Did David Bates come to the conclusion "Better the devil you know than the devil you do not know" concerning Horton and Parker?

 

Yeah, this is interesting. As I understand it, Bates was more pragmatic than the previous APA president. Is this a return to the more militant APA of the past?

 

That is how I see it. Standby for some interesting times.

 

Can we have some history on him... Did he resign out of protest bc he supported tha ta that got voted down?

 

I believe as it was stated in the eblast sent to APA members, he was pro TA and as president should be a rep for all of the pilots. 61% against his belief, thus no longer does he rep what the majority of the pilots want. Seems logical. Remember, the TA barely had enough of a vote to even go to the membership. I believe it was a 9-7 vote. Glad my brethrens voted no.

 

Bring back Darrah.

 

"At the request of the APA Board of Directors, I agreed late yesterday to resign as your union president."

https://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/...signation.aspx

 

We were talking about this in the cockpit yesterday.

The man's job was to represent us to the company. It was not his fault that the company didn't cooperate with our/his expectations. He and his team got the best TA they could, which was gross, but not due to any lack of effort.

Perhaps his error was in exhorting pilots to accept the TA. If he simply said "Here it is guys, this is the best we could get after YEARS of hard work. It's in your hands now." then all would be well, IMO.

I have zero problems with his leadership, but if he feels it'd be best to step down, that of course is his option.

 

The confidence in Bates capability and the direction he led the pilot group are debateable and many, many pilots felt he failed to understand the interests of his own consituency and became a rep for the interests of AMR and other parties, but that's behind us now.

What lies ahead is unknown, but at some point AA pilots will HAVE to have a stable CBA. What IS for sure is whenever that arrives, be it soon, prior to C11 exit or after C11, it will have to be something that inspires confidence in the pilots that they have a viable career going forward and that they are not being used as a temporary vehicle to facilitate the morphing of their carrier and flying to the hands of others withour benefit to them. The last decade has simply been a transfer of wealth from the pilots to management and the provisions of TA virtually ensured another decade of that.

If this management intends to cling to that goal, it will ultimately fail as the majority of the pilots simply have no further interest in footing the bill for that ideal. The ball is in AMR's court and so we shall see.............

 

Quick question, if things get ugly and the judge imposes terms through the 1113 process then are those terms in effect only until AA emerges from BK? Or are they in effect until APA negotiates a new contract (in or out of BK)? Thanks and good luck