The company loves deep thinkers like this. First, it would fail under it's own weight and it wouldn't take long for the pilots to loss interest in the process. You'd have larger domiciles dominating the smaller - kinda like IAH and EWR vs GUM and CLE but you know that. The current squabble over this TA a good indication of the lack of the knowledge of the real issues. You've brought this up several times and yet you've given no example of a union or collective using it. Current system has served us well for years. Would you care to venture a guess when the UAL pilots started getting up/down votes on the contract?

Thanks Staller.

I don't think I have ever met an American who wants to be dictated to by his leaders. We should get a vote on this TA, and everything else, including our leadership.

Actually, for the life of me, I can't imagine any pilot arguing the case that they want ALPA to make all decisions for us, and we shouldn't vote. I have never met one.

Wait, yeah I have. Our ALPA reps.

"Would you care to venture a guess when the UAL pilots started getting up/down votes on the contract?"


I believe the answer to your question, is about 9 years after you crossed the picket line. But I could be wrong about the number of years. I never was good at math.

I'll disagree with you on the idea that the membership should get a vote on everything. There are some things that require membership voting where they shouldn't get past the MEC; this TA is not one of them. The MEC vote appears to me to have been done mostly along LUAL political lines. For all of my LCAL brethren, welcome to the dysfunctional politics of the LUAL MEC that has dominated our union for at least 15 years.

I read the opposing point of view to this TA and found their argument lacking. I was troubled by the fact that they stated up front their opposition wasn't about the money portion of the TA and then proceeded to try to poke holes in the TA almost exclusively on the money portion of the TA.

A lot of discussion has been the amount of leverage that we have right now. I don't disagree with that concept. However, in order to maintain leverage over the long term, it must be used judiciously. Overuse of leverage will just result in the company running to the court system. And over the last decade plus a few years, union records in courtrooms are something like 0-20 (made up number; I don't know the actual number but it's abysmal).

So a better question than 'how much leverage do we have' is 'how much leverage do we want to use'? Yes, we may be able to get something better than this TA IF we exert a lot of pressure on the company. Or we can take a very good TA without expending leverage and (likely) overplaying our hand. Pyrrhic Victories suck and this union has had too many Pyrrhic Victories over the last decade.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Maybe you should put your head back under the pillow until that Staller moment passes.

But seriously, the inability to do math can be traced back to childhood. Rolling on the back, kicking feet and banging head on the floor has done permanent damage in some. Sad thing is many never seem to learn that it doesn't work. Do you keep moms number on speed dial to avoid forgetting it?

You never responded to the initial question of the governing structure of ALPA. I'm beginning to think that you, gettingbumped, Jsled and Andy are doing the company work by attacking ALPA and the logical thinking segment of the pilot population.

Dude, implying that anyone who disagrees with you is a management stooge only weakens your case.

You must have missed the portion of my post that was in agreement with you on the MEC's role. It was phrased differently but was aligned with your opinion of the MEC's role - too subtle for you? I wasn't attacking ALPA.

You disagree with some on whether or not the TA is acceptable. No need to stoop to calling us management stooges just because we disagree.

It's the only thing that would explain the attacks you guys have mounted. The votes will fall where they will and unfortunately, if the yes voters win they will immediately crow and then start complaining that ALPA didn't do enough. You want to be an independent contractor then vote yes. It's your choice.

I know many have personally attacked you here; I don't think I've ever made any personal attacks against you. If I have, my apologies; I've drunk posted more than a couple of times and it's part of my New Years resolutions to not drunk post.

I view this TA as part of the larger union picture of union bargaining. We snag a quick pay raise raising the bar on that front. Southwest's already in full contract negotiations so our pay rates help them out on that front and they (and Delta) can try to raise the bar on section 6 items. Hopefully when we return to the table for full contract negotiations, a lot of the work in terms of section 6 are already there in the new Southwest and Delta contracts, allowing negotiators to concentrate on those items rather than pay rates.

I also think that there's a much less insidious reason why the company wants to extend the pilot contract. I read a while back (can't remember the source; sorry, no reference at this time) that the company wants to stagger its union contracts so that it doesn't have to negotiate all of the contracts at the same time. Take that for what it's worth - that alone may be worth a quick 13% to the company.

Can't buy into that because it would be cheaper to stager the other employee groups than the pilots.