UAL MEC tough stance on Scope---keep it up!

[sleeves]

Your former MEC Chairman is a scab....ALPA doesn't care....

I am not talking about "ALPA", I am talking about all the rest of our peers. The former MEC Chair is a great example. Whenever his name comes up, it is invariably proceeded or followed by "that Scab". CAL is probably the most SCAB friendly airline there is, but the SCABs still have a definite stigma to them.

This thread is not about SCAB though, it is about outsourcing. I spent 9 years at a regional. I know a thing or two about them as well as you do I am sure. You are correct in your assessment that there are some fine aviators in the Regional ranks.

There are a few facts that are true in Wendy's article. UAL is misrepresenting the training and the hiring qualifications of the "Express" pilots. You are not trained in the Denver training center with the UAL pilots. You may get good training, but it is not where UAL propaganda says and not from whom they say you get it. My class at Express had no one with over 2500 hours total in the mid 90's, when the "Commuters had higher mins than they do today. One guy had flown a jet. While flying as a check Airmen at Express I flew with 2 pilots who logged their first hours of ACTUAL IMC in the right seat of the RJ. Nobody in my class at CAL had less than 7000 hours and all of us had thousands of hours of jet PIC. I did not even ask if we had all logged actual IMC or flowen in Icing as apparently MS. Shaw had not. I think it is safe to say we all had. You say you are a lifer and are probably at the top of your list. You state in your proflie that you have 14,000 hours. It is probably a fair assumption that you are probably one of the most experienced aviators at your carrier. You would be well in the lower 2/3 at my airline. Many have more than 14,000 in one A/C type, as a PIC.
The fact is that UAL is trying to pass Express off as getting the same training, and just as well experienced, and AS A WHOLE it is not true.

 

[Fly2AK]

JM.....I have done my time at the regionals and I am very happy to not be there anymore. I was a senior captain and even as a junior FO I had a much better life at United Mainline than I did at my wholly owned regional. Your attitude is typical of the senior lifers at my previous regional. As for training the regionals, it doesn't compare to my days at United, it was good but not as good. If you want to stay as a regional pilot for the rest of your life then so be it, you will have to deal with the fact that none of the routes you are flying belong to your regional company, but it belongs to your mainline partner. Regionals will never go away but they do need to be kept in check. I am a furloughed pilot due to outsourcing, but I am making the best of it. The training and qualifications I received from United has allowed me to make twice what I was making as a senior CRJ700 captain and soon to be 3 times that amount. Goodl luck with your regional flying hope it turns out to be all you hope it to be, mean while I am very hopeful my UAL/CAL colleages will see this fight for tighter scope through to the end.

 

[ualdriver]

After that pompous statement from your MEC, I will fly what ever is on my schedule.....You don't really expect me to support you with that attitude do you?

Please, Joe. You mean you would have supported us if she hadn't made that statement? After all the statements you have made, we already know we will get no support from you or guys like you. No need to reiterate something we already know.

You're also being incredibly hypersensitive about her comments. Consider the intended audience. She is our master chairman and a proud United pilot. I don't think there is anything wrong with the leader of a pilot group thinking that their pilots are the best in the industry and stating so. I wouldn't take offense if I read something from the ASA master chairman writing how he feels his pilots are the best in the industry or the Delta master chairman or whoever. Further, she is commenting on the great "bait and switch" game that United Airlines plays with it's customers.

Bottom line, if her statements bruise your ego, then don't bother reading documents written by ALPA leaders. Remember, ALPA sucks and is an ineffective organization. Why would you want to waste your time reading their publications anyway?

 

[UAL-GSO]

After that pompous statement from your MEC, I will fly what ever is on my schedule.....You don't really expect me to support you with that attitude do you?

If mainline wanted this flying, they should have kept it....They sold it and now it is my job...If you want to work WITH me, then we can talk...If you want to DICTATE...Then you can pound sand...Your choice.

You're heading down a slippery slope...

 

[eaglesview]

I wish the Delta pilots pushing to pull from ALPA luck. Some of the comments here from out "carreer" regional pilots clearly show why we should not be in the same union paying dues to support their "carreer." I hope UAL is right behind them to dump ALPA.

 

[ACWild]

That's going to be a tough sell to the 30-40% of us who have decided to make this a career and have good schedules....I'm willing to listen to your "offer", but getting stapled to the bottom of your list is a non starter....Not interested in commuting as a reserve FO.....

You need to bump that up to 51% for it to matter. Jmho.

 

[N2264J]

If mainline wanted this flying, they should have kept it....They sold it and now it is my job...

Hi Joe -

Captain Wendy's insensitive slurs are all moot. Even in good economic times, the mainliners simply cannot afford to buy that flying back (at Delta, for example, it's @ 50% of all domestic flying). Not even over the next 5 contracts is that going to happen. In order for the mainline to keep what they've already got in their agreements, the affiliate carriers will soon be flying 100 seaters. That's the bed the mainliners have made.

As we've discussed before, there was a brief window of opportunity to fix this in 2000 when Delta and Comair were both in Section 6 but the Delta/Comair/ASA merger petition was characterized as a "seniority grab" and the rest is history.

Ironic, no? The ALPA mainliners got what they wanted in 2000 and now they're screaming the loudest about it.

 

[Ad Lib]

Scope Restoration

ALPA faces another tipping point. If they do this right they emerge more unified and powerful. If they do this wrong the union will further fragment, become irrelevant and its members will be like MidWest pilots who wonder, what happened to my airline?

ALPA has an opportunity created by the unprecedented number of upcoming retirements and the inability of mainline carriers to fund fleet replacement. Both the regional pilots and the mainline pilots NEED each other in ways neither group understands at the moment. First a few basic concepts:

(1) A union derives all of its power and all of its leverage from its membership. Fewer participating members means less relevance at the bargaining table. When a union participates in the outsourcing of jobs, it loses power.
(2) Unity means "the state or quality of being one. Singleness" It is not sitting together in the cheap seats at family awareness baseball games. Unity is seeking single representative structures and working to erase the barriers that divide our profession. It is single lists and fighting outsourcing. It is coming to the table with the power of an absolute monopoly over labor performing an airline's flying.
(3) Unity means a union has a representational obligation to all of its members. Even the offensive and politically undesirable.

ALPA is in dangerous waters because mainline members believe they have the power and financial wherewithal to form independent unions. There exists a false perception that a conflict of interest exists within the union and that somehow the mainline carriers could better achieve their goals without ALPA national's involvement. Lets evaluate this position:

(1) Unity is the natural fix for a conflict of interest. One can not conflict with oneself.
(2) National's power is the President's signature. No ALPA contract is binding without it. When has ALPA's President ever refused to sign a contract? Was it a "regional" or "mainline" contract? Can anyone conceive of a point where ALPA's President would refuse to sign a United or Delta contract?
(3) To the extent that a conflict of interest is perceived to exist:
- Who would the President side with? (would Prater dare to withhold a signature from Delta?)
- So who wins the conflict of interest?
- and who's scope creates the conflict by permitting outsourcing of their jobs to begin with?
Conclusion = If there is a conflict due to mismanagement of union affairs, the 900lb gorilla wins.

With regard to "taking back scope" both sides have got to wake up and smell the coffee or else we are going to have a lot of USAPA and MidWest/Frontier/Republic disasters on our hands. United and Continental pilots have every right to take back their flying & those ALPA members performing that flying have every right to be part of the solution. The only way it works is with unity.

We see a sort of example (not perfect, but a baby step) in the way the Delta MEC went to bat for the Compass and Mesaba pilots as those carriers were divested from Delta. While the plan to preserve flow through rights for participants failed to protect the jobs (the flying is still outsourced) at least the individual pilots employment rights were fought for by our union.

ALPA is going to have to learn the value of unity. If they can grasp the basics, they will understand the need to develop seniority plans which bridge operators and certificates to maintain a labor monopoly.

If we agree on that course, then the next step is to develop bidding systems with adequate protections which allow Joe to fly his RJ into the sunset, Lee to fly his 767 and folks like me to bid either when opportunities arise.

 

[Ad Lib]

Hi Joe -

Captain Wendy's insensitive slurs are all moot. Even in good economic times, the mainliners simply cannot afford to buy that flying back (at Delta, for example, it's @ 50% of all domestic flying). Not even over the next 5 contracts is that going to happen. In order for the mainline to keep what they've already got in their agreements, the affiliate carriers will soon be flying 100 seaters. That's the bed the mainliners have made.

As we've discussed before, there was a brief window of opportunity to fix this in 2000 when Delta and Comair were both in Section 6 but the Delta/Comair/ASA merger petition was characterized as a "seniority grab" and the rest is history.

ALPA (all of us) are probably making a false assumption that we have to "buy" it back. In reality, the economic delta (difference) between mainline and regional costs is non existent thanks to the economic damage done by bankruptcies which many regional pilots were able to avoid. It is an area worthy of study.

Or to look at it another way, the "credits" mainline carriers took in exchange for outsourcing to save pensions and pre-deregulation contractual provisions VANISHED during bankruptcy. How much was flying worth if mainline got tricked into selling it, but never got paid?

Funny how a "seniority grab" is just the other side of the coin from what is being perceived on the regional side as a "flying grab" by United and CALALPA. Lets light the straw men on fire and use them to roast political scape goats.

 

[Kugelblitz]

That's going to be a tough sell to the 30-40% of us who have decided to make this a career and have good schedules....I'm willing to listen to your "offer", but getting stapled to the bottom of your list is a non starter....Not interested in commuting as a reserve FO.....

You want to "decide" to make a career in the second hand flying ranks, go right ahead. Your good schedule will last only as long as you are willing to undercut other "regional" airlines to maintain the existing route structure that your company doesn't own nor have any rights to. It is foolish to insist on a b-scale environment, it doesn't serve your interests financially nor from a job security stand point, and it undercuts anyone else who wants to move up.

You wanted to be an airline pilot, so be one. It makes no sense whatsoever to dwell in the ranks of commuter/regionals. I have around 10 years of regional/commuter experience, and all the arguments made by those who have "decided" to stay have not ever once panned out. I heard the very same rational from Comair pilots back in '03 when I went there after my furlough from AA. "25 year company, consistent growth, getting more and more planes, 70 seaters on the way". Look where the most senior of those fellows are today.

You need to figure out who your friends and enemies really are. I am no ALPA crackpipe toter, but the notion that all flying is done inhouse by the majors is not an attack on you nor anyone else.

And frankly there is nothing to sell to you or your fellow pilots, since the routes and, most likely the planes that you fly, aren't owned by your company anyways.