Originally Posted by
JDFlyer
I jumped into your discussion with another poster on this thread regarding the idea of joining the two groups. My only point was that the only way I personally would ever consider joining ASA pilots with Skywest pilots is to get rid of ALPA first.
An independent union may or may not ever come to Skywest. I hope it does materialize some day sooner than later. I can say quite confidently though, that as long as ASA is ALPA, the majority of Skywest pilots will not support integrating with them.
Personally I am generally happy with the way Skywest management treats us and we treat them. We have a good working relationship with St. George. Granted, Skywest is far from perfect. There is always room for improvement. Again, just my opinion, one pilot, but having ALPA represent all our pilots would be a MAJOR step backwards, NOT forwards.
And my point is that getting rid of ALPA at ASA has no effect on getting an independent union at Skywest. And my other point to you is that if your management doesn't want one list now it will may not mean they want one with two non-union groups.
And as far as integrating with ASA, them being ALPA should have no bearing anyways. Why would it matter?
Of course you are happy with the way Skywest management treats you. Just as Cinderalla's sisters were happy with the way their mother treated them. And just because you have ALPA does not mean that the relationship between the pilots and management would deteriorate.
Having one voice represent the profession would be a MAJOR step forward.
Originally Posted by
Terrain Terrain
In my new hire class 3 years ago 43 of the 45 guys were from ALPA airlines, 0 wanted alpa on skywest property from our previous experiences. You need to understand many of us here at skywest have more time under alpa than some of the outside chest thumping zealots. Once we see pinnacle, mesa, airtran, colgan, start to take the gloves off and wipe the turd off their face a union might be an option here. Please dont throw union propaganda at us, because allot of us here at skywest know more about alpa than you would expect, and that is the reason getting on property is so hard..,
There are many misconceptions about ALPA. One misconception is that people think ALPA should be able to make your airline profitable, have the best pay, work rules, have good relations with management, be the saviour of every pilot, etc. But there is not much ALPA can do about making sure that their company is profitable, have favorable relations with management, make every pilot happy, make them thee best paid group, etc. Think of it this way, if your fellow new hires were from Mesa for example, do you think they would have had a better experience without ALPA on property? No, of course not. JO would take more advantage of them if there was no union. So just because you came from another airline that was ALPA and maybe wasn't profitable, or wasn't treated fairly by management, or didn't have the best pay and work rules (by definition only one airline can at any one point in time), doesn't mean that ALPA was not helpful. There is only so much ALPA can do when dealing with managements of the like at places like Mesa, Colgan, Airtran, the economic environment, the RLA, etc. This is not propaganda. Its not just ALPA either. The reason why its hard to get on property there is because of the Cinderella syndrome. Its not uncommon among pilots though so its not just Skywest. Historically pilots are their own worst enemy usually by being short-sighted.