An official ALPA update.....just sayin

To: United Pilots



From: MEC Legislative Committee Chairman



This is it! It is time to stand up for your career! While I know that all of the pilots at United Airlines are responsible, professional aviators – I hope that I am not insulting you when I remind you to vote in the next few days. As a forewarning, this article is slanted toward our careers; it’s not personal, it’s a fact as to where our careers have gone based on who has been in office in Washington, D.C., over the past 40 years.



Too many times we tap dance around politics, and for pilots there is no escaping the fact that we are labor. We are all linked together as one, thus a union; a brotherhood/sisterhood that undeniably has a common goal together, not individually.



How many people out there think that with a new president labor will have an easy time of it over the next four years? One only has to look at the devastation of the eight years under the Bush Administration to see a battlefield of a career field picked apart by greedy corporate robber barons. The pension alone was billions of dollars lost for a few cents on the dollar given back to us. While it’s true that United was the first in the hopper for bankruptcy, others soon followed.



I know that many of you will say that there are social issues that are more important to you when you cast your vote for president. I’ve seen little to no change in those social issues over the years. But while candidates continue to focus on such things, diverting our attention, the corporations are slowly tearing down the middle class and the American Dream that was so prevalent after World War II. The good old times that many politicians want to return to are not good old times. While life may have been simpler in the 40s and 50s, and the beginning of the 60s – those times were fraught with unions fighting to improve the status of its members, and thus improving the status of the entire nation. This is what made the middle class strong and provided a pathway to better education, better living standards and a hope that has existed in no other country in the history of the world. The good old times that corporations and their candidates want to return to is a time when men stood outside shipyards hoping they might get called in for the day to do hard work for little pay. No benefits, no protections, no work rules and no pensions. That’s not good old times in my opinion.



I suppose I don’t have to tell you who I’m voting for. I want you all to think about what you can do to advance your personal social issues because you have a job, as opposed to not having a job or one that is chipped away more and more if left to the desires of the corporation? Make no mistake, we have not exited the dark times in our profession, we are only seeing a short spot of light through the tunnel that has no end. While we possibly will be voting on a contract soon, and hopefully enjoying better work rules and wages also, the company will be sharpening their pencils to take it away at the first sign of economic downturn, disaster or new world flu epidemic.



We have a lot of friends in the current administration and Congress who are assisting us in our struggles. We can always use more friends. Vote, and vote for your career!