That's cool.

One thing that may be helpful as a frame of reference here to understand the history is how ALPA came to be at Continental and what happened just after that.

When IACP was on property, it contained a combined Board of Directors of both CAL and CAL EXp pilots. Each member had an equal vote. Although there were two separate labor contracts in place. This may also help to explain how and why CAL chose to negotiate a flow through agreement at Express. There was one union representing both pilot groups. Problems arose in the sense that Scabs really controlled the ALPA arm that represented mainline. So, concepts like Junior Manning were fully endorsed by the local ALPA leadership since it was something that Flight Ops wanted. These same people who were in charge of ALPA at the MEC office in Houston were the same people who were in the Ops Group, which was co-chaired by Debbie McCoy and Fred Abbot.

Not too many people know that Debbie McCoy was negotiated out of a job when CAL got its contract and with the full support of the express pilots. We told Gordon that we wouldn't sign either contract unless Debbie was gone. CAL gave her 2.3 million dollars as a parting gift and through the unity and support of the express pilots, specifically to support the CAL pilots that contract was done. So, it did not go un-noticed by the former express pilots who subsequently came to CAL that there was a problem within ALPA at the MEC level. Anything Flight Ops wanted, flight ops got.

Subsequently after ALPA came on property the two MEC's were split (which was one BOD). Once this occurred, the scabs controlled ALPA because they had the votes to do it. Jay Panarello (Chairman), Bruce Stone (LC 171 Chair), Bob Shoemaker (LC 171 VC), and PJ Markvotiz(LC 171 grievance chair) were all scabs and all decided to hate on express pilots. Combined with the mis-guided efforts of former LC 171 Chair Jimmy Tripson, also a scab and you can see that there was a huge demographic of pilots tired of getting dumped on by ALPA. Some did not understand why this was happening. It took some time for me and others to understand that the name on the door didn't matter. You could call it ALPA, or call it IACP, or call it Ops Group and it wouldn't matter. It was the same people in charge.

The real issue here is how it came to be. ALPA needed the express pilots to vote in ALPA as opposed to IACP and that did happen. Express pilots overwhealmingly voted in ALPA and countered the scab influence. However, once the MEC was split, the influence of the scabs was too much to overcome and the culture of insanity was ingrained.

The culture shifted through some rather heroic efforts of two IAH pilots who recalled Bruce Stone, and Bob Shoemaker. There were some pilots caught up in a triploss scandal and Ex Cncl member Joe Fagone from Fed Ex wrote an exhaustive report on the subject. Every pilot paid back the money except Bob Shoemaker. Shoemaker was recalled overwhealmingly, even Scabs voted to recall him. Scabs are scabs, but what they don't like is a fellow scab stealing their dues money. Over 70 percent if IAH pilots voted to recall those two with over 96 percent participating. Never been seen before in ALPA.

So, the rub is this: many pilots bent over backwards for ALPA to come on property and we heard allot of promises. All these pilots want is what they were guaranteed: Competent and fair representation, the ALPA tool box, career progression, job security, etc, etc. A big deal was made of the merger and fragmentation policy in the road shows. So far, I don't see that stuff they were talking about then in 1999.

The retirements and exclusion of the scabs in the process has improved things, but IAH couldn't turn the corner until Stone/Shoe were done for good, and many here are still trying to get over that dark period of our history. It was a trade off: independence of voice and agenda for a Nationalized agenda. I think it only works if you can get the regionals to represent themselves via another mechanism. I still see split agendas at the national level and that shows up in the legislative arena as well.

ALPA isn't perfect, but its all we got, so I get it. I do believe in about 3 years this will be behind us, but it is going to take a herculean effort for the UAL controlled MEC to check their egos at the door and treat the L CAL pilots in a dignified manner. I do agree with a previous poster about the BAT process. What a problem that is, but it was endorsed by the MEC and that means the MEC was bowing to someone's priorities and agenda.

 

So, you are saying you get full longevity when you are unemployed? Somehow I don't get that. I don't think that is remotely fair to someone who hasn't been furloughed. One pilot could have been hired in 1996, but has been on furlough for 10 years, while another pilot could have been hired in 1998 and hadn't been furloughed, yet the 96 hire gets more longevity? Not sure how that is fair.

 

baseball, nice short history of that crazy messed up period. So many people I flew with couldn't figure out why the mainline voted against a single seniority list then. I mean, who wouldn't want 2000 pilots instantly tacked on and take some control over the regional flying at the same time. Guess this explains that. On the money about how they can change the name of the Union but if the don't change the people then nothing changes. As painful as it is and will be for awhile, one thing is for sure, all that has been washed away. Even our later union leadership just didn't seem up to the task, although there were some great individuals thrown out with the bath water.

Also thought McCoy left because somebody accidentally let her see a spreadsheet and she noticed that reserves flew fewer hours than lineholders (duh) and figured if they flew as much as lineholders she could add 200 more pilots to the post 9/11 furloughs. She did, and then there was no slack in the system at all since reserves HAD to fly 80 hours just to complete the block hours, but there were no reserves for these "reserves" and they lost flights when things got tight. Plus the Iraq war was getting under way and when the extremely lucrative CRAF flying was offered, we couldn't take it because there were no pilots left to fly it. When Bethune heard the reason why we couldn't get on the CRAF gravy train he blew a gasket and summarily fired her, with parting gifts of course, and the 200 were recalled after just 11 months gone.

 

All that is true. However, Company was told that no contract would be offered to pilots to vote on if McCoy was in charge. McCoy took everything personal and essentially was a one-girl wrecking squad. The union stood up a labor/grievance group just to counteract what Debbie was doing disciplinary wise against pilots. If you were fired by McCoy in that time period it was like a badge of Honor. Fred was her understudy and he learned he could manipulate IACP and/or ALPA through it's own rules. Once Fred learned the rules of the game, he figured he could manipulate ALPA to get what he wanted. Debbie was doing it too, but if you cross her, she fired you, and then you had to fight the issue you were fighting and then fight to get your job back simultaneously. Hard to do. Many "fighters" stopped fighting once Debbie had your number. It essentially neutered anyone who wanted to move the ball. The union knew it would never move the ball if all their unionists were being targeted. So, Debbie had to go. Essentially the union held the company hostage over that, and actually left money on the table so that deal could get done.

 

No, I'm saying longevity accrued counts for something when the list is constructed, either when one is on furlough or not. EKN saw fit to apply a 35% credit for longevity.

Are you suggesting pilots accrued longevity while on furlough?

 

So how is it possible that you were one of the "miscounted" 9-11 Furloughees, (meaning hired at CAL prior to 9-11) but at the same time had some of the 1,400 furloughed UAL pilots placed ahead of you, even though the most senior furloughed pilot was merged with CAL 2006 hires?

You claim you were there at CAL when ALPA came on the property in 2000, but that you had UAL furloughed pilots put ahead of you.

Those two sentences don't compute.

 

Not so fast! There were many left-seaters voluntarily picking up open time or voluntarily junior manning themselves while the 147 were unnecessarily furloughed.

It would infuriate me to see these yahoos build their little nest in the right seat followed by me torturing them to death.

Just want to make sure there isn't some revisionist history going on here.

 

And just to be VERY CLEAR...the EKN ISL formula only used actual measured longevity as an active pilot. No pilots who spent any time on furlough at either LCAL or LUAL received longevity credit for the time they were not active.

 

UAL 1996 hires were never furloughed. Not even close to it. We ended up being merged with CAL 1998 hires, who were also never furloughed. 1996 hires at UAL had more longevity than 1998 hires at CAL.

No furloughed pilot got longevity credit for time on furlough. Only active time. So if a pilot who was on furlough at the merger date (And there were CAL and UAL pilots both on furlough at that time) they only got credit for their active time. It was more than 7 years active longevity for many pilots which is how they ended up being paired with pilots with less than 4 years of actual longevity.

 

It's a trend.