acl65pilot

Not to be a wisea__, but if people are not going to vote on simple things like repts et al, how do you think we can get people motivated enough to do what you propose.

Bucking Bar

ACL65 -

More to the point. How are we going to enforce scope provisions against Compass while saying ASA and Comair have an exemption?

The Courts (and alternative dispute resolution venues) do not legitimize treating one airline as "most favored" - allowing them exemptions that do not apply to similarly situated carriers.

Slow represents our MEC as being highly confident that this flow is preserved, when I am equally confident that by no longer representing these pilots we have materially weakened our protection of Delta pilots who flow down.

... and this assumes that we gave up restoration ... now we are only trying to ascertain the depth of the concession we just made.

Eric Stratton

What is the conflict as you see it?

acl65pilot

As we have discussed, I think that a lot of this if pressed in court will have a hard time standing up to the stress test.

We need to fight for our flying and we need to do it now.

On a side note guys, they are repoing ship 658 from MZJ to SAT for its heavy check. I took that sucker to the desert only a few months ago. I hope they are getting ready to put it back in service. That my friends is a really good sign if they are doing that.
Look at the 767B open time and trip 0126-2/12

Bucking Bar

Our scope splits the union between "haves" who enjoy scope protection and can sell it, and the "have nots" who are commoditized fee for departure carriers who have nearly no scope.

Compass serves as a good example. Their MEC is contractually bound by another airline's MEC to a fleet of 36 airplanes. The Compass MEC and Compass Pilots had no voice in that restriction. How would we feel if another airline tried to restrict us to a fleet of 36 airplanes?

ALPA National is caught in the middle of our trying to control "our" outsourced flying and other airlines who think they should have the same rights that we enjoy. As a matter of law ALPA has to treat each member equally, but that gets tougher and tougher to do.

The conflict is a direct result of "our" flying that we don't perform. We can fix this by simply doing as much of our flying as we can.

Otherwise ALPA, our union, will be destroyed by this separate and unequal status of its members.

BUT - splitting ALPA, or leaving ALPA, will not fix this problem. I cite American and American Eagle's battles as an example of what we are in for. All we do is move the fight from Herndon VA to some District Court, probably in New York. In open Court the outcome is much less certain for both sides - and I'm warning everyone, we should try to fix the problem we have, not run from it. We should not follow the example of the US APA, or the APA.

ALPA, with it's warts, is better and more effective than the alternative.

acl65pilot

The conflict is that many of the regional pilots have made their said regional their home and therefore want more mainline scope concessions to keep their carriers cost competitive and as a result gain more flying and advance their career expectations. All of this is good, for a pilot, but for the union they are trying to play both sides, and in the end you could lose it all.

It could be resolved by simply stating that the National Office defers all Scope to its MEC's and the legal team at National is divided up in to mainline representation and regional representation so that there is not a conflict in whom they represent day to day and case to case. That type of thing could go all the way to the top of the pilots deemed it necessary.

Point is that if you are angry enough to de-certify, you probably have enough fire in your belly to effect the necessary change at ALPA. Just a though and how it was present to me.

SoCalGuy

Not to be a smart a** "E", but I think you answered your own question in a round about way below.

To say ALPA does not have conflicting interests in today's industry (when rep'ing 'like' reg vs mainline carriers) is like saying nothings changed with our industry since 'pre' 9/11??

I agree with you on the beginning portion of your above statement. I would say you are correct that union representation (ALPA in this case) is there to represent/'fight'/enforce for better QOL/pay issues on present CBA's and to negotiate new ones as their terms come due. This is the same underlying mantra/battle cry for years....regardless if it was 1980, 1990, or 2009.

Looking back 10-20 years ago, there were regional airlines that flew nothing more than T-prop (or even recip) aircraft. If you took the majority of the pilots who were employed with those 'regional carrier's', the majority of those pilots who flew for those carrier's aspired to move on to a "major airline" and fly 'em slick "jets".

Having a common union - ALPA representing both a 'DAL type' and a 'Comair type' may have made sense year ago when things were as mentioned above. As time has evolved over the decades, and regional partner's have begun flying RJ's, that line between regional flying and mainline flying has begun to 'cloud' much more so than years in that past....with that, you can not disagree.

As this disparity has become more narrow/less divided, you can now say without question that when representing two pilot groups such as the example mentioned above, there is much more of a representation conflict than ever before. How does the same union shop improve a regional carrier's CBA now days without detracting to some degree from the mainline carrier's CBA?? Again, very hard to do (maybe impossible by some) without a 'common Union' having a conflict of interest in today's type/industry of flying.

As I said before, this may have been a terrific idea with common representation years ago when the landscape was much different.....not so much now. It is abundantly evident that changes in our industry have evolved, but ALPA has not on the topic. Does this mean toss ALPA out?? No, but serious restructuring needs to be done to keep pace with our industry as it transforms.

acl65pilot

+1
ALPA can be fixed and we need to try that before we burn it down. Understand that once we leave ALPA, it will fail, and as a result there will be a ton of splinter unions who are going to go after the money. Well guess who that is. Sometimes it is better to keep Pandora in the box.

Point is that this can be fixed and it takes people like Bar, and anyone else willing to help to sit down talk, pick apart ideas and move the agenda forward. It is not the easy path, but the path to success normally is the hardest one to take.

Bucking Bar

ALPA is a single legal entity.

The conflict is not at the national level. In fact, ALPA's problem is that they cede too much power to the local level who can get the whole of the union into trouble.

Remember - we first sold scope at the local level. National subsequently signed off on it. Nothing was "forced down" on us although we like to pretend our scope sales were the result of outside influences.

Leaving ALPA is like leaving your wife because you think your kids misbehave. We can get a divorce and sign up for eRepresentation.com, but the ugly kids will remain, ugly.

I don't care to try to raise the 9 Delta Connection children as a single parent. Some of them are already married and making children of their own.

acl65pilot

Bar; going with national control would only have a chance of working if we could have a national contract and that will not happen until the RLA is dealt with.

I agree that a lot of the issues stem from the local level, but as you know there is a reason for this type of design.

We could give National more power and see where it takes us, but from the tea leaves I am reading, that is the opposite way that our pilot want this to go.