Originally Posted by
alfaromeo
In the case of Crew Pass, it was ALPA that introduced legislation mandating that the TSA conduct real world tests of the Crew Pass system. It was ALPA that set up the Crew Pass system tests. When the one vendor chosen for the system tests tried to jack up their prices thinking they had a monopoly, it was ALPA that sponsored a vendors conference to force competition in the system and lowered the price by over 20 fold. Now ALPA has gotten the TSA to approve system wide implementation of Crew Pass, and it is now on ALPA's shoulders to find a way to fund it.
Yay for ALPA on the pending progress of (an as of now effectively unimplimented) crewpass. Big fan of crewpass, and if it ever happens then ALPA deserves a lot of credit. But scope trumps crewpass. What good is crewpass if half your flights, block hours and pilot jobs are done by other pilots off your list? If more scope relief is allowed and mainlines shrink again, who cares if you can bypass the hastles of security for the masses if you don't have a job in the first place.
Scope is the Alpha and the Omega of anything and everything in this profession. Who cares if you have leading aeromedical or legal assistance if you're not employed to use it? What good are pay tables if your rate is zero because your job is outsourced? What good are retirement improvements if you spend less time on property or at lower paying categories because of rampant outsourcing?
Scope trumps all because its not only greater than any other issue, it is the foundation of every single issue.
And yet ALPA thinks the best strategy is to pretend it doesn't exist, ask for complete trust in the wake of the recent several decades of abysmal failures regarding the issue and focus on the tertiary.