[QUOTE=skypilot35;1676987][INDENT]
Originally Posted by
Nevets
What I'm saying is that even at regionals, without a union, you will always get less than what you would get with a union. Both during good times and bad. And there are many other things that airline pilot unions provided that I believe are more important than a contract.
I think your point would be difficult to prove or disprove without looking at each individual airlines pros and cons. Subjectively, outside looking in on some carriers with unions, ASA, ExpressJet, Envoy, Republic, Endeavor, PSA, Mesa, TSA; are these companies better off? Again, I am not arguing against unions, I am saying the current system is extremely flawed, it does not work. I understand that ALPA is "working" to better it, but I do not believe they are fully vested in the fight. It is beneficial to the Major airline pilot group to have pilots at the regional level making less money. Again, subjective observation.
These are all things that ALPA has been trying to and is still working on. But honestly, it doesn't help when the largest regional pilot group continually refuses to engage. How do you expect this to happen when 3200 of us don't participate? And now we are starting to see the consequences. DALPA has set a bar, albeit low, to have 35% of their new hires come from ALPA. Now you see this from the UAL MEC. I wouldn't be surprised of DALPA didn't follow on this idea and maybe set the bar a little higher.
Make no mistake, there are numerous discussions on the SAPA forum regarding whether or not to unionize. Mostly from the same individuals and honestly some of their arguments hold merit. However, and I cannot speak for an entire pilot group, but personally when I compare the way things are "run" at Skywest (non-union) to the way things are at other regionals (union) I have to ask you why would we unionize? More specifically, what would it do for the industry? I do not mean to say that there are not improvements to be made at Skywest, but comparatively speaking, this is a pretty good place to work.
Regarding the United MEC offering an open house for only ALPA regionals, I get it. I don't like it, but I get it. Will that force the Skywest pilots to unionize? No. I do believe that if the entire regional pilot group banded together as I mentioned above, then (I can only speak for myself) I would be interested.
The term, you don't know what you don't know, comes to mind. Since you don't have a centralized independent organization with fiduciary responsibility to the pilots acting as the clearinghouse to everything that goes on within the pilot group (grievances, firings, training failures, government actions, and just a general collection of feedback from line pilots), you simply cannot have the entire big picture of what is happening to your pilot group as a whole. Believe me, any smart management WILL ALWAYS try to get away with as much as they can with as little cost as they can when it comes to pilots. And they should! That's their fiduciary responsibility to the BOD and ultimately the shareholders. A union is just a counter balance. A way to have an equilibrium for the current state of affairs. Each pilot group is going to have different difficulties depending on management and how much leverage they have. You cannot compare how other union shops are when deciding if it's good for you. Many people say, what good has a union been at Mesa? Well, do you really believe that Mesa pilots would've been better off dealing with Ornstien as a non-union, at-will, one on one basis? Hell no! At XJT we had a very good relationship with management until 2009. Very few grievances, union and management worked collaborative, and we were compensated fairly.
You say you are not for or against a union. Maybe that is because you don't know what you don't know. But in reality, if you are not for gaining leverage for yourself, even in the slightest bit a union may currently have (which I don't would be the case if there was a union at Skywest), then there isn't a good enough reason not to be for a union. Like I said, a union for pilots does way more than just negotiate and enforce a contract. To me, that is secondary or tertiary. Participating in making aviation safer is number one. Working towards one unified organization for the betterment of the profession is second. Job protection/insurance policy is right up there as well. Government advocacy in order to counter act some of Congress' latest idea or lack there of. The contract is actually low on my list. All those things, except for your employment contract (other than in an indirect way) are all things that are best and sometimes solely leveraged by a unionized pilot group.