ALPA used to be all about job creation and protection. To the point that many of the work rules in our contract were nothing but old fashioned featherbedding. (not that there's anything wrong with that)
We had strict monthly caps and touching trips vacation pay and partial month power move-ups and bow wave and on and on etc etc. All that's long gone.
There is something wrong with it--it is called, as you correctly called it, "featherbedding" and here is the rub--it doesn't create jobs, just the illusion of them.
Let me ask you something. Should we, in the interest of "jobs" get rid of ATMs? Just think of all those poor bank tellers no longer smacking gum at the bank counter who no longer are issuing us $50 as we stand in line for 15 minutes and then write a check to "cash." Should we mandate that Boeing and Airbus make all planes with a flight engineer, navigator, and radio operator position? That would be great for pilot staffing. Should we get rid of cell phones, and even push button or rotary dial landline phones, so as to "create" lots of jobs of phone bank secretaries pulling and plugging hundreds of electrical wires so as to connect you to the party line? At some point opposing productivity increases--especially when they are voluntary, such as how SWA has been doing for eons--is as futile as Caligula throwing spears to oppose the tide.
Now our union gives up more jobs and signs us up for higher monthly line values with each contract and has to be dragged kicking and screaming to enforce what little job protections we have left in the contract. They would have allowed the blatant violation of white slip pick up limits to continue if the forum regulars hadn't raised he|| about "trip parking". It seems nowadays the union is all about helping management find ways to increase productivity and run the airline with fewer pilots.
I was and am opposed to "trip parking" because it did violate the intent of the white slip pickup limit in the contract. Whether I "philosophically" agree or disagree with the contract doesn't matter. The contract states such and such, and trip parking violated that intent. But...the processed worked. Enough guys got upset about it, made inputs to their LEC reps, who then directed the negotiators to do something about it. And they did.
The transformation of ALPA under Moak is really quite astonishing. Maybe it was inevitable given the reality of modern economics and maybe it will even turn out to be a good thing. I don't know.
It was inevitable. Whether it turns out to be good or not also remains to be seen.
But this new age "constructive engagement" style labor relations must have the old trade unionists of yesteryear spinning in their graves.
Perhaps. But hasn't that been SWAPA's model for nearly 40 years? The same SWAPA that has long embraced a model of hard-working pilots who through their willingness and ability to fly a lot--and specifically reject the "featherbedding" model--have helped create a very stable prosperous company that has enabled the W2s that the rest of the industry has been envious of?
Most importantly, SWA pilots have embraced the "work hard, play hard" ethic while still having a great contract with ironclad pay guarantees and protections in place. Working hard and being part of an efficiently run operation does not mean that you fly to FARs while making a pitiful wage--it means that if you voluntarily want to be more productive, which just coincidentally happens to help the company be more efficient and profitable as well, you should be able to, while never being mandated to be. The problem with pilot groups in the past is you couldn't even do that.