Originally Posted by
rdneckpilot
It’s the conflict of interest from being affiliated with a national organization that has obligations outside of my pilot group. Especially the three wholly owned AA regionals.
Ive asked very direct questions about how ALPA national merger policy would play out with one of our regionals. I have not received direct answers.
The regionals are going to be changing significantly over the next couple years. With projected hiring at mainline I don’t see how they stay the size they are today. In the face of those unknowns I don’t want to be anywhere near alpa without more assurances on how that plays out.
The conflict of interest issue is a big misconception. The mainline pilots are the only ones who can decide what to scope in and what to allow outsourcing. Once mainline pilots have negotiated that, then mainline management profers bids to regional airlines for that flying. One or more reginoals win the contract, then regional management negotiates with regional pilots for pay rates and work rules for that flying. In no way can a regional pilot group or a regional management dictate to mainline what flying they do. Its solely up to you as a mainline pilot on what you decide on does your branded flying. For example, SWAPA doesnt have any outsourcing. Skywest nor Republic cannot force that to change. But if SWAPA were to conceded some small jet flying, then the regional that is awarded that flying will negotiate with their pilots solely on the working conditions, not the scope of that flying.
As for ALPA merger policy, its pretty simple. ALPA requires negotiation, mediation, and arbitration if required. The arbitrators (three) are required to take at least those three things into account when crafting a fair and equitable list: status & category, longivity, and career expectations. That third item is key in a merger of two airlines with vastly different fleet types and business models.
Originally Posted by
Easyflier301
Which flavor union you have representing you during section 6 matters far less than the company you are negotiating against. That’s just the facts. Guess what…ATI is ALPA. So is FedEx. Ask those guys how things are going. Is ALPA playing “hard ball” and not “rolling over” helping them?!? SWAPA will likely roll out a very high paying contract here shortly because guess what? SWA is rich, sitting on gobs of cash, and the union knows it.
Im not sure what you are getting at here but I can speak on my experience with FedEx. At FedEx we voted down our TA. And despite tons of opposition and delaying, 9 out of the 14 reps have been recalled along with two of the three officers as well. And there is a chance that there will be a couple more recalls in the near future.
So when you have a group that negotiates something that the pilot group doesnt like, change can be made so that hopefully that doesnt happen on the nex TA.