YAKflyer

What I was originally responding to were the comments about loosing senoirity.

SkyWestPilot1

PinnacleFO
First off I don't know how it will turn out, but you are right, most of us are happy, however I think there are a fair number who are concerned about the future. Also I think there is a large percentage who are uninformed about what we already have in place. I'll use myself as an example because I was uninformed in the past. A few weeks ago I was in ORD and was talking to an eagle pilot. I asked him how he liked alpa and if he had used any of thier "benefits". He said that he had been shorted a significant amount of pay and that alpa was working on getting him paid what he was owed. I asked how quickly they had gotten it taken care of. He said that it had been 2 months but was expecting it soon. The funny thing is he seemed pleased. Ok, well the exact same thing happened to me about 1.5 years ago. It took me 3 days to get my pay. Now, I had to do the footwork and I had to prove to SkyWest that they owed me the money but for 2% of my pay I'll do that all day long. Not to mention that I would have been very upset if I would have had to wait 2 months for AlPA to get me my money. Maybe thats not a good example but it was the only one the eagle pilot had.

rickair7777

It is correct that SKW Inc will need to keep two certificates, for very good business reasons. However, this does NOT preclude a merger of the pilot groups under one union...I believe that would be inevitable and would happen sooner, not later.

It would be an unnatural state to have two pilot groups under one company, both represented by the same union.

Mesa/Freedom/AMW and REP/CHQ/Mercury are examples of multiple certs under one list.

YAKflyer

Those examples are where the parent company formed subsidiaries and used their pilots fly for the new units. At Mesa JO started Freedom to be an alternative so he could get a non-union group to fly for even less. The Mesa ALPA pilots got bloodied, but were able to get Freedom into the fold. A long time ago Eagle had a huge fight to try to get a single list when their individual companies were purchased by AA. It took years before they could achieve single carrier (and AA fought them every step of the way) status which is what would be required. JA will not want to give the ability to whipsaw the two groups without a fight and it would never work unless both groups fought to have single carrier status declared. I doubt the SKW group would want to merge the list.

ghilis101

i hope you guys do the right thing and vote in alpa

SkyWestPilot1

Do the right thing for who?

ghilis101

for your future. collective bargaining isnt perfect, but you need the strength in numbers, unless you think you can be an untouchable individual for the rest of your career. if you dont support unions, at least dont do the company's job for them and become a union buster. i promise you skw wont fall apart or change drastically if you vote in a union. it will just give you a collective bargaining agreement, and you can go from there. And the next time they offer you a 1% pay raise you can tell them to shove it.

the balls in your court now skywest pilots. you have the control, the company NEEDS you, not the other way around. Not saying you should exploit, but you deserve whats rightfully yours, and thats a contract.

rjboy

The right thing for our future is determined by us voting for what we want, not what anybody else wants for us. Also, anyone who says their is not a 99% (I didn't say 100%) chance of merging lists if we go ALPA is either uninformed or is just trying to garner more votes from Skywest pilots. Even if JA didn't want to merge the lists, ASA would sue for single carrier status and would likely win. JA will merge them just to save the costs of a losing legal battle.

ghilis101

are you afraid your 1 year upgrade is going to go away when you merge the lists? that is sad that the biggest thing that scares you about voting in a union is that youll be united with your ASA brethren. pitiful. absolutely pitiful. dont worry youll still upgrade fast, your captains will continue to move on to the majors at an alarming rate. and skw/asa will get more flying and more planes.


btw - this website says ASA's most junior captain was hired june 04 in the RJ, and Nov 04 in the T-prop. Theyre upgrading captains just as fast as SKW is every month. So whats the worry?

SkyWestPilot1

I don't know,,,,, My grandfather was a very smart and weathy man. He told me when I was a young boy,,, "If it aint broke, don't fix it." I know what he'd say if he were around to ask about this one.