow pilots.

 

[Sig]

Put on the pin and stand in unity with your fellow pilots.

Can I get an ALPA sick sack, right now? This chummy idea of brotherhood is great! Fantastic! Pass the pretzels, easy on the bull$hit, gmafb. By the way, my pin is at the bottom of Assawoman Bay. Fitting place for a puss placard, ya think? Tossed it out the window on my way to work after the "union" turned on me. Eff them.

I like what I've read about Prater- but this is still one gelding of a group. We have zero power, but are danged good at building the appearance of doing something.

We'll never have another strike, we'll be awash in lawsuits, arbitrations, crap rules and worse contracts, and there will never be a way to seek self help. Futhermore, it's all about the group that puts the most money in the war chest- instead of the ones getting penetrated the most brutally.

It's a fractionalized mishmash of rivalries, not some saccharine brotherhood, and it always will be. You can't unite my guys (the only, and I do say ONLY group in the union I like) with the mainline guys, because the bigger fish make bigger bucks and will get the mostest firstest at my expense.

So save the sabre rattling horse crap for the BOD throw down/circle jerk or show me a strike preparedness meeting two years in advance of a contract term. Maybe even a strongly worded memo about MANPADS along with it.

 

[Jonny Sacko]

Can I get an ALPA sick sack, right now? This chummy idea of brotherhood is great! Fantastic! Pass the pretzels, easy on the bull$hit, gmafb. By the way, my pin is at the bottom of Assawoman Bay. Fitting place for a puss placard, ya think? Tossed it out the window on my way to work after the "union" turned on me. Eff them.

I like what I've read about Prater- but this is still one gelding of a group. We have zero power, but are danged good at building the appearance of doing something.

We'll never have another strike, we'll be awash in lawsuits, arbitrations, crap rules and worse contracts, and there will never be a way to seek self help. Furthermore, it's all about the group that puts the most money in the war chest- instead of the ones getting penetrated the most brutally.

It's a fractionalized mishmash of rivalries, not some saccharine brotherhood, and it always will be. You can't unite my guys (the only, and I do say ONLY group in the union I like) with the mainline guys, because the bigger fish make bigger bucks and will get the mostest firstest at my expense.

So save the saber rattling horse crap for the BOD throw down/circle jerk or show me a strike preparedness meeting two years in advance of a contract term. Maybe even a strongly worded memo about MANPADS along with it.

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The foremost problem with you is you come off as immature, arrogant, and entirely self centered.

If you think you are the only one who's ever taken it up the shorts, you are wrong,. We have all taken it up the shorts. The problem is that you and I should never be in a battle. It should be between the ALPA reps and the company. But if we must fight the union and the company it won't work. Maybe you are just still a little pissed, GREAT, KEEP THAT FOR THE MEETINGS, and GO AND SCREAM. You are correct we need huge change, this must come from both ends. Ours (you and I screaming at our reps to quit or stand up and fist fight), and the top, Get rid of the politically correct, backroom, bs that's been happening for the last 10 years, while giving that fraud 400,000 a year. We need a pit bull, representing us at the local lever (You and I make them accountable) and THEY in-turn hang Worthless and all of his cronies replacing with competent ACTIVE people. As in on FOX and friends once a quarter. On the capital steps every 6 months, twisting arms using every media outlet possible.

The rub is this, YOU MUST GET BEHIND YOUR REPS>

How? They're incompetent buffoons.

GO TO THE MEETINGS (I am talking to myself also) STAND UP AND MAKE OUR OPINION'S HEARD

 

[Sig]

The rub is this, YOU MUST GET BEHIND YOUR REPS>

How? They're incompetent buffoons.

GO TO THE MEETINGS (I am talking to myself also) STAND UP AND MAKE OUR OPINION'S HEARD

Arrogant and self-centered? Hmm. *re-reads post*

No, sounds to me like I'm extremely pi$$ed off at the echelon(s) above mine, and recognize the futility of trying to affect change for the better or prevent wholesale steamrolling for the worse.

Behind my reps? I am. Reread the post. But when people like Woerth, the esteemed leader of this group, lied to my group and threw us under the bus- a little disaffection and disregard is the only result.

A chummy call to unity is total BS, for the interests we're all trying to protect are diametric opposites and that gets us nowhere.

This is what happens when a mainline MEC's predatory bargaining attacks a regional airline:

They also have special bidding rights, violating what’s called Filling of Vacancies; they have rights to a certain number of captaincies, violating the seniority clause in the regional pilots’ contract; they also have furlough protection, which again gives a preferred group of pilots all these special rights and privileges that weren’t granted to other pilots on the same property.

They can, at will, rewrite my contract provisions and include or exclude anything they want. When confronted by it, Duane Woerth lied. Further old news:

Now slated to fly only Dash 8 turboprops, the pilots claim they agreed to pay, work rule and Jets for Jobs concessions under the premise that US Airways would place RJs with Piedmont and Allegheny and award half the resulting jobs to their pilots. Two months later, in December 2002, Woerth allegedly signed a revised Letter of Agreement (LOA) with US Airways management that, in effect, transferred the RJ rights to “another wholly owned carrier,” where mainline pilots perform all regional jet flying.

After pilots raised suspicions that ALPA had negotiated a new LOA without the knowledge of the local union leaders at Allegheny, Piedmont and PSA, Woerth declared the deal “inappropriate,” claim the plaintiffs, and championed a new settlement. Only in July, after Piedmont and Allegheny pilots confronted him with the evidence, did Woerth admit he had already signed the LOA, according to the lawsuit.

Without our input- and he lied.

I have a complete and utter lack of trust in anyone higher than my MEC. Period.

And dangit, I wasn't finished.

So here we sit. People on the street, people in limbo at my brand somewhere between mainline and lowly Dash Trash, a continued littany of thinly veiled threats that more planes are most likely in the works but we're talking to contract carriers to see if they'll fly 'em for less...

The Air Line Pilots Association no longer fights on behalf of pilots to shore up the walls between evil management and a victimized pilot goup. It fights within itself, allowing whipsaws on the same friggin' property, signing off on a bad idea and refusing to honor written documents.

Why should I give a rat's tuckus about them when it should be us (the collective us, the "we" in the entire union) the entire time? I have zero faith that it will ever change.

 

[Tejas-Jet]

I like what I've read about Prater- but this is still one gelding of a group.

BINGO !!! As long as 55-65% of pilots continue to vote in favor of concessionary contracts, or they put signs on thier babies that read "Please let my daddy vote", while picketing against their own union, this guy could be the most charasmatric leader ever....and you'd still have the same results...

Involvement, people....INVOLVEMENT

Tejas

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Arrogant and self-centered? Hmm. *re-reads post*

No, sounds to me like I'm extremely pi$$ed off at the echelon(s) above mine, and recognize the futility of trying to affect change for the better or prevent wholesale steamrolling for the worse.

Sounds like you are fustrated and don't know what to do..... You don't have the skills to fix your situation.....

 

[Sig]

You don't have the skills to fix your situation.....

Mmmmm... skills, as in the toolset required to affect change? Yes, that is true. I haven't the support of the ALPA union above my MEC, as any regional pilot. Somehow you'll spin that to being my fault. I can get involved and affect change between my management and my pilot group on microlevel issues that come up day to day (including carpet dances and the company overstepping bounds on contract issues), but when it comes to anything we can propose to our mainline counterparts it falls on deaf or even hostile ears. That's a failure from the top down, not the bottom up. Again, the bigger fish bite harder; they do not support more broadly.

Why is that a typical response, though? On one hand, you'll shout GET INVOLVED. On the other, you'll say one of a number of things- it's just regional feed, we've all been there so shut up already, you're not entitled to anything anyway so quit being frustrated. How about recognizing the fact that I am indeed frustrated, I'm not a fool, and my extreme aggro toward the highest level of the union is not just founded but widespread?

No matter what you say, it's (ALPA) now the platform and level at which the infighting occurs. We have no power outside ourselves, and will attack from the top down on the inside to gain and lose ground. It's a soft game of political feather preening and washing hands, where deals are brokered outside earshot of the affected employees and again, we all lose. The inherent mission of the union is completely ignored.

That's a long winded way of explaining why I roll my eyes and snort when the "brotherhood" is mentioned. It ain't no such animal, sir. It's a fee based club...

Maybe Captain Prater can kick some sense into my thick skull AND actually realize I'm looking for leadership, not figureheadship, and deliver.

 

[pylut]

A quick impression....

give me an "a"
give me an "l"
give me a "p"
give me another "a"
Yeahhhhhh alpa...rah rah rah.

What you don't like alpa? that is because you are part of the problem!!! How dare you attack my beloved and oh so effective alpa!! You just don't understand how the system works. You are just part of the negative masses of disgrunbtled sheep, good old dwayne knows what is truly in your best interests.

Why even try to have a discussion with Rez. It is the same old song and dance, which gets even more tiresome with each additional failure by alpa truly lead.

 

[Sig]

Why even try to have a discussion with Rez.

Well, he's (or she's) said some pretty danged cogent things once or twice on this board. One of them wasn't discounting me as a frustrated, ill-equipped person.

Incidentally, one of the funniest things about being me is "outing" myself every once in a blue moon to my coworkers that lurk here. Sometimes, they can't believe "Sig" is me.

At any rate, I'm willing to join a fevered rant or a good discussion, especially when it comes to my position on ALPA. A bit of insight: It personally hurts to be a part of this union when it is so terribly flawed. I wish it to improve. I think it can't. I wish and hope beyond hope that the current snapshot of wtf is going on will be an anti-example of how to run the shop down the road, but I'm completely not counting on it.

Until then, I'm in to voice my... uhh... frustration.