[QUOTE=fdx727pilot] turning down extra flying is not all you need to do. Get educated on our union. [QUOTE]

Man you are right but it is a GREAT place to start. While the union hasn't called for any job action it is clear that they need our help and it seems that a lot of guys are stepping up to the plate.
As the union VP told me "you'll get a contract when you decide you want one" In other words take the blinders off and stop doing extra work. He didn't end the sentence with dumba$$ but it was implied. At this point there is no amount of money that would get me to undermine the collective effort of pilots/union. But, there are still some guys (fewer and fewer) that think their families are more important than mine and the other 4700 pilot's families. We could all use the extra, but are trying to help the collective good instead of short sighted personal gains.

This is always a tough question. I would think the percentage of pilots with family issues every month is low. I mean real family issues, not I want issues. The real issue is Drft/Vol. Essentially, you are helping them out when they are in a bind. Picking up trips in Open time to replace the ones you dropped I guess would be better on the average for the negotiations, since there is no way you could know when the schedulers will get in a bind. The ideal would be for you to not pick up any make-up and enjoy the time with your family. Fly the make-up later at a 20% pay increase. Stopping the freight will be the only way to get their attention. When right now our last TA "offer" was in my opinion way below where I was hoping to end the negotiations, I'm not very conciliatory.

But protecting min days off would solve all these issues quickly. I've heard 30% of our total flying is done with overtime flying (Draft, Vol, VAC, Carryover, flex, training, Mgt). I don't know if that's correct but I'm sure it is a big number. After the Tallahassee crash, Cheever told a crew while jump seating that the company crunched the numbers for the NTSB and if they eliminated all extra flying then we would have to hire over 1500 more pilots. Don't know how accurate that is but..

My experience is it has been the single, never been married guys that are the worst offenders. Nothing to do with family, everything to do with selfishness and greed. These two issues, above all others, are what motivate anyone doing DFT, AVA, or VLT right now. They are too busy working on their own deal to care about the good of the group as a whole. They are Fredo to me and should be to every other pilot on the property as well. Let's face it, if they won't do something as simple as staying home on their days off, there is no way they would ever honor a picket line. These guys are not with us in any way and need to be treated as such.

Max Open
 

Max open is one half the number of reserves they have for that day. So, if max open is 5, they have 10 guys left on reserve.

That's what it's supposed to be, but if you call CRS and ask one of them to explain it, you'll get a far more complicated answer. Not only do they look at the absolute number of pilots on reserve, but they also look at the reserve periods (24, A, B) and the start times of the trips. It is this complicated formula that they look at when deciding to approve drops, consider trips eligible for AVA, allow swaps, etc. It is yet another aspect of their system that is aggravating to us, because it hides what is going on in scheduling. With Scheduling Transparency, much of this mystery would be removed.





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The bad thing about signing the agency shop deal is that if you are a non member now, you continue to be a non member and not pay dues. The precedence is set. Agency shop will only apply to new hires and current members. If you resign from the union at a later time you continue to pay dues.

R U Sure?
 

Where did you get this information?

It was that way at ASA.

Still, since we don't work for ASA, where's the source.......

Not that way at ASA
 

Currently at ASA and if you do not join, as a new hire, you pay dues to a fund not the union. PS I am a curent ALPA member and always have been 9 years. Our support from nationals has us running a four year contract into its 8th year.

Good Luck gentlemen and keep fighting the good fight.:)

PS I need a sponsor real bad. Have four letters of rec. but no sponsor.

Next to a strike the only thing management will listen to is the bottom line being hurt by the legal means of the unionized employees.