Originally Posted by ghilis101

reel you are right, often times junior guys get completely screwed during concessions or when negotiating a new contract. but is it really the unions fault? i contend that this is not inherent to unions whatsoever. once again i will use the skywest pay example and what happened to the EMB-120 pilots last year. as the "narrowbody" guys (loosely correlating of course) in the company, they got sold down the river. And this was not the doing of a union.

When a union supports a TA or LOA or CBA that hurts the junior guys, its most likely because of who is in place on the executive committee and representing the union. Theyre more likely to be senior and could possibly be biased to themselves. But when times were good, everyone had it relatively good (except probationary year which has been bad almost everywhere) when it came to wages and work rules. Dont forget that you still have the power to vote. United successfully voted down in almost unanimous fashion their first crack at a lousy TA this past spring/summer even when their MEC said it would be good. Plus look at a place like continental. They are going to be extremely junior and totally "bottom-heavy." You think the senior guys are going to be able to run that place? Theyd have to convince all the guys with horrible QOL on the 737 to give in and believe me thats not going to happen. Youre going to see a lot of great changes for the narrow body guys there in their next contract. With a union you have a lot of power in choosing who represents you, and you should vote accordingly, and always vote. And if you dont like something you can run for a rep position.

The important thing is to stay active, stay involved, and dont sit back and think oh the union will handle it. Sure they will do what they can, but its YOUR union (if you get one). only YOU and your fellow pilots can make it work. Its not easy for those guys to get everything you want, but its up to you to let them know whats really important to you, and if they arent working for you, you can change that. Pilots are extremely apathetic and love to b*tch about everything (I do it all the time but Im learning to channel that negativity toward something good haha). If we used that energy to strengthen our pilot group instead and come up with really great ideas to improve our industry think about how much farther we will be down the road.

If you guys dont get a union thats your choice, but I would like to see you guys come together anyway and be a strong group