Should we form a regional airline union?
 

I was just wondering what everyones opinion would be to forming one union regional industry wide. The majors tried to do this back in the 70's but if we could do it now we could hopefully quit whipsawing each other and set a higher pay level across the board.

This often gets proposed...

In order to be effective, you'd have to bring most if not all the regional airlines onboard. Do you think ALPA would let ASA, Comair, Air Wisconsin, Expressjet, or any other pilot group go without a fight? Could you get Skywest onboard with representation? Could you get RAH away from the IBT?

Besides, many ALPA regionals have been and currently are whipsawed against other ALPA regionals (see PSA/Piedmont/Mesa/Air Wisconsin in the Airways system, or Comair/ASA/Pinnacle/Mesaba in the DeltaWest system) and its doubtful changing the bargaining agent would make that stop.

In order to end the whipsaw and set a higher level of pay across the board, a large majority of the individual pilots making up individual pilot groups needs to put their own best interests on pause, for at least a little bit, and accept some short-term sacrifices (in pay, work rules, growth, etc) in order to achive long-term strategic gains.

...and is that really possible?

The union is neccessary at the regional level, otherwise the regionals would exploit/abuse turbine-lacking pilots more than they already do..... Are they neccesary at the majors, cargo and fractionals? I don't know, and I won't get into that, but they're definetly neccesary at the regionals, more than ever even........like I said, a young pilot wants to get to a 777 or G-V ASAP, so he/she will fly that RJ for ANY amount of money, to some young kids pay is completely irrelevant.......... A "union regional industry" could work on that.... I like that idea.....

Is it needed...absolutely, can it realistically happen.... very slim chance.

#1) existing regional union's parent orgs are not likely to let the money go... and lets not kid ourselves...unions are about money. I mean.. hell RAH's business agent ..basically a office manager for RAH's pilots with the union is paid more than probably all but a hand full of the pilots at said company.... pathetic.

heck... #1 is enough to sink this idea.
RAPA - Regional Airline Pilots Association -- great idea that will probably never fly.

It will never happen. The regionals right now can't even keep their own unions together.

Exactly. To add, if there isn't enough solidarity to stop management from whipsawing different ALPA regionals, how is it that enough solidarity can be generated to form all regionals under one union? One step at a time.....and regional pilots aren't even close to the first step.

ALPA needs to set national floors on salaries and refuse to sign off on any TA that would come in below those salaries. If they (the regional pilot group) can better that number fine, but no lower than "X" would be permitted. The main reason for bargaining would be QOL issues. And for our non-union brothers and sisters, they can remain non-union but they will be punished by a blackball list if they accept salaries below those scales. That is not going to happen either, but I believe that could work. Turbo is right, regional pilots can't even get their own house in order. Alpa is also an unconcerning money pit for pilots at the regional level. Just my 2 cents.

hmmm something to think about , maybe it could be like a division of ALPA example. RALPA (regional airline pilots association). Then again its more money to spend when there isn't no money to spend.

Regional flying needs to be eliminated all together. Regional pay and work rules need to be brought up to the standards of mainline. Something is wrong with a E-170 captain and FO making $65/hr and $24/hr respectively, while a captain on a mainline jet that seats just a few more people and weighs a few more pounds makes $150/hr and $80/hr.

Part of the problem is each MEC at each airline basically runs itself. The problem with ALPA isn't that it doesn't represent regional or mainline pilots equally.... it only represents an active pilot group. If your local MEC and pilots at your company don't stick up for themselves, you'll get walked on regardless if your mainline or regional.

The solution isn't a regional only union... there is strength in numbers, and further segregating pilot groups isn't the answer. A better solution would be more strict rules from ALPA National.
Provide a basic ALPA pilot contract that lists all the generic items that should be in our contracts.... then modify the ALPA by-laws such that no MEC is authorized to sign a contract for anything less than that basic contract.
Some things would vary from company to company... example; the pay section would cover every type aircraft, or every type by seating capacity (however you wanted to break it down) and establish minimum pay for an ALPA pilot on that equipment. Each airline only pulls from the national basic contract the parts that apply at their airline.

As long as our MEC's are allowed to operate as completely seperate bargaining entities there will be no unified progress, and it makes no difference if it is ALPA, or Regional ALPA.... without a unified bargaining position we won't win.

ALPA national supposedly already has a committee working on a industry general contract.

I love how much people come on here and beoitch about everything at their airlines, and yet hardly ever show up at a union meeting. Then when elections ARE held... 2% vote. You people are pathetic. Do you think management doesn't notice that only 2% of the pilot work force bothers to vote in their own union.

Grow up, stop complaining, and start acting...

and yes, portions of that were also rhetorical in nature....