At least you don't work for ASA and their crazy flight attendants.

 

Republic Pilots,

You need some help from the outside? I would be born again hard to help you decertify the IBT. You can then join UPS, ATA, NetJets, etc. pilots that chose to decertify the Teamsters.

I served as an organizer and officer at one airline and swore, never again. Later, the Teamsters sabotaged our 93% write-in vote campaign with ALPA by running to the AFL-CIO kangaroo court claiming ALPA stole us. This left us forced to go in-house for 3 years, woefully underrepresented, until we merged with ALPA. Best thing we ever did.. (Yes, EAL, TWA, US Air pilots, I know that your experience wasn't so rosy...).

I'll be glad to help..

In Unity,

B727DRVR

 

You've obviously never seen any of our ATL FAs.


23 less furloughed from RAH!

 

On ATL: They just canned 40 down there, that's why they aren't furloughing FAs.

On the furloughs. I now only have about 25 above me. Great news! I'm starting to believe more and more that this is only going to last 6 months at the most.

 

No, just trying to make light of crummy situation. Wish all the best for everyone. ATL and Buckhead is pretty fantastic....

 

Just a point of order... The IBT is free to try you for treason and fine/expell you from the union all they want if you violate their bylaws. Their "warning" that has been reposted says exactly that. The contention has been (and there has been a case in the past where they did go so far) that they are planning to place the members in other than good standing. At that point, they have claimed in the past that they could call for your termination. That is the illegal part. You can be thrown out of the Teamsters for being party to a decertification drive. You cannot be fired provided you continue to pay your dues as a service fee per the CBA.

 

To clarify a few things. The IBT CANNOT try you for treason. The bylaws state that there cannot be two unions. We can speak against them all we want and if we chose to we could even have them removed. The IBT has no power to have someone fired. The only means a person may be fired is if they have not paid their dues or their initiation fee. So long as you are paid up on your dues and initiation fee you're safe regardless of what you say. Any fines or fees they want to put on you are not grounds for dismissal if you don't pay. They may remove you from the union but not have you fired. I didn't find the following information myself but since it's very relevant to this discussion then I'll post it.

The Taft/Hartley Act, which remains in effect and establishes so-called “Right to Work” laws, provides that in such a closed shop system:

…[N]o employer shall justify any discrimination against an employee for non-membership in a labor organization (A) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that such membership was not available to the employee on the same terms and conditions generally applicable to other members, or (B) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership was denied or terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.

So even if the IBT removed you from the union the employer could not simply turn around and fire you.

The Railway Labor Act discusses this situation:

…[N]o such agreement shall require such condition of employment with respect to employees to whom membership is not available upon the same terms and conditions as are generally applicable to any other member or with respect to employees to whom membership was denied or terminated for any reason other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues, initiation fees, and assessments (not including fines and penalties) uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.

Unlike the lawyer who wrote our contract these guys were actually good. It clearly states that fines and penalties can't be held against you. Fines and penalties can be created at any time and aren't to be used as a political weapon.


If ALPA came to tomorrow and the pilot group felt they could do a better job then through the proper process there's nothing the IBT could do.

 

Just to toss it out there...I'm not a fan of the IBT. They (the leadership, not my pilot group) have left me out in the cold on several occasions. That being said, I still don't think the state of the IBT at RAH should be a matter of public dispute until something meaningful happens.

The strongest part of a union is it's pilot group. Any pilot group should be able to overcome an incompetant lawyer and it's worthless business agent (whether you throw them out, vote them out, create another union, or create an organizational structure that can work around their ineptitude). Ours has not been able to any of this due to a lack of involvement by it's pilot group. There is, at best, a handful of volunteer union guys for over 2,000 pilots. Show me the volunteers and I'll show you my signature.

 

Although I agree that this isnt the place, it doesnt help that you dont read the posts thoroughly enough to know what the argument is about. This is not about the furloughs. Totally about another issue, all together.

 

Christ...look a couple posts higher and figure it out...