Does ASA's TA influence SKYW's ALPA Vote?
 

Thoughts on how ASA's TA will affect SKYW's union vote. Especially the fragmentation protection in the TA about what happens if SKYW takes ASA airframes over to the SKYW side. Seems to me that if I was a skywest pilot I wouldn't be very happy about that.

this pitting of one against the other may or may not be intentional, or it could be just a byproduct of two pilot groups maturing differently based on different circumstances. The TA will definitely get brought up in skywest circles, but as to what extent it will affect the alpa vote, who knows. youve already got your guys who will for sure vote yes or for sure vote no. i wonder how many people are still on the fence, because this could be a factor for them.

i imagine a lot of the asa pilots who jumped ship and went to skw will still continue to badmouth and bash asa and alpa so thats a consideration too

All that fragmentation language does is protect the jobs of ASA pilots.

So if you were a Skywest pilot you wouldn't have a crisis of conscience knowing you were taking another airline's aircraft and causing the loss of the jobs that go with them?

Of course the ASA TA will influence the vote at Skywest. Folks at Skywest have said "ALPA better produce for ASA", and even if everything else is equal, the higher hourly payrates at ASA will probably sway some votes in favor.

It looks like ASA's first year pay is getting bumped up to around $23/hr with their new TA. I'm sure non-ALPA SkyWest would follow suit pretty quick and bump ours up to match theirs. With ALPA on our side imagine what a long drawn out process management would make getting any sort of TA of our own and they're not going to "hand out" a raise until such an agreement is met - like YEARS later. I think by the time ALPA and Skywest ever reached a TA of our own (what did ASA take--5 years?) most of us will be out the door flying for a major

fear of management will not help you guys get a raise of any sort.

I knew I should have elaborated more...I want union protection. Yes i'm happy here but when the world goes bad, next to a reliable firearm the next thing i want on my side is my union. I would like to see more of an in-house union rathar than ALPA. I had ALPA representation at my previous regional and ended up quitting making less money than when i started. even after the "payout" the contract was way worse than it should have been. watching my beloved union roll over and promote a crappy contract and a payout for concessins was indeed a bummer

I'm curious how many Pro-ALPA SkyWesters have never worked for another regional

That is a selfish thing to say. You should show at least some concern for the future Skywest pilots. Although it might not produce immediate results for you, it would be a long-term bennefit for those who come after you and the life-timers at Skywest

FLAK, you were at Mesaba right? I seem to have seen S340 FO on your profile but its gone now...

If so, your company was in BK (sham or not) and the contract that was negotiated was a helluva lot better than it would have been otherwise. If you think objectively, you know that's the truth. What do you think "should have been" better in your BK-concessionary contract?

Your anger at unfulfilled expectations should be squarely at Mesaba and NWA management...not ALPA. Given the situation, they did the best they could.

Back to the issue at hand. I think the ASA TA could swing what was a certain loss for ALPA into a possible victory. I have it on fairly high authority that ASA dropped several key issues in order to have this TA agreed upon before the SKW vote. The company thought they could get ASA locked up and still keep ALPA out at SKW but I have heard a lot of concern the TA. If SKYW mngt. doesn't find some way to resolve this issue it could be the decisive blow to many of the fence sitters. The rates are no big deal and neither is the transfer protection. Retro pay is a factor but what has everyone riled is that we did not get our COLA raises back and ASA did.

You’re basing your assumptions on a specific point in time at your past airline, very narrow point of view I my opinion. I prefer to look at the past 50 years of union history to make a decision on there benefit to our industry.

Our industry is very cyclical, had you not had a union at your previous carrier you would have been a lot worse off period. You happened to work for an airline that was in BK (as I understand it), so I can see how you would be down on a union. But please educate yourself on what benefits unions have created for us as airline pilots.