Originally Posted by PCL_128

Two points:

1. "ALPA" doesn't do anything. Pilots make decisions, then the national organization gets unfairly blamed for decisions made by pilots at the local level. ALPA is not some all-powerful entity that forces pilots to make certain decisions. Pilots ignore the advice of the attorneys almost as often as they follow it, and it almost always bites them in the ass later when they do. The decision to sell scope was not made by ALPA national officers, or ALPA attorneys, or anyone else with an office in Herndon or on Massachusetts Ave. It was made by Negotiating Committees, MECs, and pilot groups at each individual airline.


Okay, so why would DALPA try to sell the pilot group on scope sales? EVER? Why would our current national pres of ALPA erase a scope "line in the sand" without memrat.

2. Scope can be recaptured. I think there is just such an opportunity at CAL/UAL right now. But, here's the problem: it's not going to be free. Because the law makes it quite clear that management has absolutely zero obligation to bargain over scope, you have to make it worth their while to do so. How do you do that? You have to prioritize and decide what is more important to you. Is that 40% pay raise more important, or is capturing the flying more important? Those are the kinds of decisions that have to made to recapture scope. Pilots were idiots to sell the scope in the first place, but now we have to decide what we're willing to pay to get it back.


DALPA un-assed the compass (and mesaba) pilots at a time when it might have been possible to recapture that scope...guy in charge now nat'l pres.

Those documents could have been easily found by you with a simple Google search, Carl. Before spouting off and pretending to be an authority on something, you may want to collect the facts next time.



What evidence do you have that ALPA advised any such thing? Attorneys don't run ALPA. Decisions are all made by pilots. Unfortunately, the attorneys usually know best, but pilots ignore them. I've been doing union work for a good while now. In my experience, pilots only listen to the advice of attorneys about 60% of the time. The other 40%, they usually end up regretting that they didn't. As someone who has observed scope negotiations first hand with some of ALPA's most senior attorneys in the room, I can tell you that there is never any pressure to concede scope. If anything, the attorneys encourage pilots to be very careful about trading scope.



Steel workers fall under the NLRA, not the RLA. I'm not familiar with the case you reference, but it wouldn't be relevant to us, anyway.