Originally Posted by
FXLAX
Not that I agree with any of that but it doesn’t refute anything I said. No MEC is EVER beholden to ANYONE at National. That is a fact. No one at National can tell our MEC what to negotiate, how to negotiate, how to handle management relations, what to grieve, what to send to arbitration, when to picket, how to communicate with pilots, etc. All workings of the MEC and its committees, LECs and their workings and committees are done at the direction of only those bodies. All that is fact.
As for Canadian regionals, last I checked, those 20 airlines have one EVP. The FDX MEC has one EVP all for itself. And I’m pretty sure our BOD members outnumber all their BOD members combined when it comes to 6000 pilots.
That’s a whole different issue. We have a pool of pilots we choose as leaders. Whether we choose good ones or not is not my point. But regardless of the letters in the name of the union, we will still choose from the same pool of pilots.
I wasn’t here but how did that work out for everyone? Seems like that union got democratically voted out. As for the MCF, if our mec decided not to use it when they should’ve, that’s a problem with the MEC members, not ALPA National or ALPA as a whole.
I think people get this wrong all the time. They blame ALPA, the organization, for the errors of someone specifically. Would have the exact same governing body made the same decision under the same circumstances if the letters on the door were FPA?
By the way, I’m all for “one level of safety.” But I’m certain that if ALPA National was successful in helping pass a bill that required us to operate under 117, many would be mad at ALPA for it.
I think you understand most of the issue but not all of it.
1. National priorities are set by National - Fedex has exactly 6000 votes of the 60,000 votes or so - 1/10. Whereas UPS IPA priorities are set by UPS. We don't have to agree but if national wants to spend $2million from the MCF to help out a small Canadian regional or advocate for policies that may help pax carrier but hurt cargo carriers they can - every time. Just like if national wants to put little effort into stopping remotely operated cargo ops, they can - we get about 1/10 of the votes in that.
2. My point in BOD representation was that the entire FDX MEC represents far less than the entire regionals even though we give far more in dues money.
3. There's no doubt we n eed a union - the question for me is if Fedex pilots' interests are best served by being in ALPA or something else? Let's not compare how we were 24 years ago - we are completely different now. It's better to look at what the IPA lacks that ALPA offers - I'm not sure there's anything. If you have some examples, please list them.
4. We have exactly one EVP - there is exactly 1 EVP within ALPA that represents cargo - all the small cargo carriers share their one EVP with the far greater number of pilots in the smaller regionals. Cargo will also have a very small voice within ALPA - even when we have a former Fedex pilot at the head.