How?

Look at how the discussion stated and the initial comment about the MEC hotel. It was a response to a statement in the post. Quality v Quality or level of hotel v level of hotel, ala apples to apples.

As to ALPA, read my post about cost.

When you compare the bundling that we get, and then try to do the same deal at a lower end hotel that has a difficult time accommodating a LEC meeting of 50 people for three hours versus 100 for a week, it actually makes logical sense and it many cases is cheaper.

Like I said, come to a meeting watch, learn, and ask questions. I have and have little concern over abuse when you have 28 MEC members making sure the admin is not overspending because doing that would put pressure on the Reps from their pilot. Its a self checking mechanism. (The way the it should be)

Drank,

I believe the DALPA can and will have to do better with expense accounts. There is also the issue of some of the entrenched non elected leadership that I think is an troublesome.

However I do not see a better alternative to ALPA right now.

DPA is a joke, as is its leader. I followed his rants on the old NWA boards about how he was sticking it to the company on walk arounds writing up the egress ropes on the flight deck. However I put that aside when DPA first came out and I sent in a card, hoping that there was a solid alternative. After the numerous emails that were less then factual and a bit over the top in many ways I decided not to renew my card. But I will make a pledge right now to send in a new card if you or anyone else can convince me they are a better alternative.

Until then I think we all need to get involved in our union. Keep in contact with your LEC, better yet if show up to a meeting with 10 of your friends and you can pretty much control a vote.

First point of correction: ALPA endorsed John Kerry.

Second point of correction: I said ALPA personnel, not ALPA national's endorsement as a body. Here's my post again:

All ALPA national officials personally endorse candidates from the political left wing. That's reality. Obama, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis and Jesse Jackson takes us back the last few decades. This rock solid left wing endorsement started when we became affiliated with AFL-CIO and hasn't changed one iota.

Our national union and PAC strongly supported Obama. Now that person we so strongly backed is going forward with something terribly damaging to US pilot jobs. That's just one of the reasons I question this blind allegiance to our PAC, and our PAC's blind allegiance to all things left wing.

Carl

FFDO funding last year was increased as a result of ALPA government affairs, even though it was supposed to be cut in half, there was an effort to tax our benefits, ALPA helped beat that. Increasing pilot training and experience standards, fighting efforts to change US foreign ownership and cabotage laws.

Shiz and ACL,

When I think of the cost of a hotel I am thinking about what Delta pays, not the advertised price.

I was recently at the Holiday Inn in Minot, ND. I wonder what that costs Delta? HMMM, not swanky enough for our MEC though, I'm sure. What about the Ramada in Fargo? Nope, I'm betting that's not up to their standards either, even though those hotels are good enough for line pilots. You remember them, don't you? They're the ones that pay union dues.

Sorry fellas I'm "cost conscious". I want to make my hard-earned (and heavily taxed) dollars to go as far as possible. I believe deep-down that be it a duly elected government official, or a union representative, they have a moral and indeed a fiduciary responsibility to spend money wisely and conservatively. I suspect that opinion is shared by a significant percentage of pilots at Delta, and at other ALPA represented carriers.

LEARNING FROM HISTORY *
Political Strength Equals Pilot Jobs

Susan Fager, Assistant Editor
Air Line Pilot, June/July 2004, p.13

ALPA has forged strong ties in the political arena, starting with the Association’s first president, Capt. Dave Behncke, who believed that building and pursuing political affiliations would benefit the fledgling union and its members. Many of those ties continue today and aid the Association in its role as "the ultimate guardian and defender of the rights and privileges of the professional pilots who are members of the Association," as ALPA’s Mission Statement says.

In 1934, after a series of congressional hearings, President Franklin Roosevelt elected to cancel the airmail contracts that President Herbert Hoover had granted to independent airline operators earlier in the 1930s on the grounds that the contracts had been fraudulently awarded.

On an interim basis, President Roosevelt ordered the Army to fly the mail. Many Army pilots had received some basic instrument instruction during flight training, yet most of the airplanes they flew had no modern instruments. Although the Army fliers coped the best they could, the public outcry over the fatal crashes that occurred was loud and immediate.

Capt. Behncke kept his wits and turned the airmail crisis of 1934 to the advantage of ALPA and the airline piloting profession. Capt. Behncke knew that President Roosevelt would resolve the crisis and come out on top, and he wanted ALPA to be affiliated with the winner.

Once the crisis settled, ALPA was the only aviation industry group that had supported President Roosevelt. In March 1934, Roosevelt announced that he would restore airmail service to private operators and insisted that the new airmail contracts specify wages and working conditions for pilots. The Air Mail Act of 1935 rewarded Capt. Behncke and the pilots’ union with a federally mandated minimum wage for airline pilots.

In 1948, Capt. Behncke and ALPA were embroiled in the National Airlines strike. Because the airline’s owner, Ted Baker, had replaced ALPA’s crews, Capt. Behncke felt he had no other recourse than to take his cause to Washington, D.C., to bring political pressure on Baker and to get the airline’s operating certificate rescinded if Baker continued his actions.

Capt. Behncke knew that ALPA’s success in the National strike lay with President Harry Truman and that the key to a Truman victory in the 1948 presidential election lay with the labor movement. Capt. Behncke moved skillfully to ally the Association with the American Federation of Labor, which had provided ALPA’s union charter in 1931. As called for under the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, President Truman appointed a fact-finding emergency board to look into the National Airlines strike. In July 1948, the board sided with ALPA, criticizing Baker’s actions and suggesting arbitration to resolve the dispute, but Baker wouldn’t agree.

Although no one gave President Truman much of a chance of being reelected, he pulled off one of the greatest political upsets in U.S. history—and he owed it all to organized labor. The time came to pay off his debts, and one of those debts was returning ALPA crews to National Airlines cockpits. In November, with the election over and the writing on the wall, Baker finally signed an agreement with Capt. Behncke to end the strike.

Several decades later, numerous issues facing current-day airline pilots are still being played out in the political arena—the struggle to guarantee collective bargaining rights, to prevent foreign cabotage, to have a voice in shaping pension reform, to contain healthcare costs. That’s why in September 1988 at ALPA’s Executive Board, the Association’s leaders put forth, amended, and passed, and later amended again in 1990, a resolution stating: "The President of ALPA, with the advice and consent of the Executive Board, is authorized to endorse a presidential candidate whose positions and policies will benefit the careers of our members." ALPA’s leaders made clear that the union’s presidential endorsement was not intended in any way to mandate how an individual ALPA member should vote.

In 1992, the Association marked a historic first—its first formal endorsement of a U.S. presidential candidate, Bill Clinton, and the Association’s Executive Board and Board of Directors affirmed the endorsement.

In 1996, the Association commissioned a poll of its members on the subject of presidential endorsement. The survey indicated that 77 percent of those polled believed that the Democratic Clinton/Al Gore ticket would better serve their interests than the Republican Bob Dole/Jack Kemp team. At the May 1996 Executive Board meeting, the Board voted overwhelmingly to endorse Clinton/Gore in the 1996 election.

In the spring of 2000, the ALPA Executive Board voted to endorse presidential candidate Al Gore.

Just as previous ALPA leaders have done in years past, the Association’s current leaders, by forging ties and building relationships, will continue to follow their charge to protect and enhance the piloting profession and the safety, welfare, and employment of ALPA members.

Learning from History--Political Strength Equals Pilot Jobs

Release #04.017
May 25, 2004

ALPA Endorses Kerry

WASHINGTON, D.C.---The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), the union that represents most of the nation’s airline pilots, has endorsed John Kerry for president. The union’s Executive Board voted unanimously to endorse the presumptive Democratic nominee at a meeting today in Washington.

"The evidence is clear that President Bush’s record adds up to an unending string of actions that have hurt pilots, other working Americans, and the unions that represent them. It is time for a change," said Capt. Duane E. Woerth, president of ALPA, after the vote was announced. Reached on the campaign trail, Senator Kerry placed a call to the pilots, thanking them for their endorsement.

The vote came after Senator Kerry had written a letter asking the Association for its endorsement. In his letter, Kerry pointed to his long history of supporting issues of importance to airline pilots and to organized labor, including direct aid and loan guarantees to airlines after the Sept. 11 attacks, a measure to elevate cargo security and passenger screening, the program to train and arm airline pilots, "whistleblower" protections for airline employees, banning permanent replacement workers in strikes, and opposition to proposals for "baseball style" binding arbitration in contract negotiations. Kerry also pledged to oppose the outsourcing of jobs for U.S. airline workers through cabotage, and to fight efforts to increase limits on foreign ownership of U.S. carriers.

"John Kerry is the right choice for U.S. pilots – not just because of his commitment to protect our profession, but also because he has a plan to restore our industry’s and the nation’s economic health," Woerth said.

In weighing the record of the Bush administration, the Executive Board noted that its strong anti-union policy has produced a lengthy list of actions and policies that directly harm pilots, their livelihood, and their profession.

These include a policy that bankruptcies and liquidations are the answer to the industry’s problems, a "no strike" policy for airlines through threats to invoke Presidential Emergency Boards, opposition to arming pilots, opposition to legislation to provide pension relief, proposing $435 million in additional airline security taxes, implementing a new rule that requires FAA to immediately revoke the license of pilots who are deemed a "security risk" without specifying the nature of the risk, imposition of extremely burdensome reporting rules for unions, the banning of union representation for TSA employees and many workers at the Department of Homeland Security, and the loss of three million private-sector jobs with scant effort to provide new jobs or relief for affected workers.

In the Executive Board resolution for the endorsement, ALPA noted that Kerry "has steadfastly supported the labor movement, including ALPA, throughout his 20 years in the United States Senate" and "has a long record of support for ALPA and our members, as professional airline pilots, going back to the final days of Eastern Airlines when he voted to establish a Blue Ribbon Panel to review the Eastern situation."

The resolution also cited Kerry’s combat service in Vietnam, his determination to "lead the fight to make creating good paying jobs in the United States our number one national priority," that he "is committed to making affordable health care a right and not a privilege," his promise to "ensure that trade agreements are fair to workers here at home and fair to workers around the world" and his vote to "protect workers’ overtime rights from the Bush Administration’s assault on the Fair Labor Standards Act that would cost 8 million workers their overtime pay."

ALPA’s Executive Board is made up of the top local union leaders (Master Executive Council chairmen) from each of ALPA’s 42 pilot groups. ALPA, the world’s oldest and largest pilot union, represents 64,000 airline pilots at 42 airlines in the U.S. and Canada. Its Web site is Air Line Pilots Association, International.

ALPA News Release

But if you want to have a meeting where you're briefed by some high power folks in Washington, then how much is it worth to get them to Minot, and how much will it cost to fly them out and put them up at Che Radisson Bismark? Being cost conscious involves the bidding and negotiating process that ACL described. I don't think this has anything to do with what's good for the individual, but what benefit can be gained for the whole. There's obviously something that your MEC leadership feels can be gained for everyone from a meeting in Washington, and not much that could be gained from a meeting in Fargo.

But if you want to think that your current career expectations are solely the result of luck...fine.

"Based on this process, I voted to have the AFL-CIO endorse Senator Obama for president. There are many reasons why I concluded that this is in the best interest of airline pilots, but one issue overshadows all others: the power of the president to appoint the leaders of the alphabet soup that dominates our profession—DOT, FAA, DOL, DHS, TSA, NTSB, and NMB. Based on the record, it is clear that Senator Obama will appoint officials who share his pro-worker, pro-pilot philosophy."

Capt John Prater, ALPA President

http://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/pre...08/2008-10.pdf

Purple,

Answer a few questions, general answers will do.

When were you hired? Year or range of years will do.
North or South?
Civilian/military or both?
Age when hired? Again, a range will do.
Not trying to find out who you are, but why so angry?
Thanks,
Nerd