The sad thing is that those Alpa's activist fail to realize that. Pathetic.

 

You are correct, many of the people behind the AEPA are in fact former leadership people responsible for the 16 year contract. They are counting on the fact that there is only a minority of that pilot group who knows or remembers.

However, like everythign else in that 16 year contract, the scope section itself was written so poorly, that all it did was join the 4 eagles into one seniority list.... it left the door wide open to subcontract out as much as AMR could get away with.

When their contract expires, instead of whipsawing 4 wholly owned regionals, they'll whipsaw one wholly owned, and several outsourced.
They have 71 pilots on the street and at the same time are negotiating scope relief with APA. When that happens, they will want larger jets at the commuters. Through past trial and error (TSA) they learned they can outsource flying so long as their traingin center is incapabale of keeping up with AMR demand... so, they furlough 71 pilots when they are shortstaffed already... they send instructors back tot he line, creating trainging and displacement delays....
When the APA gives in, or the arbitrator awars the jets to AMR commuters, they will recall all pilots, and overwhelm the training center to recreate the need for outsourced flying, just like they did with TSA.

 

I know the aepa is headed up by a former alpa mec officer - but not the mec during the 1997 contract. Eagle pilots have good reason to distrust alpa national; their insistince that eagle pilots try "interest based barganing" for example. The first thing alpa did for me was negotiate a 10K pay cut. Haven't trusted them ever since.

 

It will be interesting when ALPA gets the majority of their dues from regional carriers as opposed to mainline. I bet we are approaching that point, and I wonder if this will change the ALPA national sentiment.

 

I wonder what would happen if you ran an airline with honesty and integrity rather than all these games?

Would the world blow up or something?

 

No, your paycheck would say Southwest, or Jetblue.....

 

What's going to happen in 2012 when the contract is up?

Is it going to be as chaotic as I think it will be....

 

Doubtful. I dont think our pilot group is united/fired up enough to vote for a strike. I expect a long drawn out process, but in the end we will see meager gains in pay at the expense of work rules, much the same way our amendment rounds have been. We wont get an industry leading contract, but an industry average one.

 

The problem is very few people actually vote. I dealt with the current leadership and saw first hand some of what goes on (if it's still HM, DR). I've seen some people get a committee position and think they run more than they do. One went on to be a LEC chair.

I don't think the AEPA leadership is the answer either. The current leaders want to keep their position and the old ones want it back. The best answer would be to find someone new in the pilot group that wants to do it, would be good at it, and elect him/her.

 

I agree.

NEITHER group will lead our pilots into the future. It will take a completely new team. Unfortunately, most likely it will be the current featherbeders who will smoke a deal with management and once again make a sacrifice look like a victory.

This pilot group will be squarely in the middle of the pack regional compensation-wise in the future.......of course, that will be one reason it survives. It already has the network and infrastructure and once it can fly a reasonably profitable aircraft, it's labor costs are all that's then necessary to insure prosperity for management.....that and a pistol to the head in the form of another carrier flying just enough to insure whipsaw capabilities.