Originally Posted by
AF2AL
Someone is definitely out of touch but it isn't me.
What exactly do you think that ALPA is going to do that isn't being done already? Do you think they're going to show up and automatically get us the new UPS rates?
Breeze has given raises at least every quarter if not more often. Work rules are improving all the time and leadership has shown that they're trying to communicate and work with the pilots in order to make it a place where people want to work.
I know that everyone with little experience thinks that ALPA is going to be some saving grace but that's not the way it works. The biggest factors when it comes to work rules and compensation, are the profitability of the company and the willingness of management to work with the pilots.
Take a look at all the companies represented by ALPA and you'll see everything from the best compensation/work rules (Delta, FedEx etc.) all the way down to the bottom of the barrel places to work (Swift, Mesa, Commutair, Western Global, etc.) and everything in between. If ALPA is the determining factor, why aren't Spirit and Frontier pilots making the same as Delta? Why has Mesa been a terrible place to work when they've had ALPA since the late 1980's?
If management was unwilling to work with us and playing hardball, that would be completely different. Then I'd agree that a union is neccessary, but that's not even close to the way things are.
Outsider here. Just wanted to chime in and say there is one person who is out of touch, and a drag on the industry, and it’s you. My guess is you’re either management, new to the 121 world (or came from the military or Skywest), and just don’t have the SA to know what is good for the pilot group. Or, if you’re management, you’re clearly just trying to spew the anti-union rhetoric.
There’s a reason “potential unionization” is always in SEC filings as a potential negative financial occurrence for a company. Fortunately breezyboiz learned from B6 pilots’ mistake of taking 3 votes and 15 years to get a union on property. With the band of blue guys (guys like you at B6 who tried to keep unions off property) being successful, it kept B6 pilots down for a long time, and if B6 were still under the direct relationship (read: Directed Relationship), they’d probably still be making substandard wages and getting walked all over by the company like breeze pilots do.
the union is what you make of it. You need good guys in leadership, and a strong united pilot group who can see the bigger picture (obviously, that means fewer guys like you). Mesa ALPA sucks because their union leadership sucks, their senior pilot group (ie lifers) are too dumb or out of touch to play the long game and send it back (probably why they are mesa lifers), and the middle/bottom of the seniority list just wants to be gone in <12 months, so it’s easy to convince them to get a quick money grab instead of sending it back. As a career airline, ie, not a regional, breeze pilots shouldn’t fall into those categories. But, there’s a method to Breeze talent acquisition madness…hence why you’re there. Fortunately for breeze pilots (and probably for the company as well, some of you guys just don’t realize it yet), it didn’t quite work out as well as they thought. Yet another thing Neeleman has miscalculated in his Moxie-dream. As he said once in an interview about B6, “if a union ever gets on property here, it’s my fault.” He got what he deserved with the cheap, out of touch schmucks he hired to run the place.