I gave up a 20 month upgrade to go to Skywest because they are one of the top regionals in an area of the country I wanted to be in. They've positioned themselves to be one of the remaining regionals in the coming shake-out and I believe that to be, in part, because they are not unionized. This allows greater flexibility in changing portions of the crew manual for the better (or worse) and in taking advantage of opportunities.

Does this mean I'm not open to the idea of unionizing if conditions detioriate to TSA/ASA levels? Of course not, but I don't think for a second that ALPA is coming to SKW at this specific point in time because they have our pilot group's interest at heart.

Having a contract is nice because it guarantees you certain things will or will not happen. However, having a contract also means that certain undesirable portions in it will not be fixed until that contract becomes amendable. It works both ways guys...

The grievance system at SKW works a helluva lot better than at a unionized carrier. The majority of grievances get resolved in a month. Almost all by 3 months. 90% of those cases SAPA takes to management gets resolved in the pilot's favor. You can see every grievance on the SAPA website and the resolution. At a unionized carrier the grievance system takes many months and even years...