Originally Posted by alfaromeo

We have an outgoing union President who totally changed the organization and operating structure of the staff in Herndon. It was refocused solely on support of pilots negotiating wages and defending their contract. He energized the staff and changed the work dynamic in a very positive way.

He looked out years into the future to define the threats that would leave you jobless in 10 years, well after Lee and I both retired. He has organized a combined attack on these threats to your job and to all future airline jobs. He has worked through a challenging negotiating environment that ended up with industry average wages rising 30+% during his tenure. He has increased the credibility and reach of ALPA throughout the government and the investment community. He has helped energize the airlines to work together with the union to protect our industry from a bunch of short term sellouts who will flush you down the toilet for one additional dollar.

Maybe I will add the FAR 117 process that was threatened to be hijacked by some who only care about money and not safety. Let's not forget the minimum pilot requirements for an airline job, another process that was primed to get hijacked by dollar signs and not safety. And for both, I am talking about what really happened not some stupid fairy tale concocted by the DPA crowd and their ilk. Both of these were incredibly complex, detailed negotiations that brought together a variety of players, many of whom have no interest in aviation safety.

I will just forget that before he became ALPA President he completely changed the paradigm of mergers and their effects on pilots. A change that is paying dividends to this day.

So yeah, he really didn't accomplish anything because some dolt wrote a stupid magazine article, that made no sense at all, and now the webboard crowd has yet one other side issue to carp about.

I am sorry, but he has changed this union more in the last 4 years than it has in the other 22 I have been a member. If serious people can't recognize that then heaven help us. We will be relegated to the blowhard, do nothing crowd that the Heidi people represent. At some point, you have to make a choice; do you want someone to hold your hand, pat your head and tell you how bad your life is or do you want someone to actually make your life better. Those are the stark choices we face today. Rhetoric over results or results over rhetoric.