401k
 

Heard preliminarily today that taking dues out PRE 401K deduction was voted down. Bit of good news if it istrue.

:)

its true, its not going to happen. didn't get the required percentage, but more people voted for it than against it.

Thank goodness......

That money is for our retirement.... We have already been hosed out of any other form of retirement and when Obama jacks our taxes to 78%, we will need every penny we can get our hands on.......

it's been said before and I'll say it again....until Prater and the top echelon take a pay cut, they can look elsewhere for more dues money.

"Taking it back" doesn't mean from the very people you protect.

I heard it needed 2/3 majority and they got 55%.

Must be the 55% that don't use their 401k :rolleyes:

All reps at XJ voted for it.

Does it really matter. Thats great that they voted it down but guess what, ALPA needs money, so dues are now most likely going to go up. I agree that on the fact that there needs to be some paycuts. Our highest representative should make no more than the highest paid member. I have heard different things for the compensation packages for these guys and I have nothing that I would ever consider turning down. The industry takes cuts and so should ALPA.

I certainly agree with the latter part of your paragraph, but to the highlighted part I say....I NEED MONEY TO!!

Until they take their cuts, stay out of my pocket.

Wasn't it based upon if the carrier already had some form of pension other than 401K? Like UAL has a C Plan, and a 401K. Wasn't their 401K was already taxed??

I can see why some carriers voted for the measure when it would not directly impact their own paycheck.
I might be wrong too but that was my understanding.

It wouldn't have come out of your 401k.

Not entirely true. There were some who voted for this which would have affected their dues.

I believe that the next step now will be to ask for a higher dues percentage. As for paycuts, the president is the only one who actually gets paid by ALPA. I don't necessarily disagree with giving that position a paycut. Maybe if you feel strongly about it you could propose a resolution. If you are talking about staff, they are under a collective bargaining agreement. ALPA will need to wait until their contract amendable date comes around for those paycuts.

Ironic you should mention UAL. They voted 4485-2052 against it. Their dues actually subsidize MECs' such as XJ (who all voted for this even though it would have meant more dues from their pilots). If all of them would have voted for this, it would have passed!

Maybe they should use the airline mentality.....just file for bankruptcy and impose paycuts. Luckly, we take the high road.

WISKEY72 -- I did not imply I agree with raising dues or taking dues before 401K contributions........It was meant to say that more money is one of the reasons they wanted to make this change.

Our MEC told us this would raise and additional 7 million dollars a year. Thats a large amount of paycuts for not only Prater but a lot of the ALPA employees.

No worries, it's all good. :) I knew you didn't mean it that way.

you're right there, but it would have affected my 401K. It would have lessened the amount that would AND should have gone to my 401K.

It would have created $1.4M a year in additional dues income. If they would have attempted to exempt ALL 401k contributions from duesability (the other fair way to do it), it would have been $6M a year less in dues income.

It would have calculated your dues before your 401k contributions were deducted from your gross pay. If you contributed 10% this would not have changed that 10%. Your dues would have gone up while your 401k contributions remained the same as it was before (unless YOU changed it).

Its all water under the bridge now anyways.:)

I guess ALPA is feeling the pain of the gutted pilot contracts of the last 8 years. I've got an idea: instead of increasing dues %, we improve the contracts. That way I get more money AND ALPA gets more money. Then everybody wins.

Another possible problem is fuloughs. If pilots are out on furlough they aren't getting paid and ALPA can't take a percentage of $0. I might be wrong but just an idea.

Don't forget usair switching teams

Just out of curiosity but did any of your LEC reps actually ask or poll you as to which way you wanted them to use YOUR vote. Our rep emailed us, explained everything then asked if anyone wanted him to cast some of his votes "in favor" because he was planning on voting opposed. It looks from the results like only a couple of reps (Clarence R Fox, PSA; Gregory McKinney, NWA; and Thomas Thompson, UAL) split their votes which implies to me that they actually took the time to ask their constituents what they thought.

Kudos to them and the others who attempted to vote the way the pilots wanted them to. It seems to me that something this important and potentially divisive should have been put to a full vote.

Our reps did not ask us at all......they just told everyone they were all going to vote for it. Some great representations.

Its YOUR responsibility as a dues-paying member in good standing to TELL your elected leadership how you want them to vote.

One explanation I heard on this issue from an ALPA national guy actually made sense.

Let's say there is a pilot who is married with four kids. He can't afford to put anything into the 401K because he is too busy trying to feed his family.

Then there's another pilot from the same company with the same income who is married with no kids. His wife makes a lot if money. He and his wife both max out their 401K plans.

The pilot who is struggling financially is subject to more dues than the pilot who effectively shelters a substantial amount of income from dues through the 401K plan.

I don't like paying more dues, but I believe that all income should be subject to dues not part of it. If ALPA needs the cash they will get it from you by raising the rate. At least this may have prevented a rate hike by evenly distributing the burden accross the entire pilot group.

At a time when Airline Pilots have collectively taken huge consessions, lost large portions of their retirement (most of whom are represented by ALPA), the union has a lot of damn gall asking for a dues hike.

The constitution and by-laws do not allow that.

Being a representative requires leadership. And leadership sometimes requires doing what you feel is right rather than just doing what your constituents want. It actually took political courage to go against their constituents.

Boiler,

I agree to a point. However, when it is subject such as the one we are discussing here, the reps have a "common sense" obligation to go get the answers as we all know that the membership as a whole doesn't stay informed. There needed to be a LOT more information that what was offered and a membership vote should have happened at every property.

I don't disagree with your statement on most situations (but I would definately NOT call that action courageous. I would say narcissistic), but not on topics that have an effect on every member such as this. No MEC should stand above a membership vote at the local level on something that every member will feel.

I disagree. These types of votes is precisely why you vote for representatives. It not different that your representative in the House of Representatives, Senate, State Legislators, Board of Supervisors, City Councils, etc. They are there to vote on issues that effect all their constituents every time they cast a vote. This is why its extremely important to do your civic duty to make yourself informed, tell your representative how you feel, and vote for people that feel the most like you do on the important issues to you. But when it comes down to it, the representatives should always vote what they feel is best regardless of how their constituents feel. And if the constituents don't like the way their representative voted then they can recall them or vote someone else when their re-election comes around. This is why I said it was politically courageous. It is not narcissistic. In fact, many of the people who voted for this were going to be negatively affected by it anyways.

While I know what you're trying to say...but if the membership can't be bothered to keep themselves informed, then why should the elected leadership seek their uninformed opinions?

Members of Congress don't ask their constituents what they think about every single issue (or even major issues) before voting, but if a constituent or group of constituents voices a concern, its the rep's duty and responsibility to listen and consider their position.

In theory, representatives are elected to further the agenda of the people they represent, not their own. While every union rep should have their finger on the pulse of Joe Line Pilot, its the responsibility of pilots who have concerns to voice them to the people that represent them. All the crew room lawyers in the world can't change something once its been done...

Guys,

Comparing a local MEC to congress or lawmakers is way too far of stretch that I'm willing to concede. I appreciate your input but respectfully disagree.

Why?

Do both not consist of elected representatives and people they represent?

Why? Because I worked on the aviation subcommitee in DC and saw congress and lawmakers up close and personal as well as ALPA.

That's not answering the question. What you just said is equivilant to answering a question with "becuase I said so."

Great, you worked on the subcommitee, but the question was was about elected reps and the people they represent.

Try to elaborate next time please.

Thank you.

I'll keep the elaboration simple. Outside of an aspiring "model" to use, there are vast differences from personel, procedure and propaganda. You don't need to "pick at it". ALPA is what it is......period. I'm VERY clear as to what it IS NOT.

You simply asked why and I simply answered. I have experince in both avenues.

Answering the question with experience is not the same as saying, "because I said so"......I truly hope you know the difference.

It's always good to have a bit more background in what you did, including your experience aside from I did it.

I'm not gouging you, just asking for a persepective. It's the same as me saying I built an airplane but failing to mention it was a model airplane. You don't know to what extent you mean.

I'm not the one that asked the question, just one seeking more clarification as to the answer. In this case you just said you worked for the commitees but did not expand on why they are not the same ( the senate/congress as opposed to ALPA)

Unfortunetely most of us were not told about this issue until it was unanimously decided upon by the MEC. There were numerous opportunities such as recurrent and upgrade classes during which this could have been brought to our attention (I sat through an entire lunch period with the union and this was never discussed) I agree that is the responsibility of ours to voice our opinion, but it is hard to voice and opinion when the topic for discussion is concealed in the way that it was. I dont mind a fight, and I dont mind losing a fight, but I would at least like to know that a fight is happening before it is declared over.

Ok, what about my comparison to a city council? Of did you work on your city council as well?:p

You can always check the agenda items of the Executive Board and Executive Council via the My ALPA link at ALPA.org.

Or you can just sign up for all the blastmails at the same website. A lot of this was out before the voting even commenced.

By the way, this was not something decided by MECs. It was decided by all the individual reps.

I havent talked to a single pilot that was for this, besides a union rep, so there is obviously a communication error, which is strictly a union rep issue, not a pilot issue. Not saying that I am totally against it, but it is the representives responsibilty to keep us informed on the happenings of the union, and their resposibility to include us all in the medium in which this is represented. I shouldnt have to go SEARCH for the issues. I pay for this and it should be afforded to me and rest of the group. This was back doored no matter how you look at it. Also the thing that bugs me was that there was no statute of limitation that was placed on this issue, which means this was going to be permanent, which should require a vote of the masses, not a personal conviction by the "courageous union reps:

No, I'm sorry, you don't pay for people to spoon feed you issues. You are supposed to take an active role in furthering your career.

You pay taxes, but do you expect your lawmakers to personally seek out your opinion every time they vote on a bill?

There are many methods to see what's going on. You're just not taking advantage of them.

Its not the case of spoon feeding issues and I have never insinuated that. There are plenty of issues that I am aware of and some that I am not, but this issue was back doored from day 1 and was not a simple case of trying to change the length of a particular overnight, or a change in training. This was a major change to the constitution and would a affect a large number of pilots. The only people that seemed to know about it were union people, and they werent talking about it. As for your lawmakers connection, I expect them to seek out the opinion of the masses when voting on an issue that creates large permanent changes, but you are right in the fact that none of them do, which doesnt make it right however.

I am for one am very pro union, but to hint that none of us union members are permitted to dissent against our representitives is counterproductive and borderline tyrannical. Heres an idea for ALPA on how to get more dues money. Open up negotiations and get us all better contracts, and there is your extra money, or if you want us to pay more dues, ask for it, dont behind the backs of others to get it.