Originally Posted by
AllenAllert
Simple answer - basically, the union in place was controlled by management and scabs. The CAL guys were afraid of getting screwed if they merged with an ALPA carrier and sought to get ALPA back on property.
The CAL guys had a choice of being a scab airline fighting an ALPA carrier in case of merger or allowing the scabs into CAL ALPA. They chose the SCABS. The scabs voted for ALPA and I would assume they were allowed into whatever union CAL had before (their new)ALPA.
Simple Answer: ALPA went to CAL with the miracle lure. Promising the CAL pilots access to the ALPA tool box. The real purple elephant in the room was a likely CAL-DAL merger. Balloon went up a few times. ALPA merger and fragmentation policy was talked about. It was an important topic for the more junior CAL pilots, but not the more senior.
Scabs took over CAL ALPA due to furloughed pilots who were not on property and no longer eligible to vote following 2002 layoffs and POS CBA 02 concessions. This POS was ratified in 05.
ALPA bought the votes of the CAL scabs by promising to forgive them. It was the ALPA promise of forgiveness that secured the CAL scabs vote. Those SCABS did not care about ALPA merger policy or the alpa tool box. They only cared about being taken back into the fold.
The IACP came into being once the Ops Group was deemed ineffective at moving the ball. The Ops Group was controlled by management. This group came into being as an informal group to control and manipulate the pilots while simultaneously giving them the feeling they had input. IACP was effective in most respects, and limited in some respects. It's legislative affairs group was highly effective.
Before Ops Group there was nothing due to the void left at CAL when ALPA was decertified and beaten by Lorenzo. I would love to know the official count. How many SCABS at UAL vs. those at CAL. Just for educational purposes of course.