it’s for the seniority list integration.

regular ALPA dues money is prohibited from being used during ALPA-ALPA integrations.

Your interpretation is correct

Thanks for the clarification.

Sorry if this sounds naive since this is my first merger but I don't understand how the union can just decide to take $30/mo out of all of our paychecks for lawyers etc without some sort of actual poll or even an authorization from all of us. We pay thousands of dollars to ALPA every year, but that's not enough? Now suddenly we're all on the hook for over $300/yr because the company decides to buy someone else? Do we get the money back if I don't agree with the seniority list integration? This isn't just pocket change, we're talking nearly 2 mil/yr from the pilot group.

I mean you could go through a seniority list integration without representation on your behalf but I'm guessing after it's complete your are going to wish you weren't a cheap pilot that would not invest a little over $500 over 17 months into your career.

Ours was collected at spirit two years ago. I believe his is to prevent one group suing the union if they don’t like the SLI. We have Alpa merger policy to follow but use our own lawyers to make our case to the arbitrator. I don’t see it as unreasonable.

Sorry about the TA. Many of us are upset we just don’t know if it’s 51% of us. The company and the NC will undoubtedly claim this is all there is as we are not currently profitable and they just borrowed slightly more than the value of this TA

You left out the most important part, and the Automatic NO vote trigger for me...

Once this is ratified, the Company then has the ability to raise 1st year pay *only* to a max of 98.5% of 2nd year pay. This completely eliminates any future leverage we may have due to attrition.

There are other turds in this too. Training pay remains, but with an increase. No mention at all of eliminating the 90 days health insurance lapse probably means it's still there. No mention at all of Reserve rule improvements means there probably are none. This is flat out mind boggling, as I thought the whole point was to attract New hires. All of this directly affects them, yet nothing was done and first year pay is still lover than industry average. (By a lot more than it looks after you do the math on training pay and health insurance.)

Reserve rules were never being bargained. It was 4 compensation items and 1 QOL. It’s not a comprehensive CBA. However what has been presented to us is a turd and WILL be treated accordingly.

Why does everything have to turn into a "Don't be a cheap pilot?". I should just happily open my wallet and let them have free reign? What happens if in the end we aren't happy with the SLI even though we paid for representation? I guess we were being too cheap and should have paid even more for better lawyers?

At no point did I say I don't want representation. In fact, I thought I was paying someone already to cover the representation and what goes with it, but I guess not.

Like I said, this is my first merger, but so far I don't understand how ALPA-ALPA integrations means that ALPA money can't be used when we ALL pay dues to be part of the union.

I've been reading the ALPA manual and in section 45 it talks about mergers and SLI. It specifically states that ALPA won't pay for representation and that MECs should collect funds. The reasoning doesn't make sense to me. National has 2 ALPA pilot groups that are going to merge, yet they put their hands up and walk away from the situation not wanting to spend national money to cover our lawyer fees? Wouldn't they want both groups to have a healthy merger and want to be sure that we get the best chance when going up against management?

Obviously nothing we can do about it, but it's very frustrating to see this buried in an email and the expectation is to just shut up and be happy about it otherwise you're a "cheap pilot".

Are you familiar with the term "conflict of interest"?

The same party can't fund both sides of a legal dispute. JBU and SPA MECs need to pay their own way. Why this is objectionable or mind-blowing to you is.... bizarre. If you'd like to opt out of the assessment and direct our representation to place your name at the bottom of the ISL I'm sure you could email the MEC to request that.

ALPA can't represent ALPA when representing itself against ALPA. All the union dues we pay go directly to ALPA national, and then they are tasked with allowing us to draw on those funds. But since we're going toe to toe with another ALPA carrier, we can't draw on those funds. So instead we seek outside legal representation, that we have to pay for directly.