AZcfi

Just a thought from a 30 year union leader who retired early to become a CFI. First, organizing is hard work. Second the size of most organizations dictates that you would collectively go broke trying to get a contract. Many (state schools) may already have a union by virtue of their state employee status. People WILL be fired, regardless of the fact that it's illegal. But I think it,'s doable. Rather than an Industrial union model where the employer is the sole source of all benefits. I would attempt a Taft-Hartley "Trade Union" model. This model would be the union and the employer working together to provide benefits such as health care, pension, etc. If the employer works at the trade, which most still do, they to would be eligible for membership. It would also benefit the employer as far a securing trained union employees. My experience since becoming a CFI is that most FBO's don't know a thing about workplace rights.

JamesNoBrakes

I'm familiar with this process. Find unions that currently represent CFIs, there are more than a few if you do your work, second, contact that union and ask them about the process to get representation. If interested, the union will send someone out and eventually there'll be a vote. This usually will scare the hell out of management, but the hard part is convincing enough of your fellow CFIs to "give a damn", as so many in this industry think they are 1 week away from getting "the call" for the next step. The secondary way to do it is attempt to have some kind of teacher's union represent you, but as flight instructors you often are not considered a teaching professional and it's difficult to sell that for some reason.

outaluckagain

Getting to know people that are in a CFI union is a good start. Ask them what they think of it, and how they got organized. Also, get your hands on a current CFI contract and read it! See what those guys are getting!
I could send an attachment with a CFI contract, but I am not sure the union will want me passing this arouind. There is a CFI contract on the internet. It is IAM, and represents some Instructors in Phoenix Goodyear that teach German airline students.
The IAM has represented Instructors, and they have many years experience. There is also the IBT which has represented airline pilots, but no Instructors as far as I am aware. Get reasearching! The more you learn the better off you will be. Don't get stuck withg the wrong union. Don't ever sell yourself short!!

dl773

I'm a student at one such academy. CFIs here have excellent benefits already. And most instructors here are only here until they get on with an airline or corporate flight department.

I also fear the rigid cost structure imposed by a union would impact hiring of new CFIs and the competitiveness of the academy to win contracts. That's not in line with most instructor's interest.

tinman1

As has been said previously in this thread, I just don't see there being enough interest for this to get any traction. I have over 3 years experience teaching for two different 141 schools with international contracts and for 95% of the instructors (I call them time builders) it is just a stepping stone job. My current employer even offered health insurance to instructors at one point and there was hardly any interest. Most younger career pilots are fairly healthy and probably are already covered by their parents policy if they're under 26. And most of these types won't be around long enough to reap any kind of significant benefit from a 401k program either.

Those who are good enough to make a career as a CFI are smart enough to specialize their instructional abilities and make more $$ doing free lance work. Most of these are the "one man wolf pack" types and are probably your best shot at generating enough interest to form some kind of professional trade union (I really don't know much about these).

And lastly one group that hasn't been mentioned so far in this thread is foreign instructors who are employed on some sort of work VISA. I've worked with quite a few of these types, and although they're cool to work with, they are shy about being a part of anything that opposes management for fear of being sent home. I ran into this problem at a former employer (European owned) where we all took a significant pay cut, yet nobody wanted to come together for any sort of collective bargaining agreement. I ended up leaving for greener pastures where I got a raise and a free MEI.

JamesNoBrakes

Ahh, but so on-demands and commuters to regionals.

And regionals, to nationals.

And nationals to legacies.

And legacies to major cargo.

And major cargo to boeing/airbust test pilot.

And test pilot to NASA...

and so on...

tinman1

Just calling it like I see it. CFI labor groups have no spine because nobody wants to be around long enough to reap any of the benefits.

And to add to that, for me it has been part of my career and not just a stepping stone. I take pride it in and have enjoyed it, but I am ready to move on and do something different.

JamesNoBrakes

Not only do they not want to be around long enough to do so, they all don't think they will be around long enough to do so, but I'm of the opinion that you NEED the realistic opportunity to achieve decent benefits and pay in any job to make people give a damn about doing it. It doesn't mean you pay everyone a ton of money at first and it doesn't mean that you overpay everyone eventually either, it's a balance, but you need "something" to make it worthwhile and keep a certain amount of experience and ability that will remain relatively constant throughout the years. If you pay like crap and treat the instructors at some kind of semi-associated contractor, expect performance in line with how you treat your employees. My experience with union vs non-union jobs has been good for the union ones and treated-like-crap for the non-union (excluding military). Of course that isn't most people's experience in the airline industry, since airline "unions" are an example of an extremely dysfunctional and conflicted union, but in my personal experience the unions I dealt with made things quite a bit better at the company, and the company was usually interested in getting a fair share of work out of you. So to put it simply, you worked your rear end off, but the union made sure you were compensated fairly for it. In the non-union job working my rear end off I was often treated poorly and not paid for the time I worked. It's usually not people with evil motives trying to just "be mean", it's a company trying to maximize it's profit and reduce costs. If they could get you to work for nothing, or heck, PAY THEM while you work (hey, this works in aviation in places) they'd do it in a heartbeat. So the option becomes "just don't work", go hungry, get thrown in jail, etc, maybe eventually leverage the company to be fair to the employees if they run out of bodies and decide it's still worth it to continue their business, or unionize and ensure that fairness while keeping people employed and contributing something to the economy. Does it work in every situation? No. Some unions are horrible. Only the people at that company can decide whether or not a union would benefit them, and you are right that many people don't want to put in the effort or time to actually do so. Heck, many people don't want to put in the time or effort to exercise for god's sake and they want some politician to magically solve all of the worlds problems while increasing their standard of living with absolutely no compromise in all the luxuries they enjoy.

IMO, treat any job as if you may get stuck there for life. It should have reasonable paths if one decides to do just that. If a company operates like this it is likely a good place to work IME and people will put in the time and effort necessary to do a good job. If this takes a union, then that's what it takes. If it's a small enough company and the managers are forward-thinking enough, maybe it doesn't require that. If it's a flight-by-night barely-held-together-at-the-seams operation that is always on the edge of packing up and going home, well they probably need to do the public a service and do just that so somebody stronger and provide a more quality service.

tinman1

I completely agree with what you are saying. Although the instructors where I work are not unionized, there is a system in place where your pay rate increases with dual given in order to keep some experience around.