Originally Posted by ATCsaidDoWhat

Packrat, it's time you face some hard realities. Yes, MEC's and NC's negotiate...but the do so with the financial axe of ALPA over their heads. If you don't take the deal ALPA wants you to take as they watch the $$ flow to the process, you get the "take the deal and go sell it to your people or we will have to "rethink" how we fund your MEC and commitees" speech. Don't waste your time telling me it doesn't happen, I've heard it face to face since the term of Hank Duffy. Just like he did when he rolled over on pee testing. What you don't understand is that no MEC or NC has any real power in terms of a contract. If you LOOK at the charter, you'll find that ALPA has the bargaining rights for every carrier. The Presidents signature isn't a "photo op"...he's the only one who can accept or reject a deal. And if he so chose, he could direct the negotiations and present the deal to a pilot group. To save the firestorm and keep the masses silent, he doesn't...but he DOES send "experts" to "assist." Unless you are a legacy with deep pockets that feed the ALPA coffers. Then you can go outside and hire your own and keep people like Cohen, Weiss and Surrender FAR away. (Which is a damn shame, because in the old days old man Weiss would have told folks like Prater and Moak where to shove it...but that's a different story)

You took a "no strike" clause for pay stability? You sold your only leverage for any future gowth or increases for stability? Do you understand what you gave up? And what you did to the rest of the industry by agreeing to that precedent? Even better, you bought into the ALPA line about that. A line they came up with because they didn't want to bear the cost of a potential strike or member assessments. Heaven forbid we stand like men...let's just take the crumbs and hope for a better day.

ALPA has been viewed for the past 30 years as a paper tiger in DC. The last time anyone who was an ALPA carrier showed a set was at EAL when they stood up for the industry against Lorenzo. And they got sold down the river when the DAL pilots complained to Duffy about having to pay strike assessments to their ATL competition...so Duffy sent his ExAdmin Randy Babbitt; an EAL pilot and SON of one of an EAL pilot...to tell the EAL guys that it was, "time to cut the burning lifeboats loose." ALPA protecting ALPA. Trade unionism meant nothing from that day forward.

Every so called strike since then was for a carriers self interest...not the industry. IF ALPA had any serious direction, they would have been lockstep on every carrier that has gone on strike; regional and legacy. Never happened. Babbitt was once asked by a senior UAL Captain if he knew why he was elected. He said, "to represent you in DC." The Captain said, "No, we elected your A** to go to stand up to a judge and go to jail for us." You never saw a guy leave a meeting so fast.

Prater was a joke who openly said he had "Potomac fever" and was stupid enough to believe that it would lead to a cushy K Street (Lobbyist) job. Moak knew better. His K Street job was in the bag BEFORE he got elected. His job at DALPA and now at National was to help dismantle the regionals. He's doing a damn fine job and his minders are thrilled. He'll be fine and won't think twice of you as he waltzes out the door as Mass. Avenue to his new gig.

The GOOD staffers at ALPA...the unionized folks who really care and have done the work for all pilots over the years...have been brutalized. All the way up and down the chain, they see the end coming soon.