Colgan votes in ALPA!

[Rekks Inbound]

Does ALPA represent the average line pilot like they did in the past?
Many, many pilots will tell you NO!

True.

But FAR MORE will tell you YES.

Sorry.

Peace.

Rekks

 

[Nevets]

Does ALPA represent the average line pilot like they did in the past?
Many, many pilots will tell you NO!

I would say that ALPA represents the average line pilot today then they did in the past. Its a common misconception today but if you actually get involved you would see with your own eyes that it is not so. But I guess its always easier to just complain about something rather than to try to fix whatever it is you see that is broken.

 

[DX Rick]

I would say that ALPA represents the average line pilot today then they did in the past. Its a common misconception today but if you actually get involved you would see with your own eyes that it is not so. But I guess its always easier to just complain about something rather than to try to fix whatever it is you see that is broken.

True.

But FAR MORE will tell you YES.

At the regional I fly for, many guys are trying to get involved with the union, only to be told "We don't have room".
Talk to the average line pilot. Many have no faith in the Union.
ALPA started off because pilots were being forced to fly POS airplanes, safety was their number one goal....not Capitol Hill or conventions in Las Vegas.
Today we see ALPA trying to save the jobs of guys who no right being in the cockpit. Guys who show up drunk, but we'll try and save your job.
ALPA is all talk. Nothing but a self serving business.

 

[Nevets]

At the regional I fly for, many guys are trying to get involved with the union, only to be told "We don't have room".
Talk to the average line pilot. Many have no faith in the Union.
ALPA started off because pilots were being forced to fly POS airplanes, safety was their number one goal....not Capitol Hill or conventions in Las Vegas.
Today we see ALPA trying to save the jobs of guys who no right being in the cockpit. Guys who show up drunk, but we'll try and save your job.
ALPA is all talk. Nothing but a self serving business.

And where do you think these safety issues get resolved? It isn't just a convention in Chicago or Las Vegas where they get together to talk about these issues. Its in congress where the ideas and strategies of these meetings in Orlando or Anaheim get implemented.

What regional do you fly for? There are other ways to get involved especially if you are told there is no room. You can recall or run for rep position yourself or run one of your buddies. If the line pilot has no faith then its the perfect scenario for this type of strategy. Complaining about it surely wont do anything.

Because of ALPA's position in congress we have been able to institute the HIMS program and now many alcoholics have been rehabilitated and returned to the cockpit. These people deserve a second chance. Lets not be so quick to judge them.

ALPA is a self serving business. They are in the business to serve themselves, their members only and no one else. If that means spending money to lobby congress for funding of recovering alcoholic programs, then good. They do a lot of other work behind the scenes as well and have been the best safety advocate before congress this profession has ever had.

 

[Regul8r]

And how will not meeting with government officials benefit the safety of the profession? Even with a republican administration and congress in the past, ALPA has been able to get a lot of safety/security related legislation passed. And hence, I don't understand your cynicism on this issue.

Skywest learned quick and early that they didn't have to buy the cow. The other Unions have caught on...

My cynicism stems from the continual decline of pay and benefits at the airlines in general. But it's the safest place to work! Glad I can apply my 2% to more important issues these days.

 

[Nevets]

Skywest learned quick and early that they didn't have to buy the cow. The other Unions have caught on...

My cynicism stems from the continual decline of pay and benefits at the airlines in general. But it's the safest place to work! Glad I can apply my 2% to more important issues these days.

Are you saying that Skywest and other unions are riding the coat tails of ALPA's success in improving safety and security of the profession for the last 75 years? I don't think that the NTSB, FFDO, and CrewPass are lip service or not meaningful, do you? What is more important then the safety and security of you, your crew, and your passengers? And what do you suggest for the turn around of the "continual decline of pay and benefits at the airlines in general" should be? Decertify all unions? All honest questions.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Skywest learned quick and early that they didn't have to buy the cow. The other Unions have caught on....

So what happens when more and more stop buying cows, thinking they will get the milk for free?

A Madoff Ponzi scheme?

 

[CFIT]

So what happens when more and more stop buying cows, thinking they will get the milk for free?

A Madoff Ponzi scheme?

Maybe a real union, not a big business, will be formed that actually represents the regionals.

Conflict of intrest, disgusting presidential pay packages, sloth speed level action of issues. Nothing has changed at ALPA.

I truly believe this is the start of the demise of ALPA. A new level of action, a new union, that can adapt and deal with todays style of management that can change certificates and alter ego airline formation.

Maybe even indentify and work torwards the real reason that pilot unions can't actually have strength.





The RLA.


ALPA, clueless for the last 50 years!

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Maybe a real union, not a big business, will be formed that actually represents the regionals.

Why do you care, you've rejected ALPA representation at your regional. In addtion, how do you think a regional union would represent regionals better than ALPA? This I want to hear from one of Skywest crack, top notch pilot negotiators..

Conflict of intrest, disgusting presidential pay packages, sloth speed level action of issues. Nothing has changed at ALPA.

Rather you don't understand how things work. Check this out:

Ed Muskie, former senator and Secretary of State, once said that “you have the God given right to kick the government around.” And it starts with voting, and becoming involved in campaigns. If you think that too many politicians are feckless and corrupt, then go out and help elect different ones. Or go out and run yourself. But you must participate, or else the decisions that affect your life and the future of our country will be made for you—and without you.​

So vote. And volunteer. But also consider doing something else: dedicating at least part of your life in service to our country.​

I entered public life more than 40 years ago, and no one is more familiar with thehassles, frustrations and sacrifices of public service than I am. Government is, by design of the Founding Fathers, slow, unwieldy and almost comically inefficient. Will Rogers used to say: “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”​

These frustrations are inherent in a system of checks and balances, of divisions and limitations of power. Our Founding Fathers did not have efficiency as their primary goal. They designed a system intended to sustain and protect liberty for the ages. Getting things done in government is not easy, but it’s not supposed to be.​

I truly believe this is the start of the demise of ALPA.

You also believe that you are a SKywest pilot negotiator when you are actually the equivilant of the Head Mom of the Afghani Womens Club. Burka back on...

A new level of action, a new union, that can adapt and deal with todays style of management that can change certificates and alter ego airline formation.

Ok, this is your chance to shine.... explain in detail how a new union would deal with these issues...

Maybe even indentify and work torwards the real reason that pilot unions can't actually have strength.





The RLA.

Ok, now I am confused, first the problem was ALPA, ALPA, ALPA... And now you say it is the RLA....

The RLA is designed to keep planes moving. Why would big business want the power taken away...

ALPA, clueless for the last 50 years!

You do "look" better with your burka on. Check your email, maybe your pay or some other policy has changed...

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]College of William and Mary Commencement (Williamsburg, VA)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Williamsburg, Virginia, Sunday, May 20, 2007[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Thank you, President Nichol. Members of the faculty, parents, distinguished guests. Justice O’Connor—Chancellor—a pleasure to see you. Justice O’Connor administered my oath of office as Director of Central Intelligence in 1991 and, more recently, as President Nichol has mentioned, we served on the Baker-Hamilton Commission last year—although my tenure on the group was rather abruptly interrupted. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Speaking of which, in terms of my timing in taking on the responsibilities of the Secretary of Defense, it reminds me of a story told long ago by Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who spoke of having seen a bull that charged a locomotive. He said, “You know that was the bravest bull I ever saw, but I can’t say much for his judgment.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dr. Kelso and Secretary Coleman, your recognition here today is well-deserved. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]To the members of the Class of 2007: Congratulations. I am truly honored—and flattered—to be your graduation speaker. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I presided over 39commencement ceremonies as president of Texas A&M, yet, today is the first commencement speech I have ever given. I thank all of you for the extraordinary privilege of letting it be at my alma mater. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]To the parents: you must be welling up with pride at the achievements of your children. Having put two children through college, I know there aremany sighs of relief as well,and you are probably already planning how to spend your newly re-acquired disposable income. Forget it. Trust me on this. If you think you’ve written your last check to your son or daughter, dream on. The National Bank of Mom and Dad is still open for business.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I guess I am supposed to give you some advice on how to succeed. I could quotethe billionaire J. Paul Getty, who offered advice on how to get rich. He said, “Rise early, work late, strike oil.” Or, Alfred Hitchcock, who said, “There’s nothing to winning really. That is if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.” [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Well, instead of those messages, my only words of advice for success today comes from two great women. First, opera star Beverly Sills, who said, “There are no short cuts to anyplace worth going.” And second, from Katharine Hepburn, who wrote: “Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around wondering about yourself.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In all those 39 commencements at Texas A&M, I learned the importance of brevity for a speaker. George Bernard Shaw once told a speaker he had 15 minutes. The speaker asked, “How can I possibly tell them all I know in 15 minutes? Shaw replied, “I advise you to speak very slowly.” I will speak quickly, because, to paraphrase President Lincoln, I have no doubt you will little note nor long remember what is said here.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I arrived at William & Mary in 1961 at age 17, intending to become a medical doctor. My first year was pure pre-med: biology, chemistry, calculus and so on. I soon switched from pre-med to history. I used to say “Godonly knows how many liveshave been saved by my becoming Director of CIA instead of a doctor.”[/FONT]

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When reflecting on my experience here I feel gratitude for many things:

• <LI style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">To William & Mary for being a top-tier school that someone like me could actually afford to attend—even as an out-of-state student. By the way, hold on to your hats, parents: Out of state tuition then was $361 a semester. <LI style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Gratitude for the personal care and attention from a superb faculty and staff—a manifestation of this university’s commitment to undergraduate education that continues to this day; <LI style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Gratitude to those in the greater Williamsburg community, who opened their hearts and their homes to a 17-year-old far from his own home; and
• Gratitude for one more thing. During my Freshman year I got a ‘D’ in calculus. When my father called from Kansas to ask how such a thing was possible, I had to admit, “Dad, the ‘D’ was a gift.” So, I’m grateful to that math professor too.

What William & Mary gave me, above all else, was a calling to serve—a sense of duty to community and country that this college has sought to instill in each generation of students for more than 300 years. It is a calling rooted in the history and traditions of this institution. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Many a night, late, I’d walk down Duke of Gloucester Street from the Wren Building to the Capitol. On those walks, in the dark, I felt the spirit of the patriots who created a free and independent country, who helped birth it right here in Williamsburg. It was on those walks that I made my commitment to public service. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I also was encouraged to make that commitment by the then-president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, who said towe young Americans in the early 1960s, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.” [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]We are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine this country could have gotten off to a more challenging start. It beganas a business venture of a group of London merchants with a royal patent. The journalist Richard Brookhiser recently compared it to Congress today granting Wal-Mart and GE a charter to colonize Mars. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Brookhiser wrote,“Its leaders were always fighting. Leaders who were incompetent or unpopular—sometimes the most competent were the least popular—were deposed on the spot,” He continues, “The typical 17th Century account of Jamestown argues that everything would have gone well if everyone besides the author had not done wrong.” Sounds like today’s memoirs by former government officials. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Jamestown saw the New World’s first representative assembly—the institutional expression of the concept that people should have a say in how they were governed, and having that say brought with it certain obligations: a duty to participate, a duty to contribute, a duty to serve the greater good. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It is these four-hundred-year-old obligations that I want to address for the next few minutes. When talking about American democracy, we hear a great deal about freedoms, and rights, and, more recently, about the entitlements of citizenship. We hear a good deal less about the duties and responsibilities of being an American.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Young Americans are as decent, generous, and compassionate as we’ve ever seen in this country—an impression reinforced by my four and a half years of experience as President of Texas A&M, by the response of college students across America—and especially here at William & Mary—to the tragedy at Virginia Tech,and even more powerfully reinforced by almost six months as Secretary of Defense.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That is what makes it puzzling that so manyyoung people who are public-minded when it comes to their campus and community tend to be uninterested in— if not distrustfulof—our political processes. Nor is there much enthusiasm for participating in government, either as a candidate or for a career. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]While volunteering for a good cause is important, it is not enough. This country will only survive and progress as a democracy if its citizens—young and old alike—take an active role in its political life as well.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Seventy percent of eligible voters in this country cast a ballot in the election of 1964. The voting age was then 21. During the year I graduated, 1965, the first major American combat unitsarrived in Vietnam, and with them, many 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds. In recognition of that disparity,years later the voting age would be lowered to 18 by constitutional amendment.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sad to say, that precious franchise, purchased and preserved by the blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans your age and younger from 1776 to today, has not been adequately appreciated or exercised by your generation.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In 2004, with our nation embroiled in two difficult and controversial wars, the voting percentage was only 42 percent for those aged 18 to 24.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ed Muskie, former senator and Secretary of State, once said that “you have the God given right to kick the government around.” And it starts with voting, and becoming involved in campaigns. If you think that too many politicians are feckless and corrupt, then go out and help elect different ones. Or go out and run yourself. But you must participate, or else the decisions that affect your life and the future of our country will be made for you—and without you. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]So vote. And volunteer. But also consider doing something else: dedicating at least part of your life in service to our country.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I entered public life more than 40 years ago, and no one is more familiar with thehassles, frustrations and sacrifices of public service than I am. Government is, by design of the Founding Fathers, slow, unwieldy and almost comically inefficient. Will Rogers used to say: “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]These frustrations are inherent in a system of checks and balances, of divisions and limitations of power. Our Founding Fathers did not have efficiency as their primary goal. They designed a system intended to sustain and protect liberty for the ages. Getting things done in government is not easy, but it’s not supposed to be. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I last spoke at William & Mary on Charter Day in 1998. Since then our country has gone through September 11 with subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We learned once again that the fundamental nature of man has not changed, that evil people and forces will always be with us, and must be dealt with through courage and strength. [/FONT]