Colgan Letters swaying your thoughts about ALPA?

[Dr King]

Then why won't these pilots put their names out there for everyone to see? The organizing committee has put out a letter with all of their names and email addresses on it. Why does the "pilot committee" not include any names except the two management-picked leaders?

Talking to them they said they will. You have to remeber they were organizing the ALPA committee for months, they only started this a couple of weeks.

 

[suupah]

Dr.,

Why do you believe a committee will move the Colgan's to make improvements to our work rules, QOL, Q400 pay that will cost them more money and hurt their books when reviewed by the people on wall street?

I don't think they would be inclined to do so.

 

[Chamo]

In a moment of neutrality...This is going to get bad...regardless what happens dont forget the guy flying next to you (your right or left) is getting screwed with just as much as u, along with the 3rd crew member in the back...when it comes to ALPA or Pilot Comitte they mean nothing in the air.

 

[I ROCK]

3rd crewmember in the back lol.

 

[dingo222]

I thought it was a soda machine in the back, lol

 

[YMICFI]

Alpa

In a moment of neutrality...This is going to get bad...regardless what happens dont forget the guy flying next to you (your right or left) is getting screwed with just as much as u, along with the 3rd crew member in the back...when it comes to ALPA or Pilot Comitte they mean nothing in the air.

ALPA does mean everything in the air. We will have their backing and support at all times. ALPA has done so much for our industry and how our jobs are done in the air. Safety, fatigue, FAR'S, etc. They have worked with the government for decades to make our jobs safer and more regulated.

 

[Chamo]

ALPA does mean everything in the air. We will have their backing and support at all times. ALPA has done so much for our industry and how our jobs are done in the air. Safety, fatigue, FAR'S, etc. They have worked with the government for decades to make our jobs safer and more regulated.

Come on u know that what im saying is as far CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT and its operation

 

[suupah]

Word on the street from most colganeers is that the letters from Mike are percieved as condescending, demeaning and completely false. I get the feeling that a lot of pilots are being swayed more toward a yes vote because of them.

 

[CA1900]

This whole "let's form an in-house organization" movement is straight out of the union-busting toolbox. It was used successfully to divide the pilot group at CommutAir, causing its union vote to fall short. Almost immediately after the union vote failed, medical insurance premiums increased by over $100 a month (about 10% of an FO's income). Profit sharing is basically nonexistent, the on-time bonus is gone, and here's the fun part:

The payscale at CommutAir hasn't gone up in seven years, while inflation has gone up over 20%. First year 1900 captain pay hasn't changed in seventeen years. That payraise in 2000 for second-year-and-up was only 20 cents an hour. That's what you get when you have no union, and no legal power to bargain collectively.

Im not going to be here in foru years when a contract comes through...

You never know when the industry's going to crash, and you get stuck at a place longer than you planned. Pilots treating the job like a stepping stone--a rite of passage to be suffered--is why its pay and working conditions are so bad.

Don't make the mistake CommutAir's pilot group did and fall for the "in-house pilot association" BS. It started exactly the same way: one of management's golden boys "came up with" this idea for a "mutual interest committee" to act as a liaison between the pilot group and management. Enough pilots believed "in-house" was a better way to go than the big, bad national union telling them what to do, and the group fell 7% short of voting ALPA in.

Meanwhile, despite the hard work by line pilots who had joined the committee, nothing substantial was ever gained by the pilot group. And since the union vote had already failed, there was no reason to cave to anything the committee tried to do. It had no power. This was all as management intended, under the advice of its law firm, Ford & Harrison.

Don't buy it, guys. If it's not a proper union, then you have no power to negotiate anything. You can ask, and they'll say no, just as they always have.

Bargaining under the Railway Labor Act is messy, yes. But it's the only real avenue you have under the law to better your working conditions. Use it!

 

[DoinTime]

Do tell the story of CCair and put in on a thread here so that Colganeers can read and understand. Heck even better if you belonged to CCair at some point.

Here are some news clips from back then. Those who are interested can find about anything they need via google.

Latest News from ALPA on Mesa IssueWednesday, July 03 2002 @ 02:00 AM GMT
Email Story | Print Story
WASHINGTON, D.C.— Captain Duane Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) today issued the following statement regarding the National Mediation Board’s (NMB) determination that Mesa Airlines, Inc., Air Midwest, Inc. and CCAir, Inc. constitute a single transportation system:


“ALPA is extremely pleased that the NMB upheld the Association’s assertion that these Mesa Air Group, Inc. subsidiaries are in fact a single carrier for collective bargaining purposes. The NMB ruling validates what our pilots have long known – that labor relations for all Mesa Air Group carriers are controlled by Mesa Air Group President Jonathan Ornstein.

“The decision by the NMB puts Mr. Ornstein on notice that his corporate shell game of threatening to shift jobs and airplanes from one carrier to another in order to decimate wages and working conditions for all Mesa Air Group pilots and undermine the pilots’ rights to representation is being closely scrutinized. Ever since Mesa Air Group purchased CCAir in 1999, Ornstein’s strategy has been to divide and conquer, attempting to pit the pilots of CCAir and Mesa against each other within his corporate empire. He has systematically dismantled CCAir, stripping it to a core of only one airplane and two spares, simply to maintain a legal operating certificate.
“Under the threat of shutting down the company, CCAir management has placed unwarranted pressure on its pilots to replace their current contract with greatly concessionary working conditions in the absence of any demonstrated economic justification. Pilots should not have to choose between keeping their jobs, working under ridiculously poor conditions, or having their work transferred to an upstart non-union carrier – yet Ornstein has subjected the pilots of CCAir to exactly this fate in hopes of pressuring Mesa pilots to accept substandard provisions in their new contract. “ALPA has pledged its full support to battle Jonathan Ornstein’s scorched earth management tactics so reminiscent of Frank Lorenzo. With the proposed start up of Freedom Air, a new non-union subsidiary of the Mesa Air Group, Jonathan Ornstein intends to transfer Mesa Airlines assets, jobs, and work opportunities to a non-union carrier to the detriment all Mesa Air Group employees, much in the way that Frank Lorenzo did under the umbrella of the Texas Air Corporation.”

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Release #02.77
August 30, 2002

​

Court Upholds ALPA’s Rejection Of Concessionary Contract in CCAir Suit
CHARLOTTE, N.C.---A federal district court judge yesterday rejected efforts by Mesa Air Group to judicially impose a concessionary collective bargaining proposal for pilots at its CCAir subsidiary.

The suit was initially brought by a CCAir pilot and then joined by management after the president of the Air Line Pilots Association indicated he would not sign the proposed concessionary contract amendment. Although the proposal had been accepted by CCAir local union leaders and members, ALPA’s Constitution and By-laws requires that its president review and approve each collective bargaining agreement before it can be effective.

ALPA President Duane Woerth declined to approve the extremely concessionary proposal, which came in the context of an unbroken campaign of threats and intimidation by CCAir and Mesa Air Group to shut down the carrier if the pilots did not give up their existing agreement. President Woerth refused to approve the proposed agreement because it unjustifiably degraded pilot working conditions and offered no job security for CCAir pilots in return for the concessions. President Woerth also determined that the carrier’s management never demonstrated the need for the requested concessions and failed to show how the concessions would help save the carrier or the pilots’ jobs.

In denying a motion for a preliminary injunction which sought to order President Woerth to approve the concessionary proposal, Chief U.S. District Judge Graham C. Mullen agreed with ALPA that the requirement that its president review and approve collective bargaining agreements was well known to CCAir representatives and that there could be no collective bargaining agreement without that approval. Judge Mullen also noted that the rejected proposed agreement would likely make no immediate difference to the status of CCAir and its pilots, observing that their fate rests in the decisions of the carrier’s sole customer, US Airways, as to the flying it will permit CCAir to perform on its behalf.

"We are gratified that the court’s decision upholds the integrity of the bargaining process and recognizes the right of ALPA to safeguard pilot working conditions from unjustified attacks by management. At this point, we are hoping that we can take this out of the courtroom and back to the bargaining table, where it belongs, so that we can work together to try to save CCAir pilots’ jobs," Woerth said.[/FONT]