ALPA charging dues after terminating membship
 

Is this for real? How is this even legal?

I didn't know I owed $7 and I received a notice letting me know of the termination of my membership and expulsion from ALPA. That's fair enough. What got me was the 4th paragraph of the letter.

"According to section XX of the current agreement between XXXXXX and ALPA, those pilots who are not members of the Association must pay a service charge equal to the Association's regular dues and assessments".

Isn't that a form of extortion? I have to pay no matter what even after they have expelled me?

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

That is one of the negatives with regard to having a union on the property. You don't have to belong, but you still have to pay.

Being expelled is a serious matter. What did you do?

Some unions are a closed shop since even non-members are represented by the contract in terms pay, benefits and legal if there is a problem.

Owed them $7 but didn't know it. I'm sure it can be rectified. It just shocked me that they can dump you and you still have to pay them. What great deal they have!

I was expelled after I quit my job at an ALPA carrier. Apparently I owed them $0.75 when I quit. I called them and told them that I am no longer employed and that I didn't plan on paying out of pocket for union dues at an airline I no longer worked for. I still got the "Due to your delinquency in payments, you have been expelled from The Airline Pilots Association...." letter. I just LOL'ed and threw it away:rolleyes:

I would have done the same. I still work for my carrier though so have to sort it out. If I'm paying for ALPA no matter what, I may as well.

It would be an easy thing to contact your membership chairman at your carrier or ex-carrier. Many properties have "dues checkoff" and each paycheck is deducted the 1.95% and at the end of the year the company records are matched up with ALPA. Many times it's a couple bucks either way. At my carrier many pilots will be getting back a really small check (like a few bucks) from payroll screwups in 09 and early 2010.

What it comes down to is that ALPA is a business. They're on your side as long as they are getting money from you...

Too bad they're not as tough on management and the government as they are on their own membership.

Ya' know, there was a time I would have passionately argued the point with you for a very long time. However, of late, I'm more of the persuasion that there is a real nugget of truth in "...ALPA is a business..." My observations at the local LEC level is that most of the guys are passionate about representing and working hard for the guys they are peers with. But it sure seems that, at some undefined National level, (former) line pilots loose their way, and seem to get drunk with union politics & power. Maybe it's my cynical streak getting the better of me today...
Chuck

As long as enough people believe that ALPA is a business and not a union, then the long it will behave like one and, consequently, be less effective as a UNION.

The money side of ALPA is both necessary and slightly embarrassing. Tracking down deadbeats is good, but most often is it simply an oversight by the member. During the 2001 Comair strike, I missed one $10 assessment and didn't know it until I couldn't log into the ALPA website any more. A phone call to Herndon answered the question of why and I followed it up with a check. I'm a volunteer too and have been one for over 5 years when that happened. The debt collection side of ALPA has no sense of humor.

Still, if someone is advocating we ditch unionism because of this matter or that making deadbeats pay up is a bad think, I'd love to hear their reasoning on why they think it should be so.