File a lawsuit?

Did the pilot get his job back? Did the F/A's get their jobs back? And Delta's F/A's are still not union. What does that tell you?

The Delta MEC took on the cause of the F/A's (out of moral out rage) along with the pilot and all were offered their jobs back. The reason the F/A's got their jobs back was because even though they were not members of, and ALPA had no responsibility to represent them, ALPA allowed them to ride the coat tails of the pilot. If ALPA had not pursued this case the F/A's would have never gotten their jobs back and would have been branded with the stigma of failing a drug test along with the resulting employment exclusions for the rest of their lives.

I doubt that any of the individuals could have afforded the legal bill that would have been generated in a legal challenge and no lawyer was going to take a contingency case fighting a case where it is someone's word against lab results. After ALPA disclosed the facts some of the individuals went on to file wrongful termination suits to try to get more than just their jobs and back wages back. The point is all of them would have lost if ALPA was not there to take on their case. What does that tell you?

Great post Yak, I don't think that a lot of people realize the average attorney want 1,000 dollars just to talk to you. Then you get billed for everything from Xerox to his parking. In this case you would have the added bill of the investigative team who research the lab. An airline (any airline) has attorney on retainer if not in house counsel. There is no way you could afford to fight a major company.

For those of you who don't want an ALPA attorney, put one on retainer now, because if you don't have one and find yourself needing one, you're toast.

Stick

thats exactly what i was thinking. the only thing that got the non union flight attendants their job back was the fact that alpa was kind enough (i don't think they did it out of charity as much as the fact that a lot of them failed also and it would make a stronger case) to let them tag along. this pilot would have had his carrer snuffed out at the prime of his life had no one been there to help him. and if he would have hired his own personal attorney and finally got his job back he would have spent years in litigation with the testing facility and would probably have been in debt to his eye balls trying to get it done.

I'm still not entirely convinced that ALPA was the only resolution to this problem.

But be that as it may, ALPA sounds like a really expensive insurance policy for issues that probably won't even affect most people.

Its worth the 1.95%....but you never know that until you need it.

Aeromedical alone is worth the dues.

Here's a good one, couple folks I know were involved in an accident a few years back. They immediately grabbed their yellow cards called the union, the union assured they were physically ok, and then they walked them through the post accident process, to assured no one, not the company, not the insurance company, not even the authorities got to their testimony before the union had an opportunity to brief them. They made a simple mistake that any of us could have made which resulted in an accident, and the union assured that no one used that as a way to terminate their employment or their careers. If that's too expensive for you, then for your sake I hope you never bend metal.

Seems like some of the youngsters who participate here are going to have to learn their lessons the hard way......

All insurance is really expensive if you don't use it, but priceless if you do.

What's in it for me?
 

"..issues that probably won't even affect most people" will certainly affect some people, and they are your brother and sister pilots. We should support medical insurance for pilots' families, even if we have no intention of getting married. We should support furloughed pilots even if we are too senior to ever be furloughed ourselves. A moral principle of unionism, too often forgotten, is that we help each other where we can, without calculating the payback.

A MORAL principal, in general, is that we help others without expecting anything in return. I couldn't agree with you more Tom. In today's, "Me-Me-Me-Me" society, I feel this simple lost art of helping others has been forgotten. . . .

Not surprising why (Pilot concessions to help out the company only to get screwed later) . . . sort of makes one NOT want to help.

However, what you and I are referring to has to do more with an "Individual's" choice vs. a Group choice.

Well Im going to be in LGA later this month supporting the Colgan pilots with other ALPA pilots, anybody esle wanna come and show their support?