Hey 15,
Not to say "I told you so".... But I have been saying this for the last ten years.
First unrepresented, then IBT 747, then In House, then ALPA, I can tell you that ALPA is the best in my experience by several orders of magnitude.
After becoming ALPA, my small group was on Capital Hill pressing the flesh with FAA, TSA, NTSB, and House and Senate members. The Teamsters never even responded to our "what should we do" calls during the UPS IBT strike 12 years ago. We only heard from them after the IPA pilots complained to IBT DC HQ that we were getting no support at all and we were the only IBT carrier based out of SDF! To top that off, they were MAD at US for going over their heads. What a joke they were..
Later, I visited the IBT office in IND. It was about the size of 2 hotel rooms and only had 3 or 4 full time staffers (I know that people like to poke fun at ALPA's staff numbers and pay, but boy are they nice to have when you need them.) Good luck with IBT as the staffers are mostly part time, working their best when they are not flying.
Finally, we publicly challenged IBT 747, Teamsters Airline Division, and Mr. Hoffa himself to be a better union for pilots and whether they were actually ready and willing to put forth the effort and resources to properly represent pilots. Sadly, our letters were never answered and IBT 747 spent its time, efforts, and resources to try to force themselves on pilot groups that didn't want them or that had already decertified them (UPS, ATA, NetJets). They would always brag about pay and working conditions at ABX, World, and NetJets, but convienently forgot to mention that none of these pilot groups were represented IBT 747. To the best of my knowledge, IBT 747 never negotiated an industry leading or industry standard contract. In my humble opinion, this second trusteeship was a long time in coming.
15, I have read many of your posts that often make excellent negative points about ALPA... But I challenge you to name a union, or confederation like CAPA, that has done more for all pilots in the last 75, 40, 30, 20, 10 years (aside from the IPA, which does truly do a great job). As a fellow trade unionist, I truly hope that this house cleaning benefits the pilots at those IBT carriers and that they start doing a better job of representing those pilots they represent. They sure have a long way to go.....
In Unity,
B727DRVR
PS- Here is some interesting background on IBT 747:
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