ALPA - wake up and seize the opportunity
 

Just read it and think about it before throwing spears...

There's no shortage of crisis in the airline industry, no matter where or what you fly - from regionals to the majors, FedEx, UPS, and Southwest included.

Political (9/11, Open Skies) and economic (name your favorite bursted bubble) factors have forced airline managers to create new ways of finding revenue. Unfortunately for the pilots involved, revenue streams come in the forms of concessionary contracts, deplorable working conditions, shady joint ventures, mergers, furloughs, and mass outsourcing of jobs.

Pilots and unions have been part of the problem. Don't get me wrong - I'm a staunch unionist, and in fact my other civilian job (after my CAL furlough) is about to unionize.

Here's the problem: pilots continually fight for senority, assuming that everything else will fall in place as a result of senority (pay, schedule, equipment, etc. Unfortuantely this gives management a distinct advantage: they KNOW that senior pilots can't quit (unlike CEOs who jump from job to job with reckless abandon for anything other than their bonus checks). Management KNOWS that senior pilots and junior pilots often have competing agendas. Management KNOWS that regional pilots and mainline pilots have competing agendas. And they've played us against each other for years.

Here's the solution. ALPA needs to standardize PAY, and make PAY "portable" such that a 10 year 737 FO gets paid the same at every airline. If that FO decides to leave for another airline, then he or she still gets 10th year 737 FO pay.

Senority is a different matter and should not be portable. If that 10 year FO moves to a different airline - for whatever reason (voluntary, merger, bankruptcy of previous airline), then that person gets stapled to the bottom of the new senoirty list. So he might be on reserve, and maybe at an undesirable domicile, but his pay is protected because he is a UNION 737 pilot. Upgrade, schedule, domicile, etc. would still be a factor of senority.

What does this do? It gives LABOR some much needed nation-wide muscle. It would make pilot pay independent of oil prices and poor management decisions so that management - not pilots - accountable for management's shortsightedness.

It wouldn't be easy and there's undoubtedly a lot of problems -- how to you determine when "Year 1" starts - is it your first 121/135 date of hire, your ATP date, your military pilot training graduation date, etc.

I think it's worthwhile for ALPA, APA, USAPA, SWAPA, etc. to start thinking about how this industry will look 10 or 20 years from now.

OK, flame away!

This sounds familiar...........

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/un...rity-list.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/un...rity-list.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/un...st-future.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/re...rity-list.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/un...-protocol.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/me...a-mergers.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/un...rofession.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/un...nal-union.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/un...nd-united.html

Any ideas how to actually achieve Utopia?

Great idea but a few problems:
Management will not agree to this. They will hire Joe Bag-o-donuts from a regional/military for peanuts rather than an experienced guy expecting 10-year pay. They will not be forced by the union on who they must hire. A year one FO and a 20-year FO fulfill the same requirement so why would they pay more?

Everyone is not under ALPA.

It is a great idea. However you have one small problem. You will have to get Congress to repeal the Railway labor act and the president to sign the repeal. We are handcuffed by the RLA and can't even attempt to manage the profession as unions not bound by the RLA are able to attempt and succeed at.

ALPA...Change...don't think so. Welcome to the mustache club!

There was a ALPA member grassroots initiative in the late 70's in the face of deregulation to go to a nationalized senority system, but it was met with strong resistance by the MEC's.

It would have been much easier then with all the "airlines" at the major (UAL, DAL etc) and regional (Frontier, Piedmont etc) level being pretty much the same, and the independent commuters (Rocky Mountian, Air Midwest etc) being a different sector entirely.

Now it's all co-mingled and institutionalized to the point where IMO it's impossible.

And if everyone locked themselves in their room for 3 days the common cold would be a thing of the past.

Wishing on utopia will find you in a sad reality.

ALPA has turned into a lapdog union. Look at the sweet deal DALPA gave Anderson when they had him by the balls with the NWA merger. Weak pay raise and almost no scope sub-100 seaters.

Everything has its price... and when there's a will, there's a way.

As cgtpilot says: ALPA... change.... never happen. Welcome to the mustache club.

The only way to do this would be to have every pilot in the country call in sick for several days straight and we all know that will never happen.