This thread is exactly why we cannot have nice things. Could we possibly look more like a bunch of squabbling 13 year olds?

yeesh

 

That's how Dell Smith operated and Evergreen are doing so well these days. Oh wait...........

 

Leaving for ALPA is not the right thing to do. That is like cutting off our nose to spite our face. Leaving 1224 is the right thing to do. Catch 22. Personally I feel we should have a separate local, as should Atlas. Let them pick their fights and we can pick ours still under the house of Teamsters. However that leaves the other 1224 carriers kind of in the cold possibly.

One thing is for sure K4 needs away from the self flag waving and ideals of DW who has shown on numerous occasions he only has Atlas and his agenda in mind. It has been said "well vote out the e-board in December", OK so K4 has 300+ pilots and Atlas 1000+ so that ain't happening is it??!!

 

THIS!! Great idea.

 

Very well said. You nailed it. I too firmly believe that DW's intention was to force a strike and sacrifice us and our families so that he could further the negotiations on behalf of another pilot group. And yes, our negotiators were time and again blindsided by DW.

 

I'm just alumni and I support the K4 guys and their ambitions to have their own local, as a concerned outsider now, watching the roller coaster ride that finally led to a contract makes me understand why my K4 brothers and sisters may want to control their own destiny, separated from others agendas.

 

I must disagree with anyone that believes an in-house Union is the answer to decertification. Although in-house unions are a viable alternative for larger companies, our operation does not support this option. Like it or not Union representation within the airline industry is a must, and no Union has ever been a panacea.

For anyone that worked at a regional, I completely understand how disillusioned you must be with ALPA representation. To be perfectly honest ALPA cannot represent the major airline and at the same time represent the regional as this is a huge conflict of interest. But having said that, Kalitta is not a regional, we are our own airline that is currently in the process of significant growth.

I have worked for an ALPA carrier company and obviously for one represented by the Teamsters. Hands down ALPA is vastly superior to Teamsters, but the question that must be asked is why. This is because ALPA does not have Locals, they have Councils. What are Councils, they are our guys representing our pilots, ALPA does not try to come into our company and tell us what to do. We decide how we should proceed based upon the knowledge of what our pilots want and need. So why is this important, because ALPA will not work against us to further someone else’s agenda, they work with us as we address our issues.

With all due respect and to be brutally honest you do not get this right, the union did not lead us to an industry leading contract, our negating team led us to an industry leading contract. It would have been nice if our union had not worked against our pilot group and the negating team.

 

For a moment let's step back from the name calling and innuendo and try to look at this dispassionately. The letter that was sent to the Kalitta Air pilot group does not throw the Teamsters out on their ear. It simply petitions the NMB to allow, monitor and hold a vote on the Teamsters continuing to represent the pilots of K4.

I have used two analogies in the last few days to explain this to my family and a few interested friends.

1. Every few years my wife and I review our life, home and auto insurance policies to see if they still meet our needs and are price competitive. Many times, they are and we retain the existing policy. Sometimes they are not and we make a change.

2. If you had your house for sale during a good market and it had not sold in a year would you not revisit your choice of realtor? Of course, there are variables that you yourself may have set that are keeping it from selling but surely you would entertain the thought that the realtor was not serving your needs.

This is all that the Kalitta pilots are currently doing. Looking at options. If we eventually have a NMB ballot the Teamsters might very well come out on top. There are compelling reasons for keeping them. On the other hand, there might be a better union option for the K4 pilots. Wouldn't it be silly to not at least look at the alternatives?

 

And the same thing is going to happen at Kalitta

When Connie.dies.....bye bye airline

 

How do you know for sure?