Originally Posted by byrdseyeviewinc

In my 10 years of flying, a lot of it is military so you all know that Uncle Sam does not have a quote unquote Union. But all of my friends that are in the commercial airline world right now (PAXs & Cargo), 100% are part of the Union. They pretty much say it is something that is needed to keep the upper management in line. I would like to open a in depth discussion about this situation. I young pilot like myself that does not know anything about ALPA, Teamsters, ect.

1.) Why is such a problem with Upper Management to pay there people if the company made 33 BILLION DOLLARS? (My guess is GREED)

2.) Out of the 4,000 plus pilots in FedEx and 2,000 plus pilots in UPS, how many are in the Union?

3.) Is it like a fraternity? I mean, if you are a part of it, is there any pluses?

4.) If a check pilot or check flight engineer is a member of the union, but a guy or girl that is not a part of it,,,,,is it automatic they are going to majically fail the checkride?

5.) And something else that was interesting. A friend of mine flies for American, he was jumpseating to his base on Delta or FedEx or somebody, I can't recall directly, but anyway, the Captain had a book that had all of the people that were in the airlines, but they were not a part of the Union, so those individuals were on the permanent black list so to speak, so they were not allowed to jumpseat. Is this true?

I am just trying to understand because it is new to me.