Originally Posted by
rickair7777
I don't not support unionizing, like I keep saying I voted yes. But I get frustrated with the "over-selling" of alpa at the regional level. Need to understand what it will do, and what it won't...
Won't fix the industry.
Will cause a SLI at Inc.
Will lock in some rules, and likely prevent further QOL degradation (but the time to lock status quo was ten years ago... a lot more QOL back then. At this point it's slamming the barn door).
Won't keep the company from violating the contract.
Won't remove political games and self-interest from the pilot leadership group. Current leadership is largely pro-alpa, sapa by-laws just prevent them from being too vocal about it. Presumably they would run for MEC positions, presumably they would get elected.
Pilot unions, ALPA included, are not the magic bullet, even at mainline. It wasn’t too long ago when ALL legacies were in bankruptcy, forcing concessions, cancelling pensions, gutting work rules, etc. All those legacy pilots suffered despite their pilot unions. If you believe that you have to wait for pilot unions to have the power to prevent things that are not in their control, such as, recessions, terrorist attacks, pandemics, hostile or bad management, etc, that causes pilots to suffer, before you decide to unionize, then I submit you will never be in favor of unionizing.
As for the other things you mentioned, nothing forces an SLI other than a successful single carrier petition, which can theoretically happen today. Nothing prevents Skywest from reinterpreting, amending, or cancelling their policy manual. They can do any of that right now if they wanted to. And if you believe that your management would all of a sudden start violating status quo after unionizing, then you’ve really needed a union way before that. Keep in mind that you are ONE ceo away from having the next JO. Status quo right now is a good thing. Unless you all of a sudden think your management isn’t going to reverse this 10 year trend you reference. Do you want to lock in the declining QOL now while working on actually improving it with the backing of federal law? Or do you prefer looking back ten years from now and thinking you don’t want to lock in that lower QOL?
As for current leadership, political games, self-interests, etc, that can happen at anytime, like right now! With a union, you have by-laws and policies that are written and amended by pilots for the pilots interests. You don’t like leadership? There is a way to deal with that. You don’t like a certain policy or the current structure of the union, there is a way to deal with that. All while not having to answer to another master (management). Pilot unions, like any other democratic organization, is accountable to the membership. It’s always up to members to volunteer for leadership and committee positions, to stay informed, to participate in the democratic process, and to make all members accountable.
There will never be a perfect organization as long as it’s made up by humans or anything made by humans. If you are waiting for perfect, or near perfect, you will be waiting your entire lifetime.