ifly4food said:
Actually, ALPA Economic & Financial Analysis was never asked to do an evaluation, nor even give the time to do one on their own.
This is important.
Section 40 of ALPA's adminstrative manual
requires that ALPA perform a comprehensive economic analysis any time that management makes a concessionary request. So, again, we see that ALPA ignores its own rules when dealing with small jet barganing. The mainline guys ( political power ) wanted concessions, management wanted concessions and viola' the invention of "non-economic" concessions, that were later decided by the MEC to equal about $20,000,000.00
Ok, so if I am flying an airplane and we get busy on approach and I just get too busy to lower the landing gear - is that an excuse? No! and it is no excuse for ALPA, or the Comair MEC.
But - and a big BUT - there is a story behind the story....
ALPA has argued in Court that small jet restrictions have not and do not have any impact on the career growth, pay, or working conditions of ASA & Comair pilots. So now - how can ALPA's economic analysis department come along and say that the value of 35 new jets to Comair pilots is $ XXX ? Obviously if ALPA followed its own rules, National's Officers would be guilty of perjury, or at least revealed as a pack of liars.
Another important point - particularly given who posted the above quote - is that
ALPA National is going to try to hang the blame on the local MEC's for their representational malfeasance. This is why it is so important that our Master Executive Counsels make the appropriate representational demands on ALPA National -
do what is right, regardless of what you percieve the consequence might be. ALPA National will pay the bill for copy paper & the lights, they have no choice.
It is very likely that ASA will be sold in the not too distant future (
or has already ben sold to be announced next week according to some low level management sources ) and once again we will need the full measure of representation available from ALPA National. When this happens we must not allow ALPA to continue to ignore their representational obligation to members who fly small jets. The results could be disaster.