Originally Posted by acl65pilot

The best labor lawyers money can buy for;
-FAA action

-ADOA (DOT Drug Test) action; chain of custody. (search case history and see who the lawyers are that constantly fight these issues, ALPA)

-Section six

-other labor related issues.

Whether or not you want to admit it, being in a professional association with these "regional" carriers means that we resolve the differences internally and not at the table or court house with our corporation. We deal with them as an association. They will also not go after your flying while you are the big man on campus. Leave and the mice will play, and play for your cheese.

The best labor professional negotiators that in effect can only be used in conjunction with ALPA. Yes, professional negotiators.

Bar none the best medium for pilots wrt to:
Security
Safety
Accident Investigation
Legislative pressure
Medical
International Issues, which are to big to list and effectively cover them.
Human factors research.
Legal
Strategic Planning

That is off the top of my head and I am sure there are some I am missing.

You may argue that money can buy you all of this, and, yes I agree you can buy an outsourced service for much of this, but we all know what quality outsourcing can provide. When a person or in this case a pilot is working for the betterment of not just someone else for a paycheck but for their own QOL and chosen career field, the work is going to be of greater quality than that of someone that collects a fee for a service. Simply put insourced labor provides better quality.

The idea of buying these services is so anti-trade unionism. We are preaching taking back scope on one hand and then outsourcing on the other. To me that sounds like talking out both sides of our mouth.

Also many have issues with the pay at National but how can professionals that are part of a union, with any shred of creditability go tell another unionized workforce that they can get their services though outsourcing. You are effectively making managements argument for them. If you want to change their pay, tell em why, but blowing up an organization to get the labor cheaper seems to have been done a lot over the last decade.(See your angst) In many instances these will be the same ppl an independent will hire to perform the work. How do you think these people are going to feel towards you? What will their work quality be towards those that hurt their families?

So you say you will not hire them, I say good luck finding lawyers, negotiators etc that are currently of ALPA's employ, have the breadth of experience to adequately defend a group like DPA. That type of experience will cost a lot more than the 200K salaries we are now paying them.


But the most important thing you get is Unity. Inclusiveness is what makes an organization like ALPA stronger. The NKS strike proved exactly what this unity can do. CAPA is a loose organization of independent pilot associations that gets together on some issues, and not on some. ALPA National takes 44,000 pilots and their representatives and forms a majority position on every issue. Some ague it is too weak, but I argue to the contrary. Your reps are the ones with direct input with this, and they are voted in by you. Do not like the fact that it is in effect a representational democracy, put pilots in there that will change the by laws.

The ALPA position is the majority position of 44K pilots, not a bunch of RJ pilots that secretly control the voice. Heck I know many of the ALPA positions that do nothing for the career advancement of the RJ crowd.