Hello Lakers!

[TurboS7]

You guys voted them in-have fun. We had a teamster vote and we all got together and wrote in our vote for a in-house union and beat them. But now they are trying to come back on the property and we have a lot of young flyers that just don't know any better. Truckers hate airplane drivers-pilot's need to realize that.

 

[AWACoff]

I believe Lakes would also have to be without representation for 1 year after voting the Teamsters out. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong. Sid Viscious and I were talking about it in IMT one day. Did he get furloughed from Champion? Lakes was by far the most fun place to work...dang I miss you guys!
See Yoooooooooooo!
PS. Juanito kicks A$$!!!

 

[ifly4food]

Lakes was by far the most fun place to work...dang I miss you guys!
See Yoooooooooooo!
PS. Juanito kicks A$$!!!

Ditto on that. Most fun job I've ever had.
I wonder what happened to Juanito?
See Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

 

[fly26]

ifly4food,

Cool picture of Meigs. Mayor Daley and Gov. Ryan finally announced a deal for ORD expansion that involves keeping Meigs operating. The Meigs will stay open until 2026 --- but there is a clause that allows for the state to close it after 2006 if the Illinois General Assembly votes to close it.

Fontaine was quoted in the Chicago Tribune last week saying that GLA had no plans to go back to CGX if it was kept open because of increased competition by Chicago Express flying SPI to Midway with really low fares.

Appears that Meigs will survive another close call!

 

[fly26]

Gonzo,

To follow up on your post --- I was not here when the Teamsters were voted in several years ago. I do know that when I first started working here we had a Teamster guy that was respected and did assist us in matters and he died about 2 years ago (the name escapes me---maybe his name was Hank). Since then, we get ZERO help from the Teamsters.

Anyway, as you pointed out the turnover at GLA has been incredible over the last couple years and that has provided for little to no continuity in the union representation. Right now, we have a big communication gap amongst the pilot group with our reps and as somebody else mentioned, the only way you find out anything is if you run into one of the union guys in the release room.

It seems that we are so completely unorganized that we need some leadership from an ***aviation*** union to bring us back on track to establish some goals regarding the contract and get moving in the right direction. For the last year we've been just treading water. In the long run it's the pilot's that can make things happen not the union personnel. But clearly we need some assistance.

 

[Daysoff]

I think you need to get the pilot group organized and in the communication loop first. Then worry about getting the Teamsters involved. Talk to the past Chairmen, I am sure that they have a wealth of information and are willing to help their fellow GLAers. Good luck and stay strong as a group because that is what you will need in order to get Doug to do anything. As long as the pilots are unorganized and don't communicate with each other he will do what ever he wants (whether the contract allows it or not). That is one of the reasons it was such a struggle to hub base is he was affraid that the pilots would get united.

What else is going on at Lakes these days?

Gonzo, how is everything going?

 

[JGonzo]

Crappy,
Got the big furlough at America West, my class(10/1) at American had cancelled, my parrot died and my wife ran off with the Swedish Alpine team(she says she'll be back)!!

 

[1900laker]

>>>>Sid Viscious and I were talking about it in IMT one day. Did he get furloughed from Champion? Lakes was by far the most fun place to work...dang I miss you guys! <<<<<


I think Sid was furloughed, but if I am not mistaken, he starts back at Champion (training) on Jan 7th. I got the lucky call back as well for the 14th.

Quite a reunion going on here. I might as well weigh in. Excellent posts so far. Having seen ALPA at Champion, I gotta say so far it seems like they have been providing pretty good support for this small airline. Granted, I haven't been around the whole time that ALPA has been there, and we are going on 3 yrs without a first contract. But the communication we have is outstanding, led by some very dedicated individuals (Marsh is an ex-laker also). When I showed up at Lakes, the union never even came in to welcome our new class or who to contact if we had a problem. You were kind of left to pull teeth on your own. And I know having been a pilot there that we all shared in that responsibility, so I will admit some fault there. But it seems to me that if the national union doesn't provide very good assistance, it has got to be extremely difficult to get organized as many of the members have never had ANY union experience. I think that is where ALPA has helped our Champion MEC a great deal: just getting the right organization. When I showed up at Champion, litteraly from day one, we were introduced to the union and given all the contact numbers. We have a weekly VARS message updating our status as well as frequent news letters written by our MEC.

I would suggest not going with an internal union at lakes. You are all very poor (been there, done that) and couldn't afford a big lawsuit backed only by your members. If Voss really decides to start messing with you guys because he thinks he can get away with it, you need to have a union for none other than the legal representation. I would re-investigate ALPA and see what your options are. Afterall, that was several years ago that Teamsters/ALPA had the showdown, and much has changed.

Jeff,

Good luck getting back to work soon. I know that you know this already, but you had a lot of lakers who respected the heck out of you.

SEEEE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

[JGonzo]

You all have good,valid points about having a strong national group. One that is in the sole business of representing pilots. I just think that the solidarity and strength starts with the group at GLA. APLA or the 747 won't want to put the effort together if you can't show some kind of cohesiveness. We'll just wait and see, cause the flow of pilots through Lakes has come to a screeching halt. Now the group will organize.....it's gonna happen.

Thanks for the good words. It's tough being caught in the sandtrap of life.

G