Sig
2017
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2003
- Posts
- 1,347
To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Sig, ALPA 0U812, First Officer at Piedmont Airlines, faithfully on dues checkoff since August 05.
On my meager salary, I've contributed funds to ALPA without complaint. The reason I've been expelled from the Association recently (I received the packet tonight) regards a 25.00 "initiation fee." I paid it via check twice, including the strange fees attached to the "fee" since it increased on the second notice. I'd contacted Gina Leahy for clarification on why I mysteriously had become a "BAD STANDING" (your caps) pilot, to find out that said monies were due. The first letter/bill arrived coincidentally. I remitted my first payment the same day. Another notice came a month later, and I remitted AGAIN via check, immediately. Figuring the Association was tied up with trying to raise the bar at Mesaba, or funneling huge amounts of time and money into MANPADs research, or planning a BOD bachelor party with a unionized hotel in Vegas, assembling another strongly worded memo on cabotage, or an even stronger-worded memo regarding earthbound pranksters with lasers, I wasn't surprised that my checks hadn't cleared. Busy, busy, busy. As am I, flying 90+ hours a month in the Northeast, mostly below 10,000 feet- in other words, working for a living.
How do I grudgingly rejoin this association that has so atrociously let me down? NOBODY, and I do mean NOBODY let me know I was in bad standing- I found out by trying to log on to the ALPA website; until then I was blissfully unaware how much of an enemy to organized labor I'd become. I thought I'd washed my hands of the affair by paying the hush money via check- apparently you never got it. I'll happily pay some arbitrary sum to retain my job, since apparently the bullying is focused on the labor instead of the management in Section 29. Name the sum, I'll pay to play, and pay another day after day after day.
Why? Because my job is apparently in jeopardy. Pipe wielding Mafiosos are the honorable incarnation of this group- at least I can SEE who it is threatening to end my livelihood. When the chips are down, the laughable situation the mindless thirst for money has caused will relegate my job and my hard working MEC to the "fifth-tier and easily forgettable," since the preservation of the ALPA endorsed contracts that pay the Union higher dues and their constituents' wishes will be paramount at face value. But that's when the chips are on the table! In this ephemeral state of moderate stability in my airline regime, I'm threatened. Nice. Thank you.
I'll send it via FedEX. I've wasted $.80 or so on the USPS, so I'll send it via a better company.
Just tell me how much I owe. Hey, look! Think of how many words' worth of ink I'll be able to contribute in the next ALPA Enquirer- it's up to the decade information (GREAT piece on Gemini last month... bankruptcy should have been on one of the banners flying high regardless of press time, but I understand it diminishes the hype) is a privilege to behold and contribute to. Can I please at least request that my ink doesn't go toward insulting the great leaders of ALPA past- when efficacy exceeded rhetoric and money was tight? Behnke would puke, and real union sensibility would be fast and loud with an apology. I shan't waste my time on what a unionized employee should expect; I'll settle for a bill from you.
Thoroughly disgusted, yet oddly unsurprised-
Sig
*CC of a message sent to ALPA. I'm not holding my breath... the pigs.
My name is Sig, ALPA 0U812, First Officer at Piedmont Airlines, faithfully on dues checkoff since August 05.
On my meager salary, I've contributed funds to ALPA without complaint. The reason I've been expelled from the Association recently (I received the packet tonight) regards a 25.00 "initiation fee." I paid it via check twice, including the strange fees attached to the "fee" since it increased on the second notice. I'd contacted Gina Leahy for clarification on why I mysteriously had become a "BAD STANDING" (your caps) pilot, to find out that said monies were due. The first letter/bill arrived coincidentally. I remitted my first payment the same day. Another notice came a month later, and I remitted AGAIN via check, immediately. Figuring the Association was tied up with trying to raise the bar at Mesaba, or funneling huge amounts of time and money into MANPADs research, or planning a BOD bachelor party with a unionized hotel in Vegas, assembling another strongly worded memo on cabotage, or an even stronger-worded memo regarding earthbound pranksters with lasers, I wasn't surprised that my checks hadn't cleared. Busy, busy, busy. As am I, flying 90+ hours a month in the Northeast, mostly below 10,000 feet- in other words, working for a living.
How do I grudgingly rejoin this association that has so atrociously let me down? NOBODY, and I do mean NOBODY let me know I was in bad standing- I found out by trying to log on to the ALPA website; until then I was blissfully unaware how much of an enemy to organized labor I'd become. I thought I'd washed my hands of the affair by paying the hush money via check- apparently you never got it. I'll happily pay some arbitrary sum to retain my job, since apparently the bullying is focused on the labor instead of the management in Section 29. Name the sum, I'll pay to play, and pay another day after day after day.
Why? Because my job is apparently in jeopardy. Pipe wielding Mafiosos are the honorable incarnation of this group- at least I can SEE who it is threatening to end my livelihood. When the chips are down, the laughable situation the mindless thirst for money has caused will relegate my job and my hard working MEC to the "fifth-tier and easily forgettable," since the preservation of the ALPA endorsed contracts that pay the Union higher dues and their constituents' wishes will be paramount at face value. But that's when the chips are on the table! In this ephemeral state of moderate stability in my airline regime, I'm threatened. Nice. Thank you.
I'll send it via FedEX. I've wasted $.80 or so on the USPS, so I'll send it via a better company.
Just tell me how much I owe. Hey, look! Think of how many words' worth of ink I'll be able to contribute in the next ALPA Enquirer- it's up to the decade information (GREAT piece on Gemini last month... bankruptcy should have been on one of the banners flying high regardless of press time, but I understand it diminishes the hype) is a privilege to behold and contribute to. Can I please at least request that my ink doesn't go toward insulting the great leaders of ALPA past- when efficacy exceeded rhetoric and money was tight? Behnke would puke, and real union sensibility would be fast and loud with an apology. I shan't waste my time on what a unionized employee should expect; I'll settle for a bill from you.
Thoroughly disgusted, yet oddly unsurprised-
Sig
*CC of a message sent to ALPA. I'm not holding my breath... the pigs.
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