Sliceback

Recalls are easier under ALPA.

encore

I never understood that. Management hires professionals (F&H) to get what they want. We show up with some dweeb pilot that once negotiated a good deal (at least, thats what the salesman told him) for a used Chevy and he thinks that puts him in the position to negotiate a multi-billion dollar labor contract.

We're pilots. We (mostly) know how to fly airplanes. We should hire professional negotiators to do what they know how to do. Ford & Harrison has a price. They know exactly how the game is played. Why don't we hire them?

Al Czervik

Any union negotiators/MEC/BOD guys care to answer this?

jcountry

That's because the system is rigged. Mgmt pays for professionals. Pilots are always getting into stupid stuff they don't understand-like ripoff multi-level marketing scams.

We absolutely should have professional negotiators. But the union doesn't want them any more than mgmt does. Somehow, mgmt wanna bes always seem to float to the top of pilot unions. I don't know about at AA, but the mighty ALPA pilot-negotiators at the last airline I worked for spent as much time on the golf course with mgmt members laughing and have a ball on the golf course as they did "negotiating." Actual professional negotiators would lose their jobs over such nonsense.

Route66

I have ALWAYS been concerned how MY "dues" money (aka taxes...the ONLY organization than the government that can spend MY money) without MY input. I don't care about YOUR money because that is NOT for me to manage....unless you want to give to me to spend as I want!!!!

I do NOT work for you, not APA or ALPA and my MONEY is being MISSPENT. I don't want to pay for YOUR representation. They call it EXTORTION normally and that is ALL unions are good for.....UNKEPT PROMISES.

You have NO leverage no matter HOW many times you guys swap spit at the top. You can't strike, you can't do a job action, you can't effectuate change after the MOU and the JCBA have come into play until at lest 2020 and everyone knows it will be a lot longer than that.

You APA shills keep "shilling",

Route66

The COMPANY pays you and gives you benefits. They have the power. You have the labor. Your hands (and feet) are tied behind your back. So tell me, WHAT will professional negotiators get you if the courts can MAKE you work? (Which they already have done).

Tell me, WHAT WILL "WE" DO IF THE NEGOTIATOR CANT GET US WHAT WE (the collective "we") THINK IS "FAIR"?

teddyballgame

Perhaps.

Yet, the same ALPA reps (at least at one airline which is now a part of AA) who delivered concession after concession after concession to management with no return not only stayed in office, but kept getting re-elected -- which allowed them to keep appointing their equally incompetent buddies to the Negotiating Committee and other important positions.

And this includes the MEC members who voted in the middle of the night to terminate their fellow pilots' pensions -- without even giving those pilots the opportunity to vote on such an enormous issue.

Every one of them should have been recalled from their positions the very next morning, and banned from ever serving in any union position again. (Of course -- Surprise! -- a couple of them ended up in management.)

If they had tried to pull that stunt at a real union, not only would they have been thrown out of office, and out of the union itself, they would now be resting eternally as part of a bridge abutment.

Pacman

Professionals may have seen the bait and switch with Kirbys scope ask, probably would not have traded profit sharing for 12 million, and almost certainly would not have painted themselves into a corner with the JCBA because of the MOU they negotiated.

eaglefly

Quite likely, but the reality is that boat has sailed and we are now where we are. Where we are is foundering, bankrupt of leverage, extremely fragmented, soon more so and rudderless in leadership. ALPA might impact the latter to some degree, but without the other two, especially leverage, we're sunk.

AnotherEagleGuy

To be fair, corrupt MEC's can happen under any type of union.