Originally Posted by
JoeyMeatballs
This may sound weird, but I'm not a "huge fan" of Unions either, however I think they are a necessary evil. (At least in this industry) I would be lying if I said there hasn't been occasions where Union Politics created such a distraction that the "work of the pilots" took a back seat to someone, or "something's" agenda. I don't know If that makes sense but hopefully you can kind of see where I am coming from. one thing you can't deny is how robust ALPAs committee structure is and how great/beneficial such things like the JS Com, Aeromedical, ASAP, Scheduling com etc. If for nothing else it prevents the company for just changing things whenever they want (JBlues Health care for example)
This is exactly how I feel about ALPA and pilot unions. ALPA is only what your pilot group makes it. At my last company we had some great guys that used the ALPA resources to get us a great contract. Without their hard work and smarts we would have never had what we had. An airline like ExpressJet has a lot of obstacles to overcome with a split pilot group and pilots there just to get time and move on. What's the motivation to fight when you plan to leave asap? I'm lucky enough to be following Joey to Spirit.