HercDriver130

All unions suck... yet they are a necessary evil.... Id probably vote in ALPA over the teamsters......my personal experience with the Teamsters is a bitter one.

Dougdrvr

I know very little about the teamsters, but if the comments I've seen on these forums about the RAH contract are any indication, you might as well be an "at will" employee.

Spaceman Spliff

None of the above. A good union simply does not exist. Teamsters are in bed with the mafia, and ALPA national is in bed with anyone who will further their corrupt, self-serving, agenda. They'd sleep with a goat for a few bucks. Or Ted Stevens.

Neither gives a rat's ass about you and I.

Neither is worth a dollar a month, let alone what they're demanding for dues.

Dougdrvr

Simply my own personal experience, if it wasn't for the union (ALPA) I would have been furloughed out of seniority (when they parked my plane), my pay would have been cut up to 65%, the work rules (every bit as important as pay rates) would have gone in the toilet, and when I had a medical problem , it would have taken a great deal longer to get it back then it did. ALPA just authorized $2 mil to our MEC to fight this subcontracting scheme the company is imposing on us and that is way more than they will ever get back in dues for many years, so is it worth it? Time will tell.

kalyx522

You've obviously never worked worked for a non-union airline. When you come close to getting fired for total BS reasons or see others you know who have gotten suspended, certificate action, or fired, you'd appreciate your union. I jumpseated on a US Air flight a while back, when they were still trying to decertify ALPA. Both the captain and FO told me ALPA "needs to go to hell" but the captain then said, "but I will admit, the legal and medical protection you get alone IS worth it."

I wish people would stop going off the topic... our choices right now are ALPA and Teamsters. That's it. A "non-union" is not an option for us at this point.

vo1ce

Amen to that and let's not forget about regional fractionals.

not necessary

If history be the judge, neither alpa nor teamsters are the best. Both tend to look after their national organizations first, ensuring their survival even if it comes on the backs of their members.

Pilots probably need a union given modern management tendencies. However, that union should look after its members first and its bureaucracy should support the members, not vice versa. ANY union can provide competent legal and medical advice. Surely nobody is trying to say that the pilots at American, Southwest or UPS are somehow being disadvantaged because they are not alpa. Shoot, they make a LOT more money than alpa carriers and have lower dues because they don't have the bloated staff. When staffers in Washington are making more than 757 captains who pay their salaries, something is out of wack.

The last emperor of China fired all the eunichs. He discovered that he had hundreds of eunichs on the payroll, but that they were not serving him, they were serving the eunich bureaucracy.

The facts seem to support that those pilots with 'in-house' unions are doing better than either alpa or teamster members.

kalyx522

You may have a point, but I don't think an 'in-house' union would work in Colgan's case. The airlines you mentioned - American, Southwest and UPS - are all large airlines comprised of pilots that make more money than at most other carriers. I highly doubt that dues collected from a group of our size and payscale could buy benefits equal to what ALPA offers. Also, I could be wrong, but doesn't Southwest contract their legal and/or aeromedical services from ALPA?
another thing is that we kind of tried this 'in-house' thing last year after the vote failed... it was called Colgan Pilot Group, I don't even know who was in the group or how the whole thing worked, but it ended up amounting to absolutely nothing. hence, this ALPA v. IBT debate.

CAL EWR

FYI,

A good friend of mine brought the Teamsters on the property at North American. He became their N/C Chairman for two years. He is now at CAL and although he wants to strangle John Prater, he would take ALPA any day of the week over the Teamsters.

One thing about ALPA, it is independence plus. Your MEC sets its own objectives and agenda. So it really comes down to the guys you elect as your LEC reps who also are the voting body of the MEC. Those MEC reps elect the MEC Officers (MEC Chair, Vice Chair and SEC/TRES) to carry out the day to day operation of your MEC.

Good luck.

PS Not sure which local of the Teamsters your airline is considering. But the one run in Houston in an old gas station by Gene Sewell is not worth much. Gene was a former attorney for the IACP (the former CAL Independent Union) and wasn't a favoriate at our union. My friend from North American was in this Teamsters division and was very unimpressed with their services.

757upspilot

The pilots at UPS found that the Teamsters airline division as it existed in the early 90's was not working for us. This was in large part because the Teamsters national decided that we as a group did not have the experience to run our own local, they invalidated our elction of representatives. The pilots who had been elected to offices to represent us then took a huge risk and started the in house organization, both the Teamsters and UPS fought this.
The formation of the IPA required a huge effort on the part of every pilot on the property, money contributions, letting the guys starting the union know they where backed, and when a single line pilot was cut from the pack to be sacrificed by management letting the company know that we as a group of pilots would not tolerate this ( on a couple of occasions when a pilot was being berated by management they where actually surrounded by line pilots in the area which brought this practice to a stop).
Look at how soon you as a group will be allowed to run your own local, how much initial support you will have from the national, who you have willing to step up and take on the positons that require a very high level of courage, look at your fellow line pilots and see if you have a group willing to go toe to toe with the company. This is what you as a union and a pilot group must have, if you don't no union national or in house will accomplish a thing. If you have a group who wants to sit back and not participate on a daily basis , volunteer for committees, give up time , etc you will not reach the objectives. You will find that the pilots who complain the most about the union are the ones who are willing to contribute the least if at all or curry favor with management.
If we did not have an in house union at UPS I would favor being ALPA, while I have walked the picket with the Teamsters and been represented by them at two different companies, I think that ALPA has a better understanding of the needs of pilots.
Either is better than not having one and neither is any good without the resolve and support of the pilots they represent.

Good Luck