AirCobra,
As another guy who drove the Garrett 331 powered sewerpipe, before the corporate gig, before the regional, before the legacy, I thought I'd agree with your post. However, you missed a couple of important points
- The mainline pilots negotiated scope without the input of the regional ALPA members. It wasn't ASA, Comair, or SkyWest that outsourced the flying, it was contracts negotiated and ratified by mainline. You and your MEC Reps outsourced your flying.
- We agree that Regional guys need to raise their own boat and perform their own heavy lifting to get their contracts up to par. TSA was trying to do just that when their management (same people, same building, same desks, same maintenance, etc...) just set up an alter ego seniority list for those who were willing to step around ALPA and TSA pilots. Some crossed the line.
- ALPA did the right thing in their single carrier petition, but Teamsters aligned themselves with management to fight for the alter ego replacement pilots. Teamsters was the winner.
You have to think about
HOW regional pilots can improve their wages and working conditions. You can't just demand change, you have to have power to make it happen. That power comes from scope... the power to force the company to use only seniority list pilots.
GoJets was, and is, and end run around the attempts of TSA pilots to achieve recognition of their seniority, pay and working conditions.