Coex, CommutAir, and ALPA?

[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.