Coex, CommutAir, and ALPA?

[socalpilot]

I'm starting a new thread to continue the discussion from the "Skywest back to Coex" thread that we hijacked. I would like to hear from more of the Xjet guys on the benefits of ALPA and give the CommutAir guys a chance to respond.

 

[George Jetson]

The yacht scenario isn't far off.......

Back in 2001 (and I may be wrong)...didn't Commutair summarily furlough 110 pilots with no warning? Some pilots had to read about their furlough in the newspaper. Several days later somebody found out that the owners of Commutair bought a brand new Cessna Citation. Can anyone confirm or deny this story?

And don't forget that when Commutair furloughed those 110 to the street....Continental Express sent pilot recruiters to Albany and hired many pilots on the spot.

GJ

 

[StopStarin'AtMe]

But why Alpa? Other unions can do the same thing that may have their interests with the regional pilot rather than with the "big boys".

 

[StopStarin'AtMe]

But when it comes right down to it, Continental Mainline flowed back and CoEx pilots got dumped out to the streets. Alpa may have helped out those pilots that got furloghed with agreements with Skywest and Commutair, but it seemed to be an afterthought. They took care of the mainline first, then thought about the regional.

 

[tittyjet]

Who would you rather....

....have on your side when you skid one off the rwy one dark, snowy night, an ALPA lawyer (probably a pilot), the ALPA go-team (current 121 pilots), and all of the resources of ALPA, or a bunch of guys from the Teamsters?

Nothing against our brothers in the trucker's union, but if you had heart disease would you go to a Dermatologist?

 

[StopStarin'AtMe]

That is fine for that one aspect of a union. But I'm wondering about the big picture...please don't ignore my comment about CoEx being an after thought to Continental. Job security is not only an issue when you skid off a runway at night. Job security is important all the time, especially when dealing with management, and the industry in general. Answer my question rather than give me a "What if" senerio.

 

[T-Gates]

But when it comes right down to it, Continental Mainline flowed back and CoEx pilots got dumped out to the streets. Alpa may have helped out those pilots that got furloghed with agreements with Skywest and Commutair, but it seemed to be an afterthought. They took care of the mainline first, then thought about the regional.

The reason there were flowbacks is bacause a flow-through was voted IN by the pilots... No one could have perdicted such a viscious flow-back. 9/11 f*ucked alot of stuff up. And ALPA took the initiative to get those displaced CoEx pilots jobs.... ALPA is not to blame for the flow-back.

So what if it was an afterthought? Everything after 9/11 has been a friggin' afterthought. A union is not the all controlling organization. SH!T happens! You can't always go looking for a scapegoat to blame your problems on.

I'm not saying this about ALPA solely, but unions in general.

 

[StopStarin'AtMe]

...Still don't think Alpa is neccisarily the best option.

 

[ATRCA]

Fine, don't vote for ALPA. I'm frigin tired of all this sh*t.

One day you may feel differently, maybe not. Either way, until you decide to SCAB my airline, I don't care if your quality of life gets better or gets worse, wether you upgrade or downgrade, take pay cuts or get raises.

You guys are all big girls and boys, do what you want with your career and sleep in the bed you make.

You'll only know if you made the right decision on your 60th birthday, if your lucky enough to be in this business that long. Good luck, see you around. (probably in my jumpseat, had a CA guy in the seat today)

 

[George Jetson]

But when it comes right down to it, Continental Mainline flowed back and CoEx pilots got dumped out to the streets. Alpa may have helped out those pilots that got furloghed with agreements with Skywest and Commutair, but it seemed to be an afterthought. They took care of the mainline first, then thought about the regional.

This is an ignorant and naive statement. The Flow-Through Agreement was signed as a part of our Contract 97, which was negotiated by the IACP, an independant union. ALPA has absolutely nothing to do with this legal document which stipulates how pilots both flow over to CAL as well as back to XJT. Please educate yourself on the issues before posting such ridiculous inaccuracies and diatribe on here.

GJ

 

[mckpickle]

I Think you asked a good question and I'll try to be direct

Jumpseat issues. All ALPA carriers have a jumpseat committee that can talk and negotiate agreements with other airlines. If a jumpseat problem arises the problem can be dealt with at the union level an not involve management.

Hotels. We have a hotel committee that can help approve/change our overnight hotels. Before this we stayed in some real dumps!

Schedule. Our schedule committee are the ones who build all our lines every month. I was a member of this committee for almost 2 years. Most often line holders get far more than the contractual 11 days off a month. I myself have not since 99 ever had 11 days off. And that was only for my first 3 months as a captain.

Access to ALPA attorneys. Whatever the problem be it FAA company/ sexual harassment whatever, a pilot at an ALPA doesn't get fired for nothing. And when they do get fired they usually get their job back eventually.

ALPA, Political Action Committee. A group of Washington lobbies that lobby the government to do things that favor pilots and labor groups. Lets face it the current administration is NO friend to organized labor. If it were up to emperor Bush we all be working for 40K a year with no work rules.

Negotiating. Lets face it. MESA is a lot of things but on of those things is UNSAFE. They are unsafe because of many reasons. One is the limited days off. Being used like they are is FATIGUING. When we are tired we make mistakes. Another is the policy of a 98.5% completion rate for cancelation pay. BAD BAD BAD . ALPA dropped the ball on this one, because now it encourages the pilots to maybe take that extra flight when maybe their little voice says not too.
Point is that at least that can be NEGOTIATED. If Commutairs management came to you tomorrow and said, this is the way it will be done, you have no recourse. Just like having Tuesdays and Saturdays off. You can negotiate that you have 2 days in a row off.

Job protection. Ok we need to work on this one but ALPA is the reason why a bunch of COEX pilots are there. CAL said hey we are going to have CA fly your routes. The union said, well if you do expect a PI$$ED off pilot group. So that made the company negotiate with the union so at least we got something out of it. And this is why we are pi$$ed. We played our hand and helped out some furloughed pilots. And they slapped us in the face. ALPA got them jobs not CA and not CAL.

I will welcome anyone into the jumpseat, I will bring bottles of water or give them soda from my plane because they are a fellow pilot. But as for the COEX pilots who rallied against my union and against my brothers and sisters. The ones who rallied against the organization that got them a job in the first place. I will ask my union to not allow them to be members of my union, for they have not earned the right.

 

[captjim]

I will welcome anyone into the jumpseat, I will bring bottles of water or give them soda from my plane because they are a fellow pilot. But as for the COEX pilots who rallied against my union and against my brothers and sisters. The ones who rallied against the organization that got them a job in the first place. I will ask my union to not allow them to be members of my union, for they have not earned the right.

Ditto!

 

[sgu]

I will welcome anyone into the jumpseat, I will bring bottles of water or give them soda from my plane because they are a fellow pilot. But as for the COEX pilots who rallied against my union and against my brothers and sisters. The ones who rallied against the organization that got them a job in the first place. I will ask my union to not allow them to be members of my union, for they have not earned the right.

i'll second that!

 

[StopStarin'AtMe]

McPickle,

Thanks for your responce. Everybody else- Screw you. You call me ignorant because I asked for an explaination and call me un-educated when I was clearly just trying to learn. You got a great way of educating people
SCREW -YOU AS S HOLES


stopstarin'atme

 

[Snakum]

Your spelling is almost as bad as your attitude. You'd be surprised what you can learn on here if you practice a little humility and respect.

Minhberg Thongstein

 

[I.P. Freley]

How are you going to determine which of the former EJ pilots now at CA "rallied against the organization" drive?

Do you know who they are? And if you do 'know', do you KNOW or are you going on anecdotal evidence? I can see this quickly turning into a slippery slope of finger-pointing.

Just curious.

 

[mckpickle]

Good question. I guess the ones who were very vocal about it. The union seems to have a few names. Not everyone who voted no was the problem. They were influenced by bad info unfortunatly from some of our own pilots. And the folks spreading the bad info is the problem. It souldn't be a witch hunt but people need to be held accountable for their actions.

 

[ATRCA]

There are people looking into this. I have only heard a couple of names, but there are plenty of people who are upset that our furloughed pilots would lobby against the union that secured their employment and paid their medical insurance. You know what I mean.

I'm not all that pissed that CA voted against ALPA. I wish they would have, but they may learn that membership has its priveledges. I do however take offense that some of our folks would have been so active against it.

I would not like to see CA become the non-union hammer that is used against other pilot groups and I hope that if this happens the CA guys and gals will seek ALPA membership to prevent it. Otherwise its their career.

 

[I.P. Freley]

Interesting.

From talking to some of my friends at CA back before the vote, I understood that some of the EJ guys were simply not going to vote because they thought it was CA's fight and not theirs... Understandable, I think, as it seemed that few of them were looking at CA as a long-term proposition.

Actively and vocally campaigning against it, however, seems like a strange tack. It seems likely that if you are shouting NO to ALPA, that word might get back to the union and your position at EJ (if you chose to go back) might be compromised.

If I had to guess, I'd suspect that any former EJ pilots who were outspoken against ALPA were likely short-timers at EJ and felt that "hey, the union didn't keep me from getting furloughed, so what good did they do for ME?" I'm not in their heads, but I will admit to having felt the same way about ALPA after my short time at another ALPA carrier. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the motive.

In any case, you are definitely right about avoiding a witch hunt. I hope you have ironclad info about an EJ recall from CA before you try to get them booted. Hopefully they are smart enough to simply stay at CA and not go running back to Houston when their number is up, leaping feet-first into a cauldron of their own making.

 

[ATRCA]

I would suspect that some may do that. They may elect to stay at CA. That would be fine since there are plenty of others who remain on furlough. There is one person in particular that many are talking about. This person held a position for a short time while on furlough and if the rumors are true, this persons reception back here at XJT will be ice cold at best. Time will tell, the informantion needs to be confirmed before any permanent action is taken. The problem is that the accusations do damage enough even without corroborating facts.

The line is a tough place for someone with this kind of rumor floating around. I don't expect to see this person back here, but who knows.

 

[George Jetson]

Everybody else- Screw you. You call me ignorant because I asked for an explaination and call me un-educated when I was clearly just trying to learn. You got a great way of educating people
SCREW -YOU AS S HOLES

You didn't ask for an explanation. You claimed you knew just how it went down over here with CAL, CALEX, and the FTA. Go reread my post and your post and then come back here and comment. I call you ignorant because you have no clue how it went down yet post a rambling incoherent message about how ALPA only cares about CAL pilots and they forced the mainline CAL pilots onto our list...that is pure BS. As for your spelling...well....we all make mistakes. As for your swearing at me....that is very grown up and professional of you. Thank you.

GJ

 

[socalpilot]

I'm not in their heads, but I will admit to having felt the same way about ALPA after my short time at another ALPA carrier.

I'll bet that was right after they furloughed by equipment and not seniority under the superior ALPA contract. You can have all the contracts in the world but the doesn't stop a company who wants to break them. They find loopholes or just straight violate them and let the grievance run it's coarse. They can easily drag it out for 6 months or more.

 

[NEDude]

Back in 2001 (and I may be wrong)...didn't Commutair summarily furlough 110 pilots with no warning? Some pilots had to read about their furlough in the newspaper. Several days later somebody found out that the owners of Commutair bought a brand new Cessna Citation. Can anyone confirm or deny this story?

I will try and clarify some things.

It was 2001 when Commutair furloughed. The meeting in which it was announced was on (I believe) July 6th, or there about. The actual furloughs took effect on or about August 14, 2001. So there was plenty of notice. Also the company provided pay and benefits for 60 days after the announcement, so until early September. So it was not without notice, and people didn't show up to work only to find out the were on the street. Also, to their credit, the company organized a job fair to help place the furloughed pilots and personally I found the company to be flexible in allowing pilots to re-arrange their schedules to allow for interviews. Many of us were at work and collecting paychecks before CommutAir pay ended.

I do not know too much about the Citation deal so I cannot clarify that.

If you loose your medical, who is giong to help you get it back?

If you are in an accident/incident, who is going to defend you?

If you get an FAA violation, who is going to help you fight it?

This was the hardest aspect of our campaign IMHO. I think just about everyone here would agree that our current management has done an outstanding job of defending our pilots in these cases. For me it was more about what will happen when our current C/P and D/O retire (don't know what their plans are but obviously it will happen at some point).

 

[I.P. Freley]

I think I can clarify "the Citation deal".

I saw this airplane in the hangar, and wandered through the cabin, well before the furloughs were announced. The plane had been there for a while before I poked my head in, so it wasn't a case of "we're furloughing, and whoa, look at this airplane we're buying now". Since their acquisition of the airplane wasn't "announced" or anything (were they supposed to put out a memo?), it doesn't surprise me that the revelation that the owners had a new airplane was twisted into "they bought it just as they were laying us off"... A natural reaction to the frustration of being put out on the street.

 

[CA1900]

Of course, watching them fuel their new toy from the CommutAir fuel truck while standing in the hangar reading the furlough announcement kind of put a bitter taste in my mouth. Crying poor while pi$$ing away company resources is in really, really bad taste.

 

[I.P. Freley]

Hey, I didn't say it was KOSHER, just that it was purchased well before the furlough announcement.