zerozero

If it's all so academic, why are you pushing actual conspiracy theories against your leadership and defending the subversion of more than 6 years of very hard work and sacrifices that were performed for your benefit?

That seems a little crazy and counter productive to me, but hey, you do you.

See, here's the real talk, straight up. Atlas's move to 2750 was not made with any nefarious intention of "screwing" 1224, Southern or any other affiliated airline therein (like ABX or Horizon). In fact, Atlas and ABX worked incredibly close together and collaborated on levels and depths that never seemed to interest Southern.

As I said before, Southern was benefiting immensely just by coasting on our collective inertia. And that was OK! Hey, their contract was negotiated under bankruptcy, they didn't quite have the funds or experience we had. All they had to do as we say in the business is cooperate and graduate, with us, together.

But somehow the move to 2750, which was done for a lot of good reasons (cheaper for the membership, ended the assessment, dedicated office/legal staff, etc) was PERCEIVED by a less confident Southern leadership as some sort of maneuver to outwit or screw their group.

Not true.

Unfortunately, this insecurity grew into some sort of sentiment where they needed to pull the rug out from under the Atlas ExCo--"let's screw them, before they screw us".

Obviously to everyone with half a brain this is a juvenile, short sighted position to take. Because like I said, the merger is inevitable and no matter what you think or where you've been for the last 6 years, you cannot deny that the Atlas team has the experience and the money here.

So yeah, go ahead and waste your time and energy whipping up your crazy conspiracy theories about how all of this being done deliberately by Dubinsky and Kirchner to take attention away from very important matters, and then at the same time admit "it's all academic."

Seriously, do you even read what you write?

Elevation

Yes, I do read what I write. And no, I'm not whipping up crazy conspiracy theories. The fact is we departed 1224 without a vote and without telling Southern's leadership. Whether you think this is in Southern's interest or not, we didn't coordinate with them.

If you read what you're writing you're saying "We know what's best. It's Crazy for Southern to want to have a say in their future.". You're also saying it's "Crazy" for us to wonder why we're consistently seeing our voices go unheard or, when they are heard, be flat-out ignored.

If you're worried about leadership being undermined, the first thing to do is act as advertised. Say what you will do and do what you will say. We ratified by-laws that defined stewards as elected positions. Instead we installed 7 stewards without a vote. Apparently we're incapable of asking members for help without subverting an entire office. We were told we'd leave trusteeship and return to representation after the next vote. Now we hear that we don't leave trusteeship until Dubinsky is satisfied that the new officers are properly trained, whatever that means.

Nobody's undermining leadership. Leadership is doing a fine job of making themselves look crooked as all get out. If you want our trust, you have to be trustworthy. Our leaders today aren't. That's not a crazy theory. It's a fact.

Our only real power is our power to vote people in and out of office. How is surrendering our voice in our own affairs in our interest? Please lay out the mechanics of how criticizing our leaders when they remove our abiltiy to vote somehow helps the company and hurts the pilots. Exactly how does that work?

Oh, what's "Acedemic" are disputes between Southern and Atlas union leadership.

Elevation

Zero, on another note you mentioned that these things should be obvious to anyone with "Half-a-brain". I struggle to think of managers who call their people "stupid" that also take care of their personnel. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe you're channeling something you heard in another conversation. I don't think this is you or your personal view, man.

zerozero

Southern was invited to join us. They chose to remain at 1224. Fact.

Southern has a say. Everyone is on the edge of their seats waiting for what they'll say next.

The policy comes from above Dubinsky. I think it's hilarious you're quibbling over the addition (!!!) of more stewards. These guys volunteer countless hours to serve our group and you directly and personally benefit from their work. But sure, go ahead and cast stones and imagine dark motives. I admit, this particular conspiracy must be irresistible.

That's an opinion. Not a fact.

You have truly lost the forest for the trees. You're so hung up on your high school civics project that you don't even realize where our true powers reside: solidarity. And your constant badgering of tedious and "ACADEMIC" points serves nothing except to corrode our solidarity. Not just within Atlas but amongst the Atlas and Southern dynamic. You would serve everyone a lot better to stay focused on the long established lies and corruption of AAWW and the effects on our careers then on some made up union boogeyman.

I don't think you know me, but you know, I sort of take it as self evident that it's the company, not the union, who is the source of 25+ years of corruption and manipulation. Get back to me after you've seen another contract cycle. Or two.

Elevation

So I characterized our union's general behavior as spineless and I think we have some pretty good examples here.

This is a cherry-picked fact. We departed 1224 at 11pm on Friday without telling Southern's leadership a thing. We invited them to join us after we left 1224 and formed a new local with no notice to an entire pilot group that was standing with us in negotiations. Now we're trying to tell the world "We invited them to join us!" like we didn't abandon our brothers literally in the middle of the night. Come on. At least have the spine to acknowledge what we did.

So here's another example of general spineless attitude that seems to emanate from our leadership. Stewards are explicitly elected positions. We had 2 stewards depart and we filled their vacancies with 7 un-elected officers. So once again, our voices in our affairs are squelched. Rather than just get some union members to help out until elections, we subverted a whole office.

This problem is dismissed the with more big talk about the value of stewards, the sacrifices they make, etc. Sacrifices for who? For me? For Bob? For their career advancement? That question wouldn't be so important if they were voted into their position. Instead you just dismiss the concerns and laugh at them. Spineless.

The worst part is the individuals appointed to these offices are mostly good folk who have already donated a lot of time. While some are openly talking about joining management already, I think all probably would have won a vote. We'll never find out.

We're back to more big talk in the form of calls for solidarity. This as we discuss why our leadership went public to our pilot group about what should have been a quiet discussion between Southern, Atlas and Airline Division. We're hearing more calls from solidarity from the people who justify ignoring our votes, ignoring our voices and laughing at the people who dare ask "Why didn't we get to vote on this?". I believe you're calling our entire set of concerns a "highschool civics project". We are hearing more calls for solidarity from the leadership team that has members become chief pilots during crash investigations and contract negotiations. And there are more openly discussing their pathways to management now. We're hearing more calls for solidarity just as Dubinsky rather than any of our own pilots announces that the benchmarks to exit trusteeship aren't what we were told by Bob just weeks ago. We're hearing calls for solidarity from the very people who came on here basically to berate Southern's leadership in front of pilots. Worse we're trying to conflate solidarity with letting a few people do whatever they want, pilots be damned. More big talk with no backbone. Who are any of you to think you get to call on any of us for solidarity when you're simultaneously ignoring and demeaning us?

What we're not hearing is something I've explicitly asked for. Lay out exactly how our frustration with this mess somehow fouls-up negotations that take place behind closed doors? Exactly what are the mechanics by which us saying "Let us vote on our future!" somehow derails arbitration when it happens. How is our grand strategy forward somehow derailed by people saying inconvenient things on the internet? Please lay out the mechanics of this for us.

You want to talk solidarity? Start with yourselves.

Atlas Shrugged

To all of the new pilots at Southern and Atlas, we were supposed to have our own local from the very beginning.

AAWW has drug these "negotiations" out for longer than most of you have even worked here. What is stopping SA from joining 2750? Why do you guys/gals at SA not want to join 2750?

SA is playing a dangerous game. I have at least one personal friend at SA who I flew with in the military, and I want all of us to get the contract that we deserve. We are all going to get screwed long and hard if these shenanigans continue.

zerozero

I'm only going to respond to this part for these reasons:

--This conversation is only happening because of your badgering. You're just one person out of 2000+ that is taking too much of my time. And for the record, I am not an ExCo member. The original point of this thread which has been derailed by your temper tantrum is that our collective group, Atlas and Southern, bring greater "relative value" to AAWW than do FDX and UPS employees, but somehow those companies can afford 1st class CBAs. Never forget that.

--Your entire position seems to be: Atlas ExCo are corrupt, arrogant and not serving their crews. Fine. You're entitled to your feelings. Try running for office next year and do something about it. Or, how about simply confronting them, or Dubinsky or even Bourne.

--Voting. Sad fact, you don't get to vote on EVERYTHING. The fact that we most likely will never vote on this CBA is apparently lost on you as you seem totally wrapped around the axle about why there was no vote to move to 2750 and various other "moves" that have immensely benefited the rest of the group. But ok, once again, you do you.

To answer your question, you seem to think you're doing good work by looking out for the "little guy", Southern. And of course, it's always nice to root for the underdog. And to be perfectly clear here, I'm speaking specifically about the Southern ExCo (both teams) not the Southern pilot group who, by overwhelming majority, have come on board since "contract parity" and are mostly along for the ride.

But the Southern ExCo has gone from passive and complacent to actively working against the Atlas ExCo. Their actions have been, and still are, shortsighted and foolish. All the drama and machinations around the seniority list is just one example of how their mishandling of very important issues could really screw BOTH groups for a long time. But sure, go ahead and defend that madness.

And while you're defending that madness, the intention of your corrosive input seems to be to undermine the credibility and authority of the ExCo. You got to vote, and rightfully so, on the new bylaws, but unfortunately that vote, and the entire process, has brought us here today in a state of trusteeship limbo. So you see, sometimes the bureaucracy of democracy isn't always so efficient or expedient.

After all, the corporate executives don't bother with voting on every single issue. They put people in positions who are going to EXECUTE. This is why the company will always win and the union will always lose.

THE UNION ALWAYS LOSES BECAUSE IT'S FUNDAMENTALLY A BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATION THAT IS HAMPERED BY IT'S OWN MEMBERS.

“Democracy is a theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard.” ~~H.L. Mencken

So, where does that leave YOU? As we say, "Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way."

RyeMex

As an aside, because this is a topic that is somewhat close to my heart (as both of you gentlemen know), the fact that the original bylaws were rejected is not what placed us in our current “trusteeship limbo”.

Per the IBT Constitution, a Local Union that is placed in trusteeship remains in said trusteeship until it is released by the General President (Hoffa). While one could argue that the rejected bylaws delayed the voting in of a new E-board, either way we would have continued to have been in trusteeship until we were told otherwise by Hoffa. There is no timeline delineated in the IBT Constitution that dictates when that would be. I suspect that, even if we had held elections earlier this year, the Airline Division would have thought it imprudent to release the Local from trusteeship in the final stages of CBA negotiations / arbitration. I don’t agree with that point of view, but I believe that it is the argument that the IBT would have made, regardless.

Zero and Elevation, I know both of you gents. I’ve had drinks with both of you gents. I suspect that, in person, we would all get along just fine. In any case, my hope is that both pilot groups (and all of us within each pilot group) will be able to find a way to unify so that we can move into the next, much longer, stage of this relationship (sharing flight decks together) on amicable terms.

zerozero

Well, we're far afield from the original topic at this point, so all I'll say is, I'm not making a value judgment on the bylaws vote. It was a required vote and done legally and it was obviously a concern of the larger group, but I brought it up as an example of how messy and inefficient committee work is when compared to corporate executives (mostly because Elevation is deeply offended by the extended term of trusteeship). Well, here's democracy in action and Kirchner had nothing to do with it. In fact, he stayed completely out of the process.

Looking forward to another round of drinks and having this entire merger behind us. Two mergers in one career are two too many.

zerozero

Back on topic, hopefully.

Did You Know?

When pilots are unable to maintain their First-Class Medical Certificate at American, Delta, United, FedEx, or UPS they receive 50%-67% of their income from their company-provided Long-Term Disability insurance (often referred to as “loss of license insurance”). Those affected pilots continue to receive insurance payments until they regain their First-Class Medical Certificates or until they reach age 65.

When you are unable to maintain your First-Class Medical Certificate at Atlas Air you will receive 60% of your income from the company-provided Long-Term Disability insurance for only 24 months (36 months if you paid 100% of the insurance premium for the extra 12 months of coverage). If you are unable to regain your First-Class Medical Certificate, your income from your career is terminated after your insurance payments and sick leave are exhausted.

If you are unable to maintain your First-Class Medical, what will you do to replace your income from now until age 65?