Screwing 135

[AZ Typed]

As a former ALPA dues paying member, union supporter, and ALPA volunteer - I am sickened at the thought of NJ calling me a scab. In the after-life (that's after furlough) I've found myself a new position close to home with better pay than my UNION job, decent benefits, better flying, newer equipment, and with a pay raise. The problem...it's a 135 outfit that NJ is going to label "scab".

So when I pick up my flight release with the customer listed as NJ - wtf do I do? Say "sorry boss...can't do it"? The point was brought up that the NJ pilot MADE THE DECISION ON THEIR OWN to fly for NJ when they were hired. Therefore they accepted the pay, benefits, etc. While that's no reason to NOT fight for more - is it fair to drag all the 135 guys who are SICK of unionized labor and its BS into your fire?

Is a union needed? You bet with a group the size of NJ. Did I believe 110% in my ALPA representiation at my former company? You bet! Are their pros and cons to UNIONS? You bet. Is it wrong for someone to chose to leave UNION labor for a position that is BETTER THAN THEIR FORMER UNIONIZED LABOR POSITION?

I could've worked for Mesaba, Air Willy, TSA, blah blah blah. I wouldn't make what I do at my small 135 deal. I wouldn't be home as much. I wouldn't have a chance to upgrade for years. I wouldn't be able to drive to work. But hey...I'd be in a UNION. And for some reason everybody thinks that the UNION position is better?

Now, do I have UNION protection if I bang a wing. Nope. Do I have UNION representation when the CP calls me in? Nope. Like I said...their are pros and cons.

I made the concious decision to leave UNIONIZED labor for a simpler life, better paying job, closer to home, with better opportunities. And now when my release lists NJ as the customer I'm going to be labeled for life...this makes no sense.

So what is the deal? How are the 135 guys/gals going to be "labeled"? What are you other 135 guys/gals doing to do when your release says NJ as your customer? Has anybody else realized that no matter what - we are all just labor and will always be treated as such? Fight for more...but realized that in the end nobody really cares that we know how to bring back a SE iced up broken down bird at night in the mountains with someone's family on board...

...thoughts appreciated & this isn't meant to start a war...

 

[Live4flyng]

Relax Top Gun, no one is going to label you a SCAB. Do what you gotta do, just don't hop in the front seat of a QS airplane when a strike is on and you will be fine.

To be perfectly honest with you, there isn't enough quality charter companies out there to cover all of Netjets flights in the event of a strike. Owners won't put up with it anyway.

 

[AZ Typed]

Relax Top Gun, no one is going to label you a SCAB. Do what you gotta do, just don't hop in the front seat of a QS airplane when a strike is on and you will be fine.

To be perfectly honest with you, there isn't enough quality charter companies out there to cover all of Netjets flights in the event of a strike. Owners won't put up with it anyway.

Well you bet I won't be in any QS ship. But "doing what I gotta do" is difficult when it may involve screwing the profession and the union positions I agree with. On the same note - we all have mortgages and car payments... If staying out of a QS ship will keep me clean. Done. However if accepting NJ customer releases for my flights "labels" me...I'll have to really make some tough decisons that I don't want to have to make. (and I'm sure all the 135 guys who understand what I'm talking about don't want to have to make either - the young ones out there just don't know any better and you can't fault them for that).

why do we do this...

 

[AA717driver]

AZ--Nothing's going to label you. This is some hotheads taking this to the extreme. Just like everything else involving unions, the rhetoric melts away and the reality is in the middle.

NJA won't have to come to a strike. I believe the company is just dragging its feet to get cheap labor as long as it can. Notice no one is even talking about retro pay? If I had a dime for every time I heard the phrase "retro pay" I would have made enough money to cover the retro pay I should have gotten but never did.

With a 80%+ vote against the previous TA and the NJA pilots dumping their MEC and threatening to dump the IBT there's no way the management would take a chance that sentiment would turn around and another crappy TA would pass. JMO.TC

 

[Rattler71]

Many years ago when UPS pilots went on strike, they were going to all the feeder ramps and trying to get the 135 guys(not UPS employed) to not fly their regular UPS routes.
They were threatening us, calling us scabs, saying they would never get hired by UPS. When that happened to me I asked the idiot if their union was going to pay my mortgage and car note if I didn't fly(since I would be fired with no protection). Probably a lot of those guys fly for UPS now. I guess the point is the label of scab can be taken to far.

Rattler71

 

[pilotyip]

You would no more be a scab than the UAL pilot who flew a EAL passenger during the 1989 EAL strike.

 

[TurboJetCpt]

Actually there has been guidance on this issue recently released to the pilot group. As long as you are NOT flying in a QS tail numbered airplane, you have no worries. As long as you aren't WORKING for NJA while the "group" is on strike, you have no worries. If you happen to pick up a trip to carry NJA owners on your companies airplane, you are not scabbing. Ex: Eastern on strike. All Eastern passengers go to the Delta counter. They ride Delta to their destination...the Delta crew is NOT scabbing. Everyone fly safe out there !

 

[goofyleftwich]

are the gulfstream and EJM crews honoring the strike?

 

[x402]

are the gulfstream and EJM crews honoring the strike?

NJI and EJM are separate companies, why would we care what they do, for now?

 

[goofyleftwich]

NJI and EJM are separate companies, why would we care what they do, for now?

I don't know anything about any of these companies, I thought you were all under the same umbrella? So back to my original question.