Originally Posted by
duvie
Voting for higher pay, which directly translates to higher costs as a subcontractor, only works if you can directly bring your competitors wages up as well. That is the entire premise of a union: "a union wage." As long as the various unions act in a disconnected way, and anybody who is willing to pay 2% of their paycheck can be certified as an alpa carrier, ALPA does not act like or provide any real benefits aside from perhaps legal and medical Council. The real point of the Union is to establish a baseline rate, below which if you operate at you cannot be a union member and therefore are doing union work as a scab. To see various airlines take large concessions and slit the throats of their fellow union members, is totally and entirely contradictory to the very idea of unionizing.
The name of the game in this country is capitalism and it is based on the premise that if the same work can be done for less, you hire that person. In the regional airline world of subcontracting and contracts that are unique to every different airline, for both the pilots and the contracts with mainline partners, the union model only makes sense if there is solidarity between pilot groups.
What ever the best intentions of any given pilot group are, the de facto result is good old-fashioned cutthroat capitalism, and the most heavily unionized (regional) airlines become the least flexible and eventually fade out of relevance. Comair, AWAC, eagle, horizon, etc. You don't have to like this message, but it is just the true state of the regional industry. Until there is any kind of inter-airline unity, there is no such thing as raising the bar. The nail that sticks out gets hammered, therefore all these discussions are just abstract ideas about what a regional union could be, because in practice it is nothing like that.
Without a "minimum union wage" ALPA is about as relevant as SAPA.
* DISCLAIMER: this does not apply to mainline for obvious reasons
Very smart attempt to sound wise explaining capitalism and explaining how unions cannot work ( that they only provide medical council, etc) and how higher salaries for pilots would not work at the Regional level because it always takes the cost up for the company.
It sounds like you are very anti union but trying to cover it with nice explanations that many will easely swallow. Not me, I see right trough you. Capitalism out of control is what we have at the regional level and that is not something acceptable, good, cool or "nothing to do about". Don't get me wrong, I believe in Capitalism and it is the best system while it is healthy but when it get sick or out of control it destroys everything if not controlled and corrected.
How come that when pilots demand raise it always take the total cost up too much but when management gives themselves 60 to 100% raise it is never a problem?
At skywest the management used SAPA to make the pilots believe they are getting a 2 million package when the package was actually covered by not extending the 1% cola and making it more difficult for reserves to break guarantee and saving on not having to pay anything connected to it. They also used SAPA to make the pilot group believe that raising the BRO FO salary for second year was something the company was giving to the pilot group. That raise does not cost the company a dime as it is covered by the seatlocks and lower training cost. And the company is just doing it to attract more pilots because it cannot fill classes. Now, this package that the company used SAPA to convince the pilots that under the current regional market situation it is a very generous package and that they should accept and bla bla bla and took so much work to reach bla bla. Are you kidding me? Not only did it not cost the company a dime but they made the pilot group believe it had a 2 million value, amazing. Now let's for the hell of it believe that the package would have a 2 million dollar value and that that would be an increase in cost for the company and let's compare that will all the salaries increased for any management position of any kind within the company for the last year and see how much 2 million actually is. Funny how a raise for pilots is always a cost that may even take us out of business but millions in raise for management and board is never questioned.
that ALPA did not work or did not help in other Regionals was mainly because the companies were bad managed companies to begin with. When a company is well managed there is space for a union working together with the company to make it succesful and protecting the most important work group in the company, the pilots.
ALPA is much more in benefits than "medical council"
this is included in membership
Loss of License insurance
Lump sum Loss of license insurance
Group term life insurance
Group short term disability insurance
Group 10-year level term life insurance
Long term care insurance
Accidental death and dismeberment insurance
Legal represetation and more
Now, chech how much you are insured by your company and how they value a life of a pilot.
I believe that the list of insurance, etc included in a membership with ALPA is a bargain for 2% and no pilot should be without it.