TonyC

I've exercised my Google-foo and cannot find anything. If the Internet Wayback machine (web.archive.org) had saved a copy of www.johnprater2006.com, I might have something for you. I also found reference to a Chicago Tribune article from October, 2006, but can't seem to track it down.

What many people don't realize is that our MEC Chairman could have run and won that election, but he had made a commitment to not leave his MEC Chairman post until we had a contract. The final vote on our 2006 CBA closed that same week, but after the ALPA officer elections. Technically, we didn't have our contract, so he did not run.


It's unfortunate when some people do a poor job of articulating our objectives and out successes, but that seems to happen a lot when our communications efforts are lacking. Of course we didn't do it to protect our DB plans. What we have earned cannot be taken away on a whim. What we did get was the assurance that we could still retire at Age 60 without penalty, and without having to fight The Company.

What we got by being able to participate in the formulation of the legislative language was the items listed in the bullets near the end of my post before I wrote, "All of those priorities were met."

Those are perhaps articulated more clearly in this "From the Hill" article which may have ended up lining your bird cage in the Feb 2008 ALPA magazine. http://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/mag...2008_Age65.pdf

• Pilots age 60 and older who were flying on the enactment date as “required flightdeck crewmembers” in FAR Part 121 operations (e.g., flight engineers or second officers) may continue to fly.
• Airlines must bargain over changes to collective bargaining agreements. Specifically, the law requires that any amendments to any labor agreements or benefit plans that are necessary to conform with the new law, or any regulation issued to carry out this law, must be made by agreement between the airline and the union. In other words, airline managements may not make unilateral changes to collective bargaining agreements to implement the new pilot retirement age.
• Pilots who reached age 60 before Dec. 13, 2007, may be rehired, or hired by another airline, but at the bottom of the seniority list.
• The law provides for an “over/under” split for international operations, as ICAO does, meaning that one pilot can be over 60 (up to 65) if the other pilot is under 60. That split does not apply to domestic operations.
• The law will require all FAR Part 121 pilots older than 60 to have a first-class medical certificate renewed every 6 months and may require additional line and/or simulator evaluations every 6 months.
• The Act bars lawsuits or other legal proceedings for actions taken in compliance with the Age 60 rule or the new Age 65 retirement law.

Yes, we have always done things that benefit one group and not another, but not without doing things that benefit the other and not the one. We are a diverse group, and there is not a single benefit that will benefit us all equally. The point is to not leave any group behind. The point is to not do something that will disadvantage one group. Talk to your Flex Instructor and ask him or her how they feel about this point. Talk to the B-757 Flex Instructor teaching in the B-767 simulator at narrow-body pay. Leaving a group behind breeds resentment and fractures our unity.

I find it immensely ironic that criticism of the Pre-Medicare VEBA comes up in the same vein with criticism of the regulated age change. The same people who want pilots to retire and "get out of my seat" at age 60 don't seem to care that those pilots can't afford the health care costs, and oppose a benefit that addresses that problem and allows them to retire at age 60.

(BTW, the age was 53.)


There was no vote on whether to change the Age 60 rule. The Age 60 rule was going to change, and it didn't matter what the poll results were, or what ALPA policy was. There was no way to stop the change.

The vote taken by ALPA's Executive Board was how to deal with the inevitable change. If change was inevitable, the Blue Ribbon Panel's poll told us that FedEx pilots wanted ALPA to drop it's opposition to the change or to support the change. Our MEC Chairman voted to drop our opposition, and that's the policy ALPA adopted.

In short, his vote was supported by the results of the poll.

I believe the mistake was not communicating that clearly to the members before it occurred.


It's going to sound like I'm an apologist now, too. That's not my intention. I believe that appearances are extremely important, and that's why I did not bid B-777 FO when I was excessed from ANC MD-11 Capt. I had peers who did so and were awarded training dates that never came, and who consequently never left their MD-11 left seats. My concern for appearances cost me many dollars.

But the facts are this. Once the arbitration hearing has been concluded, and the parties have submitted their briefs, the arbitrator has access to all of the information he can use to make his decision. If everybody on the property then bid the B-777, it would have no effect on the outcome. It would be unlawful for someone to whisper into his ear that however many people had bid to fly the airplane. What the departing MEC Chairman bid then created a horrible optic, but it had no effect on the outcome of the arbitration.






.