Unfortunately, we don't have the solidarity required to conduct such a strike.....not even close.

It's hard to have any solidarity when it's illegal to try and plan an industry wide strike. So far I have not seen any strike get completely usurped by scabs, the worst case was just a few percentages of the entire group.

Trying to start a grassroots effort would be near impossible without getting the feds interested. Just ranting on APC will not be enough to get everyone on board.

If you can think of a better way to spread the word and organize something without getting your butt thrown in jail long before anything can happen we're all ears.

I sent that clown an email.....

If and when anything like this goes into affect, I think pilots will become a little smarter than the situation. At the moment CVR's are not tamper proof. I know my aircraft has a circuit breaker that is easily accessible. If not, I would think the microphone couldn't be buried too deep. Just take off the headsets and .............oooppss I spilled a cup of hot coffee on the microphone (if it's on the ceiling......damn that turbulence!). Make them spend lots of money on new systems. If you think the goverment will pay for it, think about the ATC situation. That's one of the main reasons we don't have a new air traffic control system. Because the companies have to pay for the retrofit and refuse.

Don't most CVR's have an erase button? Can't you just erase at the end of every successful flight.

Unfortunatly even if you "press to test" the cvr button at the end of the flight, it s still recoverable..

If this bill gets legs, we need to have the most hellacious national slowdown any country has ever seen.

This crap has got to stop.

So if this passes, how long until theres a major crash where hundreds of people die and the key to preventing it from happening again is on the CVR.... which is found to have been deactivated by the pilots? I wonder if congress has thought of that one yet. Way to make aviation less safe, lawmakers!

In a pure sense, deactivating CVRs and nationwide slowdowns is a lot more "unprofessional" than 2 idiots having one isolated incident flying past an airport on their laptops. Kind of funny that a "pilot professionalism act" would directly cause a decrease in professionalism. (Not that I'm against it)

I remember during ground school that pressing the erase button does not erase; it only makes the info harder to get to

While I don't agree with your previous post's premise in regards to NWA188, I do agree with this post in regards to the consequences of this bill.

nationwide strike would be epic awesome..... period.



and this just might be the thing to tie all the pilots together for a cause.

I don't understand how the congress/senate is exempt from drug testing, something all other federal employees have to do.

I bet if there was an attempt to place recording devices in the cabs of locomotive engineers, it would never happen.

Wow, that's a great idea.
I don't ever see it happening though, mainly because it would probably find over half of our current elected officials in violation. Secondly, the people who write the rules will never write rules against themselves. I believe it is that sort of arrogance in our current political system that has so many hardworking American outraged. Essentially the American Government is infallible, while every other citizen is open to blame and criminalization.

Just look at pay and compensation, can you think of any other occupation where the employees vote and decide on their own pay raises with nothing but their own discretion? The people who set the rules of the game will always win, while the rest of the players lag in the distance.

Maybe every four years when we vote in new officials, we should also vote in on compensation rates for said officials. If we, as a pilot union, must gain approval from the people who sign our checks (management), then politicians should have to gain approval from the people who sign their checks (the American People). A performance-based salary system would also be a good way to have our government thinking about the well being of this nation, as opposed to eternally concentrating on re-election.

Rant over.

Better yet, how about have them bid to do the job. Lowest bidder gets the job. It's not like we'd see a slip in quality of work coming out of Congress over what we have today.

I don't know why y'all are upset with these guys.

- they manage to get a pay raise every time they seek one
- they don't have a background check
- no drug testing
- only are in Washington 6 months out of the year
- when they are in Washington, they only really need to show up for votes (actually, they don't even need to show up for votes)

They seem to have one heck of a union.

Right...ask some air traffic controllers how well that works.

PATCO controllers were federal employees and legally couldn't strike, that's why they were fired.

What some posters on here have mentioned is a Suspension of Service, which is basically a nationwide strike by airline pilots. ALPA organized and executed an SOS back in the 1970's due to a lack of action dealing with the new threat of hijacking. The only problem was that not every airline's pilots followed the SOS so all that really happened was a weak show of solidarity on ALPA's part on the issue.

There's a court precedent that makes an SOS legal when it's an issue of national policy that's the primary reason, not when it's over collective bargaining.

I think ALPA authorized an SOS in response to the possibility of the CVR being used in a punitive manner back in the 1980s.

A nationwide SOS isn't unprecedented, it just takes a major national issue to bring about its authorization. Whether it gets enacted is another matter.

I have very little doubt that if Clowngress passes this, ALPA will authorize another SOS - and more pilots would be on board this time. I think (and I would hope) that this garbage would cause an uproar within the industry.

I'm getting sick of these people pretending to know things...just say, "You know what, screw it, you fly the damn airplane, Congressman. Let me know when you hit the ground..err, I mean land."

Then J.O., the rev. BB, and Hulas could organize state Senators and Representatives (regionals) to whipsaw the federal government guys (majors). The Ignorant Officials Union (I.O.U.) could push for on-the-job naps and other superfluous stipulations...this could work!

That CB would be moved to the cabin or elsewhere in short order - during the deactivation of the erase button. This BS has got to be stopped in the incubator. I wrote everyone that mattered.

PIPE

Spot on.

Regardless if your a regional/major pilot affiliated with ALPA, SWAPA, APA, IPA, Teamsters, ect....This is a movement that can have negitive ramifications on any pilot group in the worst possible way. What do WE have to gain from this Bill?? NOTHING but doom. This effort needs to be a collective effort by all groups regardless of Union name.

I agree with you on ALPA walking the 'political' line on this topic. If there are enough 'line flying' pilots from the membership's majority of ALPA (UAL, DAL, CAL, FedEx, ALA, EGL ect) who stand up and say "HECK NO" on this legislation, the Union best heed the collective voices of it's membeship. Last time I checked, T-Props, RJ's, Boeing, Airbus all have CVR's, thus any of us in the Part 121 would be liable to this bill's wrath.

I would tend to believe (or hope) that Union Leadership would have no choice but to go with the majority in telling the government absolutely NOT on this Bill, not in ANY FORM. Plain and simple, doing anything short of that would assist ALPA (and other unions) in loosing further credibility amongst the membership in selling out the group to the 'governmental machine'.

In the end, the Union Leadership's ultimate responsibility is to represent the 'good' of the pilots who are part of their Union, not rub the backs of the "clowns on the Hill".

There are times and places to pick your fights, and this is the time.

ALPA's position paper on this issue
 

I just logged in to ALPA's website, and I must admit I found nothing on this issue on the front page.

I have, however, found a position paper written by ALPA for the "INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON TRANSPORTATION RECORDERS" that occurred May 3-5, 1999."

In it, ALPA discusses the agreement that allowed CVR's and DRDR technology into the flight deck:
It is important to note the following (highlighting is my own):
In short, that is ALPA's position.

I encourage all pilots to read the entire report and contact their elected reps regarding this proposed legislation.

ALPA News Release

I think this is aimed at addressing the bill, which is still in its very early form, and at the same time focusing on the current bills that ALPA supports.

Agreed but lets not stop there, we shall call it the "Politician spending my taxes Assurance Act"