Aww, shucks guys. You're going to make me blush! ;)
I've been spreading the word. Believe me. Pretty passionate about this issue. And I believe it can be done right for everyone, including the company as a whole. I hope that's the way it goes.

I've flown with probably a dozen newbies in the last 3-4 months. One guy who went Gulfstream-Pinacolaba-JB was pretty anti-CBA, as it's the "best job he's ever had". Facepalm... By and large the others see through the blue juice very clearly. It's a decent job that's not what it's supposed to be, and we're trying to make it better. I don't think first-year guys and gals are going to be our problem demographic.

I appreciate it. As was stated your opinion is much more relevant than some of us who have been onboard a long time. Thanks.

Out of curiousity - anyone taken the dinner just because it's... free?

Seems like an easy win. Get a free dinner, vote for a union anyway.

:D

If I was new and invited...I would go. My decision was made a long time ago but id certainly enjoy a free dinner out with the wife.

I have nothing against our management team and wouldn't mind being at a dinner table together. Its nothing personal and as men, most of them are decent people. At the end of the day its their job to look after an airline and THEIR career and its my job to look after mine. They have proven incapable of doing what I feel are the right things for us so we will take it from here.

My wife and I were invited and offered a hotel room. I was considering going for the same reason - I wouldn't mind a night on the town with the wife.

It was my mild-mannered, demure wife who squashed it. In fact, she nearly exploded. She said for me to tell the CP this:

Why are you willing to offer me a hotel room now when you couldn't manage to find $50 to do so during an IROP, after I busted my butt all day to engage frustrated passengers at four airports - helping to turn many of them from furious to return customers (with no LSC personnel in sight at JFK, btw) - volunteered to extend the last day of a 4-day to 16 hours, and flew to <10 minutes of that limit, asking ONLY that I get a hotel room back at base when I landed so that I didn't have to drive several hours home, in a snowstorm, exhausted?

As a DAL ALPA rep said at the BOS meet and greet last night, lots of union votes are won at the kitchen table. If my wife could vote in this election, she'd turn in as many yes votes as she could, Ohio-style.

Ladies and Gents, it's time for ALPA!

Ok, lets take a look at this, briefly.

Management says that they are out to protect us and grow the company as a stand-alone entity. With the lucrative Boston and New York markets, plus our relative small market share, jetblue is going to be part of an merger or acquisition event. Theres a plus for CBA & Union.

In the event of a transactional event, I think that Mckaskill-Bond applies, the acquiring company needs our pilots and jets and we all keep out jobs. There's a plus for the PVC and DR. We keep our 1.9%

The negotiation process for the CBA is going to be horrendous. We all know this. Plus for DR & PVC.

The floater items that keep the scales of justice swaying back and forth are:

-"Code Shares" with Hawaiian (who sells tickets to JFK on Virgin America)
-Health Care Disaster
-Additions to Dependability Clauses and other items to our FOM (No PVC Collab)
-Changing of the "peer set" during last PEA negoatiation

The knowns that ALPA sucks:
-TWA- AA merger
-Legacy bankruptcies and treatment of "bretheren"
-SWA and AirTran M&A event
-1.9% of my 13% PEA raise for Lee's Steak Dinners

Fins, I value your opinions and I would vote for you on the MEC if you so chose to run. I have to say that the majority of people I interact with are pro-ALPA. Keep me penciled in as a "fence sitter".

-Bubs

One of the biggest reasons I was excited to work for B6 was that it was non-union. However, after being on the line only a short time, I am now a 100%, bag-tag-dragging, bracelet-wearing, cruise altitude-selling, yes-voting, ALPA advocate.

While I don't have much 121 experience, I've got a bit of union experience from the management side. Been through negotiations, grievances, and a strike.

But more importantly, I've got a pretty solid BS detector, and though both the ALPA and ELT sides are spewing out a good bit of exaggeration and disinformation lately, when it comes to the ELT, that detector has been going off louder than a geiger counter in Fukushima.

Bottom line, I'm voting for my fellow pilots. If DAL continues class dates as expected, I don't have a dog in the fight. But if we blue pilots vote down ALPA this time, those of you who stay are done. The ELT will be encouraged to direct this relationship like it's never done before. You think the PVC in the current iteration is impotent? Wait to see the next version.

ALPA won't come back. An in-house will be a joke.

Those great pilots, and I think there are a lot of them, who will stay at B6 for a variety of reasons I can understand will, for the next couple decades, be stuck flying with a combination of:

- Quality, continually-rotating new hires who show up then get hired away by someone else.
- Barely-qualified pilots looking to build experience and get hired somewhere else… who will either stay unqualified, or get hired somewhere else.
- Pilots who have something in their past that will keep them from getting hired somewhere else
- "Special hires" who are just biding time on the line before they get their job at LSC

Now, I think the union is going to get voted in, so hopefully the above nightmare won't come to pass.

But, you've got to understand that the negotiating process will be significantly different if ALPA gets voted in by 51% vs 75%. So, like Bill Cosby's rendition of Noah, the question you should be asking yourself if you're a fence-sitter is…

"How long can you tread water?"

BlindBentBingo - Thanks for your perspective and your support. As the saying goes, "It's just business". Dave hires his outside experts to negotiate for him and do what they think is best for this company. There is no reason we as pilots shouldn't do the same thing.

P-3 Bubs - Thanks for the kinds words. I wanted nothing to do with any of this stuff when I came to jetblue. I'm a military/republican type after all. Unfortunately, the more I pay attention to what the company tells us versus what is reality, and also as I learn more about this industry, I learn that we really need a better way of protecting ourselves whether from the company or industry forces.

I've heard it said, "All I ever got from ALPA was a free magazine." That is such b.s. it drives me nuts. ALPA is responsible for or contributed to (just a short list):

- Precision and full approach lighting systems
- Grooving and friction treatment for runways
- REILs and markings
- Runway electronic or vertical guidance
- Radar approach coverage for all airport terminal areas.
- Runway distance remaining markers.
- Procedures for use of CVR tapes or transcripts during court proceedings.
- RVSM
- Improved taxiway signage to help prevent runway incursions.
- Volcanic ash avoidance
- KCM

That is just a short list. ALL airline pilots, include JetBlue pilots, benefit from these things. Maybe, in addition to availing ourselves to ALPA's services, we should also start contributing to our profession.

Bubs,
Your ALPA sucks list is a little misguided in my opinion.
TWA- Don't have JB go BK and have it's assets bought by another non-alpa company, very little leverage in that instance with the laws that were in place. ALPA apparently had hopes of bringing APA onboard ALPA as well, but the situation was what it was.

BK treatment of "bretheren"- Not sure what you are referring to except that the implosion of the retirement systems. Welcome to the 21st century where DB systems are being replace by Defined contribution systems all over the county in all kinds of industries (except government). BTW, BK sucks, again, not much leverage when the company can go and get your whole CBA thrown out for being ahead of all your competitors.

SWA and AT- Again, ALPA has very little leverage except with the law. In the end, AT pilots VOTED in that agreement either in fear or happiness depending on your take. AT ALPA could have been more militant and still be in court over the situation just as an inhouse union could have. With no union, there would have been EVEN LESS leverage in negotiations with SWA/SWAPA. It turns out in that case that it was 2 vs 1.

Agree that you pay for ALPA's national presence, but in the end they are the only voice of airline labor with any credibility to combat some of the real threats to our long term careers.