I would like to have some of the American Eagle Pilots check this website and voice their opinions.

Aepa - Front Page

I feel that many of us (mostly myself) are somewhat disconnected to what the union is actually doing. Are the top officers representing the needs and wants of 2600+ pilots? Are they being honest? or do they have their own agenda?
When it comes to ALPA national is even worse since all I know is their work at the CREWPASS project and how the Major Airlines have the only professional pilots in the United States.

I would Also like to respectfully ask the moderator to not relocate this thread since it seems that the problem might lie in the very limited information that we have in our union and the recourse available when the union fails to address our problems.

Please voice your opinions; with facts if known, or put to rest the ones that are untrue. We the pilots at Eagle need to start being proactive in our future since nowadays it seems that we will spend a good amount of time at this company, so in four years we need to know if ALPA is up to the task to negotiate our future.

 

Excellent website. I wish the American Eagle pilot group the best of luck in removing ALPA in the near future. The little rules ALPA National upholds to each MEC prevents them from writing what they want and acting like a real union (more like a neutral middleman than anything else).. just ask one of you MEC members what kind of hoops they have to jump through to publish an e-mail (the approval process). I can just imagine what kind of rules each negotiating team is upheld to when in contract negotiations.

Independent unions work the best.. just look at SWA or AA.

 

Well, I tend to agree that ALPA is pretty much a powerless middleman entity, but hey, their magazine sure is great - isn't it???

Signing a 16 year contract with a no strike clause? Management can walk all over us now until its time to renegotiate because they know we can't do anything about it.

I also love all the talk about ALPA working to get us increased pay and bring pilot salaries up. Well, uh, weren't you the ones that agreed to the pay we have now?

Unions are the opiate of the masses. All things being equal I would like one with a little more bite.

 

I would check to see who's behind AEPA. I believe it is former MEC members and even a MEC chairman. They were the ones in charge. Do they just want to be in charge again? What part did they play in the 16 year contract? There are a lot of question to be asked/answered before jumping on the unknown bandwagon.

As far as the 16 year contract, it sucks but was done for the right reason.
Pontius, if you are at Eagle, I assume you came there well after the contract since your profile says FO. When there were 4 separate Eagles, AMR could whipsaw them all against each other. Wings West would have 2 year upgrades and Simmons would have 8 year upgrades. Don't like this contract, we'll furlough from this group and grow another. The 16 year contract solved that problem while creating others. Which is worth more?

 

The AEPA founder is a former Eagle ALPA officer, but wasn't involved with the 16-year contract as he was not an officer then. As for his assertions and examples, I hate to say it, but it does have some validity. His motives ARE to unseat ALPA, but I'm not sure if that would do much good. It's pretty moot anyway, because that would take action by the pilot group and the Eagle pilots by and large are too apethetic to care. The current MEC is very dysfunctional and the underlying belief among many (too many) is that they indeed have too cozy a relationship with management. The 16-year agreement was designed and implimented by a previous MEC, but this one has watered down our scheduling provisions at every 4 year amendmant round while representing to the pilots that they're better off. In fact, in the last round they represented we gave NO concessions, when we actually did, thus damaging their credibility further.

The MEC chairman hasn't flown an AE airplane in about 8 years and the upper cadre is seen by many as more interested in protecting their pretty good lifestyles then taking on management, thus the coziness. The top MEC officers are all making well over $100K annually and are in the mid-senioirty range. They WOULD like to see the senior dogs above them evaporate somewhere, but now as the AEPA claims, they're likely backpeddling because of how it looks after the Colgan accident.

The AEPA wouldn't have so much cedibility if our MEC didn't continually give them (or him) so much good ammo.

 

Agree with the above comments.

 

HM is actually doing IOE on the EMB right now. He just blocked out of LA.

 

Yes, I'm aware of that. The queston is why is he feeling it's necessary to fly NOW, when he's chosen not to for 8 years ?

He obviously had a great thing going.........why mess it up now ?

 

Cuz he got cought with his hands on the cookie jar.

 

I suppose.

You can only milk a cow so many times before it keels over and he sure milked that cow hard and long.