Airline Pilot Central Forums - View Single Post

08-21-2009, 04:06 PM

757Driver

Need More Callouts

Joined APC: Dec 2005

Position: Unbridled Enthusiasm

Posts: 2,143

Item 7: Repeat—Cleveland Air Show: Is Your Family Aware?

The Cleveland Airshow runs September 5-7 and the CALMEC will be there. While this is not a major family-awareness event, it does have a family-awareness component to it. Your CALMEC will have a tent set up on the flightline where many of your officers will be present throughout the days. The “CAL Families for Change” (CAFC) will be there as well to provide information on their organization and to recruit new members. Be sure you and your family stop by and say hello.

Item 8: CAL Families For Change

The momentum is gathering for the organization known as “The CAL Families For Change”. This organization, founded by Michelle Bixby, Trish Riggs, Lori Landburg, Janelle O’Connell, and Casey Radican, was created to support and educate the families of our pilots who may be experiencing Continental management’s strong-arm tactics for the first time. In just a few weeks, CAL Families For Change has spun up and is ready for action.

As part of their information gathering efforts, Michelle and Trish asked Fred Abbott for permission to attend his recent meeting with the IAH pilots. When Fred discovered that his attempts to co-opt them and have them work for management instead of the pilots and their families failed, he told them they would not be welcome at the IAH meeting. They showed up in EWR anyway.

Their first major awareness event will be at the Cleveland Airshow, September 5-7. Please bring your family and stop by and say hello. There will be ongoing presentations on the union and all the resources available to families both from ALPA and the CAFC.

For further information, please contact Michelle Bixby at: 281.304.6687 or [email protected]

Trish Riggs may be contacted at 830.249.1242 or [email protected]

Item 9: Repeat—It Really is That Simple: Bid All of Your Vacation

Vacation bidding will be upon us soon and we have a simple message: BID ALL OF IT, AND BID ALL OF IT AS ANNUAL VACATION!

We have pilots on furlough. If every pilot bid every week they were entitled to as annual (not monthly) vacation, most of our hostages could come home to us. Yes, you may have to put off your new bass boat another month but these are our brothers and sisters with families to care for and not bidding all of your vacation hurts them.

This is going to be a major issue this fall for your EWR LEC reps. An educational campaign is being created and it’s going to highlight both the problems caused by not bidding all of your vacation and the benefits to be gained by bidding it all. Remember, you must bid all of your vacation as annual vacation or it will NOT be counted in next year’s staffing formula.

Don’t be insensitive to our furloughees; BID IT ALL!

Item 10: Repeat—Eye to Tie

A large segment of our pilot group bemoans our lowly standing among unionized carriers and often wonders aloud what we can do to fix this problem.

Sometimes the simplest things are best and one of the simplest is to wear the ALPA pin on your tie. Management does look at us and they keep a rough count. When you wear your pin, you are not swearing allegiance to John Prater or the ALPA bureaucracy—you are showing solidarity with your fellow pilots—some of whom are now on the street. The pin says, “I belong” and tells management that their days of dominance over us are finished.

This may be hard to believe but at many other ALPA carriers, you are a “slick-tie” at your own peril. These guys are shunned when they show up to fly without the pin.

It is our duty as union pilots to speak to our “slick-tied” friends and get them to see the error of their ways. This does not have to be difficult or uncomfortable—it can be a chat among friends—but, ultimately, it has to be done if we are to advance beyond the miserable garbage that passes for a contract here at Continental.

Put your differences with ALPA aside and wear the pin; it may be a baby-step—but it’s a baby-step on the way to the best contract ever.

By the way, we have seen more pins on ties and lapels in EWR than at any time in the past—and the difference is HUGE. You guys are doing a great job! Please keep it up!

Item 11: Request for Committee Volunteers

All of our committees need volunteers. If you are one of the many somewhat selfish and untested among us, if you are interested in committee work, if you have special artistic talents of any kind, or if you just like to chew the legs off your dining room table, we want you to help your fellow EWR pilots. If you are interested or have previously expressed interest via e-mail or a phone call, please confirm your continuing interest in an e-mail to Captain Kaye Riggs, Secretary-Treasurer, LEC 170 at [email protected]. Please put your name and the word “Volunteer” in the subject line.

Item 12: Next Meetings

Our next local council meeting has not yet been scheduled but should occur in October.

Our next MEC meeting has not yet been scheduled but should occur in October.

Item 13: Special Guest Editorial by EWR Captain Eric Anderson

The Incredible Shrinking Base

Before diving into this little story of anger and disappointment I probably should begin with an apology. As I write, potentially 200 MORE of my brothers and sisters--with mortgages and children and practically NO flying job prospects--are about to be tossed to the street. Every one of these pilots to whom I have talked or with whom I have flown has shouldered this news with professionalism and humor. Sometimes I am in awe of this pilot group--particularly those on the junior half of the list. But no, this story is about me: Currently an ISB B737 Captain with ISB B777 FO comfortably in his future. And I am handling this comparatively insignificant news with nowhere near the fortitude of those who are about to collect Unemployment. Thus the apology.

"ISB" is an abbreviation of the title of this piece and for the purposes of my story replaces the once formidable "EWR". Of course I don't expect this moniker to stick. But it is the foundation for this bit of writing so please indulge me. August 12 was a significant day for several reasons. First it was the day after the company dropped the system bid bomb on our heads and second, it was the date for the Council 170 LC meeting to be followed by our date with Captain Fred Abbott in our well-appointed crew room. I showed up for the council meeting in a stupor. The day before, my wife and I discussed how we would make ends meet without my Captain's salary. There was a time when such a conversation took place between only the truly fiscally stupid. But these are different times. As for us, we carry no credit card debt. The two modest cars were paid off years ago. And we live in a house that no self-respecting Houston pilot would even step foot in. But I just bought that house in February and New Jersey seems to think its grand, so grand in fact that they complement it with a $10,000 property tax. The bid was something of a shock. We all knew about the reductions. But in ISB, we weren't only hit with reductions (nearly ALL the system's reductions), we also saw a massive redistribution of 737 and 756 flying to Houston ("IGB" perhaps?). So it was with this combination of worry and confusion that I met this day.

The meeting, as is typical for Newark, was well attended by pilots who commuted in early or drove in from Connecticut or PA and sacrificed a precious day off for betterment of their families and their profession. Most of the pilots in attendance looked just like me; shocked and angry that the company they love appears to be headed towards a reef by a rudderless leadership. Others, the smarter ones, had been to this dance far too many times to feel anything. Our council reps looked utterly exhausted after an all-night session first debating and passing the new reduced flying LOA then preparing for both the LEC meeting and the subsequent meeting with Fred and Friends. For me the meeting was a haze. Nothing against the leadership or the speakers as it was well run by the new reps and informative. But my mind was elsewhere. By the time we got to the crew-room later that afternoon, I had a headache and an attitude.

If he was nothing else Captain Abbott was prepared, even confident in the presence of well over a hundred seriously disaffected pilots. Why wouldn't he be? He's not a furlough risk. I have no doubt that he is comfortable with his mortgage, assuming he still has one. There is little chance of the system bid moving his desk to Newark (maybe Denver someday but that's another discussion). The room was mostly polite. Much of what was discussed touched on valid, but to me, secondary concerns like the woeful condition of the crewroom or the growing trend to subject our customers (and our reputation) to regional partners who don't always share our concern for safety or service. What I wanted to know was why was ISB being singled out? Was the New York market shrinking that much? No, that flying will continue but more of it will be done within Houston pairings. So I tried to ask why this big redistribution to Houston and can we expect it to reverse once economic conditions improve? But my question came out of my mouth in verb-subject-object form as if spoken by Yoda and I no longer seemed to be able to pronounce "re- re- dister -ibution". Fred angled his head slightly, squinted, shrugged, and claimed not to have a clue what I was asking. Someone else in the room was kind enough to translate Eric-speak into English and Fred's answer was dubious: Shifting flying out of Newark resulted in the fewest displacements. I then screamed (breaking Jayson Baron's command to be polite and professional), "why don't you just re- re- dister -ibute ALL our flying to Houston!" Fred shrugged again. And so ended my heroic day.

The next evening a friend (another ISB Captain) came over for a beer. When I rehashed the previous day's discussion he threw his hands up and said, "why didn't you or someone in the room not say 'look, we understand that as the junior base most if not all the reductions come out of Newark but why double the pain by shifting so much New York flying to Houston?'". Why indeed! Fred's answer would no doubt have been the same but it was a much better way to phrase the question.