Pilots consider union
 

Over half of SkyWest's fliers are interested; it would be a first in airline's 35-year history
By Paul Beebe
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Launched:04/04/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT

Over half of SkyWest Airline's 2,500 pilots have shown interest in joining the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), but the union isn't ready to conduct an election, ALPA President John Prater said Tuesday.
Prater met Monday in Salt Lake City with about 75 SkyWest pilots to answer questions and dispute mistaken notions about how ALPA would affect the St. George-based airline, which has never had a pilots union in its 35-year history.
Prater said enough pilots have signed cards that would permit ALPA to ask the National Mediation Board for a secret-ballot vote, but the union would not take that step until at least 70 percent of pilots indicate they want ALPA to represent them.
"We want an overwhelming majority," Prater said. "We want to make sure [pilots] have the opportunity to ask questions. Quite honestly, there are a lot of lies out there about being members of ALPA."
SkyWest officials were unavailable for comment Tuesday.
SkyWest has hired hundreds of pilots over the past year and has plans to add hundreds more to support its rapidly growing business. The airline flies as Delta Connection for Delta Air Lines and as United Express for United Airlines. On Sunday, SkyWest began flying as Midwest Connect for Midwest Airlines. Passenger traffic in February was up 9 percent from a year ago.
The airline is staging a job fair in Salt Lake City today and is planning 15 more fairs before July. Many of the new pilots going to work for SkyWest are in the early stages of their careers and may have distorted views of ALPA, Prater said.
He said some pilots believe their union dues will be 5 percent of their annual incomes. (The figure is 1.95 percent.) Others think ALPA will disrupt SkyWest so much that its growth will stop. Many aviators don't know that the largest airline pilots union in the world is a professional organization that advises the industry on safety and aircraft design, he said.
Although its mission is to help pilots win favorable pay, benefits and work rules, it isn't true that ALPA hurts airline companies, he said.
The union is the bargaining agent for Continental's 4,000 pilots, and last year the Houston-based carrier earned $343 million.
"We make no apologies that we are a union and that we conduct collective bargaining on behalf of members in order to provide [labor] contracts that provide a stable career," said Prater, who was elected president of ALPA in October and began a four-year term in January.
SkyWest pilots have tried twice since 1999 to affiliate with a union. Their last effort in 2004 failed when only a third of eligible pilots voted for an in-house association to act as their bargaining agent.
The issues driving the latest organizing effort have less to do with wages and benefits than with having more control over their fate as the airline industry consolidates, SkyWest pilots have said.
Even so, ALPA is primed to be more aggressive when bargaining with the airlines. Prater has taken over leadership of ALPA at a time when the financial prospects for airlines are not as bleak as they have been.
The Air Transport Association, which represents U.S. airline companies, is betting that industry profits will reach $4 billion this year after posting modest operating profits in 2006. Pilots who agreed to wage-and-benefit concessions in order to help their airlines survive now want to recover what they gave back, Prater said.
ALPA "desires to return to its roots of aggressive bargaining, strict contract enforcement, tenacious organizing and pilot action to restore our contracts and our profession," Prater said.
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This was in the paper here in SLC a couple of days ago so I though I would beat this horse around again......and again.

Blah, Blah, Blah . . .what wages are there to give back? Pilots get paid nothing to begin with." And for ALPA to come out and say the SKYW pilot group is not interested in wages or benefits seems to send the wrong message to management. (i.e . . Pilots don't want an increase in pay, EXCELLENT . . .we can snub our nose at them for several more years. . . boy are they dumb.)

This is why I hate ALPA . . . They are so worried about their 2% of all pilot wages. . . .about $3,000,000 a year in dues. Sounds like a good business model. Care to join my UNION . . I only charge 1.5%

theres a difference between what gets said in the paper, and what gets said underground. i believe prater when he says "we're takin it back." we'll just have to see. alpa will still most likely not get voted in at SKW but as long as the threat is there, mgt cant screw with the pilots too badly. keep up the good work ALPA

i believe alpa will get voted in at skywest. every time they have a vote, it gets closer, and closer. pretty soon it will end up being yes, and i think this is the year it will happen.

Actually you are very wrong...... it went from very very close 5 years ago, to a blowout against the union a couple years ago. I'm not saying it can't get passed this time, but such a trend does not exist.

just quoting a friend of mine, who happens to be a check airman, and a designated examiner there at skywest (and for all of utah), . He says there is a trend.

And like i have said before i could care less if skywest becomes alpa. Nothing would change there in the foreseeable future, and with me working at pinnacle, it would take even longer for it to have any effect on me here. So i don't care if the pass it or not. what i do care about is that if they do join that one day,,, probably after i am long gone from the regionals, that they work out a CRJ pay scale for all alpa carriers, that way pilots aren't used as a bargaining chip, but the companies reputation and quality of service is.

I don't think so this time. A lot of fence sitters, but when it comes right down to it a lot of them won't take the chance of scewing up a known thing. Also the majority of new hires came from alpa regionals...and if they're making a lateral move they probably weren't too happy at their last company.

He's got a point there. A lot of the bad regionals that were talk about all the time are represented by none other that the fabled, high and mighty, ALPA. Let ALPA help it's own before it tries to get in with SkyWest. I don't want ALPA coming in if all they can give me is another Mesa.

I don't want a Union but if we do let's go in-house.

theyre not going to "give" you this or that, that is the wrong expectation here. Its what a union will do for your work environment.

ALPA may not have fixed the poor conditions at Mesa, but it still protects a pilot from being fired on the spot, which by the way can happen at skywest (its called "at will" employment because you can be fired at will). Not to mention nothing at skywest is a CONTRACT. it is POLICY instead, meaning they reserve the right to change it at anytime. A union gets you a contract through collective bargaining. Its not "ALPAs" fault if your reps and MEC are weak and score you a terrible contract. I would gladly put 1.95% of my paycheck to ensure my job, my pay, and my license are protected. not to mention a truly unified pilot group (xjet for example) can really work wonders.