Single Standardized Payscale.

[maru657]

Nice idea but it was advanced by one of the origanal members of ALPA as a nationwide seniority system. No one bought it back then, times were too good for too many and it didn't matter that the many, later came to regret their descision with de-regulation. It's still a race to the bottom and probably the only hope will lie with a totally fragmentated industry, giving enough US pilots emphatic reason to believe that a regulated industry is their best hope.

 

[ReformAlpa]

The last thing we need is the US Government to regulate something. We need
healthy, competitive airlines to make profits, because they generate our paychecks.

We just all need to get on the same page and come up with some solutions...kind of a "take-care-of-your-own" thing.

Things ARE getting organized...you just don't see it.

 

[Wino]

Reform ALPA,

What you are striving for is a single list. It won't help. The US Merchant Marine had a single list and had it for a long time, as well as a strong union.

They are in worse shape than pilots.

Andy

 

[Phaedrus]

Whatever the final scale, appears there'll always be the problem of those exerting downward pressure and outright undermining of it by willing to work for half of whatever scale is finalized. Or less. And then there are those who will hire them.

Sounds a lot like capitalism to me. Weird. I could've sworn I woke up in the CCCP this morning.
Don't get the idea that I like the suffering going in the industry right now. It stinks. But I can definitively tell you I don't like false economies and government regulation.

 

[elcid]

Hmmmm, sounds a lot like communism to me.

I dont think so.......comrade.

My thoughts exactly, Mick!

Hey, here's an even better idea! How about we have a large body (we'll call it a "Government") regulate what everyone in the entire country earns! No matter how hard they work, what industry, what education, training, etc. No one will be poor! Health care included! And everyone will work hard just for mother Russia.

Oh yeah, that's already been tried.

No, Thanks.

 

[maru657]

Free enterprise??? Then why is UAL, America West and US Air still in business. Or Delta for that matter? Yep, the merchant marine did have and actually still does have a strong union but their jobs were "downsized" to the point that US Sailors were fighting to protect Liberian flagged freighters during the 80's. Too bad they couldn't have said "No, let the Liberian Navy protect those tankers". How you vote determines whether you'll be downsized next.
After all if ALPA had supported the merchant mariners union and Patco, they would still be lucrative US based jobs. ATC may seem OK now, but there privateization has been called for by little bush.

 

[Phaedrus]

Free enterprise??? Then why is UAL, America West and US Air still in business. Or Delta for that matter?

No one said government lets the free market completely determine outcomes. Of course there are exceptions...more than I'd like. However, it is a non-sequitir to say that because you don't have a perfect free market system then we must have the opposite.
And let's face it, how you vote doesn't make any difference at all.

 

[Benhuntn]

Making what the market will bear is Capitalism, making what your unified on world payscale will allow is called socialism. No thanks I checked my socialism at the border.

 

[flyinglow]

ALPA needs a minimum payscale. For airlines doing well, there is nothing saying they cannot negotiate a higher pay scale. Why are the fortunate few so scared of this concept. It would not hurt them.

 

[Phaedrus]

The "fortunate few" aren't scared of the concept, and ALPA doesn't represent all carriers.

 

[maru657]

Exceptions?? Wow thats like comparing the Titanic to a paper cut. Those are exceptions which say that an airline in the district of a powerfully placed politician can operate in bankruptcy forever or will get more govt; contracts on the side than others. Regulation ain't communist, the last communist this planet saw was Jesus and you saw what they did to him. And don't say socialist, any form of govt; by defination is socialist. The US Army is a socialist organization. Your going to have a hard time explaining the merits of the so called de-regulated, free enterprise system to pilots out of work.

 

[Wasted]

All you people who think this idea is socialism...guess what? If you're a part of ALPA, and if you sit on a seniority list, you're part of a socialist system. You're all socialists. Labor unions are socialistic at the core. If you don't want to be a socialist, then you should negotiate your own salary, and upgrade should be based on merit. The concept of a onelist for all airline pilots is nothing different than how non-RLA unions in other industries work. If you were a dockworker, you'd join the union down at the union hall first before you could go out and get a job. Everybody worked under the same rules and pay. The different employers all had to pay their dockworkers the same amount of money, they couldn't compete with each other by cutting their worker's pay. They had to find their profits elsewhere. This is how the longshoremen have gained so much, by having all of the workers standing together, instead of undercutting each other's wages to get work.

The opposite is true in the airline industry. The employers have a unified strategy that keeps the pilots divided and fighting each other for work, continually driving wages downward. It has been amazingly successful. As of now, ALPA is nothing more than a professional organization that does some capital hill lobbying, some support for contract negotiations, and maybe fight to get a fired pilot his job back. Other than that, it has no function. It is no union.

Yes, some people would have to give up some, while some people would gain some, but in the long run, and it may even take a generation or two, but everybody will have more if pilots actually could unite and be one block against all management. Airlines would then have to actually find efficiencies in their operations and increase revenues to increase profits instead of merely gutting pay.

Unless full cabotage is allowed in the US, a union hall could work in the airline industry. As long as there is geographic protection, union halls have been successful. For the dockworkers, employers couldn't unload goods bound for the US in Singapore, where people are cheaper. They had to unload goods bound for the US in the US. So there is no getting around having to use the union labor. While it failed in merchant sailors because employers could merely go use a ship registered in Liberia crewed by Filipinos who work for rice balls to avoid using US ships.

Pilots are notoriously hypocritical when it comes to these issues. They are union laborers yet think of themselves as high paid white collar professionals. They complain about the state of industry yet vote for anti-labor groups. What can I say? Unless there is a change, we will always lose.

 

[Phaedrus]

Your going to have a hard time explaining the merits of the so called de-regulated, free enterprise system

Yes, but that isn't because it isn't explainable.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Wasted,

Excellent post. The first step is getting pilots to understand what you are even saying!!

However, getting the union hall organization in the front end is prevented by the RLA??

The issue: the quandary is the RLA calls the airline industry an economic necessity, yet the workers, specifically pilots in our case, are not. This appears to be simply because we are a country geared towards big business and ultra capitalism. (this is not a hidden statement promoting anti-captialism). What is a pilot to do?

Your thoughts?

http://www.nmb.gov/documents/docsup.html

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

The last thing we need is the US Government to regulate something. We need
healthy, competitive airlines to make profits, because they generate our paychecks.

We just all need to get on the same page and come up with some solutions...kind of a "take-care-of-your-own" thing.

Things ARE getting organized...you just don't see it.

How is ALPA going to create healthy, competitve airlines that make profits?

Your 2001: A space odyssey of "something wonderful is going to happen" is a big turn off.

 

[Birdstrike]

...The concept of a onelist for all airline pilots is nothing different than how non-RLA unions in other industries work. If you were a dockworker, you'd join the union down at the union hall first before you could go out and get a job. Everybody worked under the same rules and pay. The different employers all had to pay their dockworkers the same amount of money, they couldn't compete with each other by cutting their worker's pay. They had to find their profits elsewhere. This is how the longshoremen have gained so much, by having all of the workers standing together, instead of undercutting each other's wages to get work.

Your analogy breaks down concerning the nature of the work. I submit that the perceived value of flying jets, to many, will simply ALWAYS supercede "having all of the workers standing together instead of undercutting wages to get work." That's not management's fault because they know it and use it to their advantage. And its really not a pilot's fault if he's willing and content to work for $60K a year instead of $120K. I agree with those who've proclaimed that it's simply the marketplace at work. If you can organize and hang together, more power to you. History says you cannot.

 

[FreezinginMN]

Hmmmm, sounds a lot like communism to me.

I dont think so.......comrade.

While Bush praises spreading democracy around the world, we should just admit to ourselves that democracy is about as close to communism as anything. People voting on things is stupid and a form of communism.

People should only vote to elect leaders. Let the leaders do the leading and vote new leaders when you are unhappy. Never vote on ideas, initiatives, or anything of those sorts. Because, that is communism. I hate going to vote and seeing "initiatives" on the ballots. I didn't have the time to read the full initiative and spend the many many hours needed to understand its full implications. Yet the Yahoos around me all think they are capable of voting on such an item.

The United States Army training
manual number 2000-25, dated November 20, 1928 states in defining a Democracy:

'A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meetings or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude towards property is communistic; negative property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation of the governed by passion, prejudice and impulse with-out restraint; or regard to consequences. It results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.'

 

[Phaedrus]

Thank you Mr. Orwell.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....
WAR IS PEACE.
PEACE IS WAR.
LOVE IS HATE.
et al

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Reform ALPA,

What you are striving for is a single list. It won't help. The US Merchant Marine had a single list and had it for a long time, as well as a strong union.

They are in worse shape than pilots.

Andy

Well..
I guess the way it's going for our industry is healthy and great for employees and employers. The issues for the US maritime industry go way higher and further than "one list", try Washington, DC. Legislation allowed US and foreign companies to outsource labor to foreign contractors. Wanna see what your job will look like in the not so distant future, look at the US maritime industry.
Wake up
PBR

 

[Wasted]

Your analogy breaks down concerning the nature of the work. I submit that the perceived value of flying jets, to many, will simply ALWAYS supercede "having all of the workers standing together instead of undercutting wages to get work." That's not management's fault because they know it and use it to their advantage. And its really not a pilot's fault if he's willing and content to work for $60K a year instead of $120K. I agree with those who've proclaimed that it's simply the marketplace at work. If you can organize and hang together, more power to you. History says you cannot.

$60K? Why not $10K? Everybody will have their own individual threshold of when it is just not worth it anymore. Of course this would be a hard thing to do. Most of us pilots have proven to be both stupid and selfish when it comes to these matters. Few pilots truely understand why the things that are happening to them are happening, just look at the first set of replies in this thread to the original question. However, *IF* we are to stop the downward spiral, getting out from underneath the RLA and setting ourselves up like a real labor union is probably going to be the only way...