Originally Posted by
TonyWilliams
Not sure folks in general at SkyWest would agree with you now, or at least the last 4 votes for a union suggest otherwise. This, in my opinion, was one of the many faults of the last union drive.
As a guy who was fired from SkyWest quite unceremoniously last summer, pretty much black listing me from descent part 121 hiring for the rest of my life, I gotta say that I liked working for SkW.
And I didn't think ALPA was the answer then, nor do I now. I honestly wish somebody would get a SkyWest Pilot's Union going, and get off the "but we're too tiny" mentality.
Combining lists with ASA could certainly pan out to be awesome in turns of leverage to SkW, Inc, but the reality is, there will be more contentious issues than harmony. What percentage of list integrations went smoothly? Of those, how many of those integrations were voluntary? The odds aren't good.
Then, the even bigger question; how many at ASA would want to give up ALPA to jump to an upstart, unknown union. The point is, forming a union contingent on the idea of ASA, or any future airline SkW will buy (and there will be more XJT, Scenic Air, Sun Aire, and ASA type purchases in the future) is a bad plan.
Form a union, and make it the best damn union in the business. Bar none. Then, if ASA wants to join up, lay the cards out on the table, and let them vote.
So, I think an in-house union is great, but a combined list / union with ASA might even keep Chip up at night (hey, I like and respect him... it's just business).
I think your opinion carries a lot more weight than most of ours but when i look at what XJT's alpa union goes through in cash, negotiations, having people trained to do jobs (accident response teams, etc), and providing the benefits of excellent medical advisors and legal representation.... there is no way that our pilot group alone could pay for the benefits we receive. We are piggybacking off of the larger, major carriers in alpa. A standalone union might give you some of the benefits of a larger more stable union but i dont think they could afford to do anything really well.
This is just my opinion and i could very well be wrong but i see ALPA as a huge benefit at my current company. Having a medical problem was a non-event and i was getting advice from a doctor in denver within two hours of calling to ask a question. Our alpa hotel committee keeps trying to negotiate better deals for nicer rooms and as a result we have some of the best hotels of any regional. The list is pretty long but the benefits of having a union are definitely there.