ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! They are under the command of the elected reps, not the handful of guys who post here anonymously. If you have an issue with how the elected reps are acting, you have tools at your disposal. At the lowest level, you can provide your input - and I know you've done that quite emphatically already, to multiple people. If you still disagree with the position, and you can rally sufficient people who agree with you, the rep can be replaced. But one person, or even a dozen unelected keyboard warriors, don't get to dictate the collective actions of the MEC. Thank goodness!

Because your position is wrong?

 

I totally agree. And I am confident the pilots we have collectively elected to represent us are dealing with the issue appropriately.

I don't know the answer to this, but agree that, purely for optics, DALPA should have been in the loop. I don't know to what level they were. I'm not that important. But, for about the 5th time this morning, I'll repeat what I've been saying: I trust my elected reps, and I trust the MEC Chairman that they've elected to represent them. I don't for a minute believe the code-a-phone message would have said what it said, unless the majority of the MEC was essentially comfortable with that message. And that's good enough for me.

 

1) I don't believe you are correct. Votes have occurred on LOAs via conference call previously.

2) What is the issue that needs to be voted on? Are you, or anyone, claiming that this agreement violates our PWA? If Delta changed their policy and decided we no longer had to wear hats (!), would the MEC have to vote on that? If they changed their policy that said we DO have to wear a bow tie, would the MEC get to vote on that?

I know you believe the ALPA C&BL were violated. I know many, many others disagree. And, if I haven't said it enough already this morning, I trust them to make the right decision, primarily because I personally know them.

Thank you for your opinion -- I, and apparently many others, respectfully disagree.

 

No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of.

~WALTER SOBCHAK

 

Pineapple Guy,

You are correct there are many good men who participate in ALPA. I am not questioning any one individual's nature.

Our union was designed around two basic impulses. First, that we should fight the alter ego replacement of pilots. Second, that our activities would be governed by the democratic participation of our members. Our governing documents were structured to support these two goals.

You are correct this failure has many fathers, included among them is me. Try as I might to educate people, it was not enough.

Our union has engaged in the sale of one member's job to benefit another member. That's bad. Pinnacle's restructuring represents a new, lower, level of union conduct where an alter ego is actually created with the participation of our union. Those antiquated rules to prevent such conduct have been systematically disassembled and now their meaning is attacked, as is the Delta PWA, word by word.

In its finding, the Delta MEC has redefined it's role to that of a representative of one of many vendors who perform Delta flying.

How would that have sounded in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, or in 2010? How is it that we now define our representational relevance as limited by the flying that we have outsourced?

As a reminder of what the world looked like, just 60 days ago ... You yourself once argued that Delta flying remains Delta flying, even if permitted to be flown elsewhere. This redefinition is a change from past policy ... a big one. As our friends stated many times over the last decade, when ALPA allows an express carrier to do deals directly with mainline management, the mainline carriers will leave ALPA. This change looks bad because this change is bad.

You see your friends as the defenders of our union. I say it is the members' job too. You are not unimportant. ALPA is a bottom up organization. You don't take the orders. You make the orders.

It is my hope our Representatives will want to strengthen the language which governs our association, the very language which empowers them to represent us.

 

Bucking, I think I'm about to say something that you agree with, so please sit down in advance.

Who is "our union"? Unfortunately, we as pilots have always refused to have one union. Rather we are an Association of individual airline's pilot unions. We answer to our own MEC, rather than National, and that harms all of us ultimately. I agree with you that we should be ONE union....ALPA....but pilots are unwilling to subordinate their individual desires to an organization that big. The most they were willing to do is permit each airline to develop its own. And it is only natural that the interests of one pilot group will occasionally conflict with that of others. This doesn't mean I favor an independent union, but I do wish ALPA was a stronger national entity rather than a collection of individual airline unions. If they were, much of what you desire would occur, imo.

Whether we like it or not, the Delta MEC has ALWAYS been in the role of representing just one of many vendors who perform Delta flying. How is today's situation different from 5 years ago, when ASA and CMR, as well as all the others, were vendors flying aircraft painted like Delta and acting like they were Delta? As I've said, we let that cat out of the bag years ago when DALPA didn't put restrictions in the PWA to prohibit Delta from painting vendor's aircraft to look exactly like a Delta airplane. That was a tremendous failure, imo.

What's different?

No... I don't. I elect people and empower them to make the tough decisions. If I don't like those decisions, there are options available for me. But I DON'T get a say in each and every decision. That is an untenable organizational structure and is not how ALPA works. We don't have a vote on everything, nor do I want one.

On this, I am in total agreement.

 

First, thank you for your civility.

There is a short answer and a much longer answer to your question. The short answer is:

BEFORE: Delta flying, as defined in our PWA, is all Delta Air Lines system flying. We permit some of that flying to be flown by others in accordance with the terms of our PWA.

NOW: Delta flying is defined, and limited by, our PWA. Flying not performed by the Delta pilots is not Delta flying.

This is the "none of your business" argument brought by ALPA staff counsel. It is none of our MEC's business what Pinnacle does, or for that matter what any airline does, as long as it does not modify our Section 1.

When it was observed that Pinnacle's Bridge Agreement does modify the Delta PWA Section 1 in numerous places (1D11, 1D12, f-NWA LOA language) then ALPA staff counsel told our MEC that our "Scope" section includes a lot of stuff that is not scope. (I was told there would be an opportunity to rebut Bill Roberts with his own statements in CC Air and Comair / Comair litigation. Despite two offers of a meeting and my availability, he returned to Herndon, VA)

So what changed are the definitions of Delta flying and scope. I see no reason why these changes would not be operable to Virgin Atlantic, Alaska, or any other group that wanted to sit down and do deals with Delta management.

 

Never mind ... no need to complicate matters.

 

You are exactly right on the branding issue. It is another way that we permit alter ego operations.

With regard to the Comair LOA, that was a shocker outside of the small handfull of people on the signature page. It does not make it right. Had we known the same objections would have been raised as are being made now.

 

Hey alfaromeo!!! Check it out!!!

Alfa Romeos to be sold in U.S. again by year's end - Business on NBCNews.com