Frankly, I am tired of seeing ALPA make the same damn mistakes with regard to scope and unity, time after time, after time. In this case the lousy logic that was being used to justify outsourcing of flying at other airlines was ported over to another situation.

Unfortunately you will. If you refuse, ALPA has the ability to have you terminated.

I'm sure there are plenty of original Midwest pilots who could expand on this. What astonishes me, is how and why thousands of supposedly intelligent pilots keep going back to this trough so willingly.

I don't know.........perhaps another decade of this and more will finally start to smell the coffee. Insurance or not, I simply cannot see how there will not be a significant dues increase coming though that will take more money out of the line pilots pockets. Geez, the TSA guys may have just gotten a raise (feeble as it may well be), only to have Herndon possibly have to take it all back and then some.

Didn't ALPA in the past attempt to skim that portion of non-taxable retirement money from members (401(k), etc.) ?

They wouldn't try to after that again, would they ?

... and the pilots have the ability to terminate their representation by ALPA.

ALPA paid $44 million to the United retirees last year. This year's "oops" has the potential to result in replacement of career earnings for more than a thousand effected TWA pilots, so yes it could be a couple million per pilot. Back of the napkin math reveals a potential award that does in fact have a big B in it. ALPA will be unable to sustain that.

But surely there will be appeals ... .

If ALPA pushes an assessment, they will probably lose some major carriers quite rapidly.

This sucks. T-WAY is not even ALPA any more.

This could bankrupt ALPA; well, I guess that isn't such a bad thing.

You reap what you sow; now they'll just have to pay for selling out their members.

The real issue is this: TWA isn't the only pilot group ALPA has sold out. There are so many others, and the list keeps growing. Take heed, B6 pilots; ALPA would sell you down the river too, if they thought it was for the greater good.

Not to criticize current ALPA President Lee Moak, who had nothing to do with this, but Duane Woerth is a complete and total loser. Woerth wouldn;'t only sell his own Mother to complete a deal...he'd send her COD.

Now, because of Woerth's huge mistake, TWA pilots will get a settlement for damages.

No they can't. You can be a paying non-member. There were over a thousand US Airways pilots with this status prior to them de-certifying ALPA. There were a few ex-Western pilots flying at Delta with this status.

They certainly do, but I don't see anyone lining up to do it.

Well, didn't you say ALPA has successfully hidden all THEIR money offshore ?

It seems to me, if true, that's the same as saying to it's own pilots, "naa-na-na-naa-na, we've hidden our money and no one can get it". Which in effect (to me, at least), means that the representative body will have to foot the bill to make up for what insurance doesn't pay.

If they HAVE hidden it all away, isn't that yet ANOTHER example of an entity willing to throw it's membership to the wolves as it protects itself ?

That's the way I see it anyway.

Will "paying non-members" be insulated from having their share of any dues increase and/or assements being angled toward them, thus never increasing their costs and footing the bill for this or future improper actions ?

I'll bet not............and I say if a s%#t sandwich is handed to ALPA pilots to each take a bite, non-members will have caca breath too.

I believe the proper term (at Delta) is "agency shop".

What that means is membership in the union is optional (unlike a "closed shop" where membership is mandatory).

If one is not a member of the union in an agency shop they don't pay "union dues" but rather pay an "agency fee". This can be thought of as a fee for negotiating and administering the contract.

In theory you would not be paying for some of ALPA National's bloated bureaucracy, but I don't know what the savings (if any) would actually be.

I do believe you would be exempt from all assessments, but that's just my opinion.