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Old 11-12-2023, 09:38 AM
  #11  
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Originally Posted by Kebert Xela
You get charged union dues even if you're not a member.
Consult your local labor attorney, but TX, AZ, and FL (AA hubs) are right to work states. Regardless, larger point about the PAC remains the same. I don't think anyone should get a hard sell on where to send or donate their money, ever. But the argument of "I don't like the union so I'm stopping my PAC contributions that I previously was giving" never made sense to me considering where the PAC money goes to.
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Old 11-12-2023, 12:03 PM
  #12  
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Originally Posted by Easyflier301
Consult your local labor attorney, but TX, AZ, and FL (AA hubs) are right to work states. Regardless, larger point about the PAC remains the same. I don't think anyone should get a hard sell on where to send or donate their money, ever. But the argument of "I don't like the union so I'm stopping my PAC contributions that I previously was giving" never made sense to me considering where the PAC money goes to.
right to work is over ruled by federal railway labor act, by which airline labor is governed.
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Old 11-13-2023, 07:16 AM
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Originally Posted by Easyflier301
ALPA drive completely aside, the idea that you should stop contributing to the arm of the union dedicated to protecting our profession (which is under fire from multiple threats - 1500 hour rule, foreign carriers, single piloted aircraft, age 67, etc) in order to hurt said union is shortsighted, at best (That’ll sure show ‘em!”) 🤪

If you want to save money and hurt the union, it would make more sense to just leave it and stop paying your dues. Also not a wise move, but hey you do you.
some of us are still on training pay and yr 1 pay, with student loans, kids, etc, we're not all in the 2-300k+/yr pay rates yet...yes, if APA is still here when I hit year 2 pay, maybe I'll shift back. Question, do they do the same high pressure sales for PAC at recurrent, or is that just to prey on new hires?
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Old 11-13-2023, 07:23 AM
  #14  
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I think ALPA is a better choice than APA, but it isn't going to magically fix all of our problems. ALPA has its own share of corruption and bloat. Also, it's likely that the same reps will just get new pins and lanyards and bigger slush funds unless we clean house.
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Old 11-13-2023, 07:37 AM
  #15  
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Originally Posted by el_duderino
some of us are still on training pay and yr 1 pay, with student loans, kids, etc, we're not all in the 2-300k+/yr pay rates yet...yes, if APA is still here when I hit year 2 pay, maybe I'll shift back. Question, do they do the same high pressure sales for PAC at recurrent, or is that just to prey on new hires?
That was my main complaint. I understand the good work the PAC does but instead of giving new hires useful information about the APA app (oh wait, that doesn't work anyway) it's an hour long sales pitch for the PAC with a quick blurb about reading Compass documents. Save that until the upgrade dinner when we have excess income to distribute.
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Old 11-13-2023, 08:32 AM
  #16  
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Originally Posted by tallpilot
That was my main complaint. I understand the good work the PAC does but instead of giving new hires useful information about the APA app (oh wait, that doesn't work anyway) it's an hour long sales pitch for the PAC with a quick blurb about reading Compass documents. Save that until the upgrade dinner when we have excess income to distribute.
Bingo. I *****ed to the union leadership about this back in 2014-2016. I was doing job fair and Compass Project volunteering. Guess what? The then president of APA was pro-ALPA and wanted to get the PAC support up. The membership committee members had their marching orders when they met with the new hires... I guess it hasn't changed.

A BIG issue I believe in, which would have been time better spent than pushing PAC on them, was informing new hires how the disability works. All the majors are around 50-60% of your income...but few new hires realize it's not your CURRENT salary but it's LAST YEAR's salary. So you're not getting 50-60% of $90-100,000 if you go on disability as a new hire. You're getting 50-60% of last year's salary that the airline paid you. The day before indoc you're salary at the airline was zero. On Day 1 of indoc you're at 1/365 of $90-100,000(Mabye $110-120,000 with the new contracts). That's roughly $250. Divided that by 12 months and it's $20 a month. After taxes you'll get about $9 dollars every 2 weeks x the number of days you've been on property when you go onto disability.

I also told my APA contacts that they should come up with some bank of sick hours concept that new hires get so that they're not facing disability if they break their wrist or anything else in the first year or two. Supposedly there's some sort of sick bank plan for new hires in the new contract. I saw it but don't remember the details.
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Old 11-13-2023, 11:28 AM
  #17  
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Originally Posted by Sliceback
Bingo. I *****ed to the union leadership about this back in 2014-2016. I was doing job fair and Compass Project volunteering. Guess what? The then president of APA was pro-ALPA and wanted to get the PAC support up. The membership committee members had their marching orders when they met with the new hires... I guess it hasn't changed.

A BIG issue I believe in, which would have been time better spent than pushing PAC on them, was informing new hires how the disability works. All the majors are around 50-60% of your income...but few new hires realize it's not your CURRENT salary but it's LAST YEAR's salary. So you're not getting 50-60% of $90-100,000 if you go on disability as a new hire. You're getting 50-60% of last year's salary that the airline paid you. The day before indoc you're salary at the airline was zero. On Day 1 of indoc you're at 1/365 of $90-100,000(Mabye $110-120,000 with the new contracts). That's roughly $250. Divided that by 12 months and it's $20 a month. After taxes you'll get about $9 dollars every 2 weeks x the number of days you've been on property when you go onto disability.

I also told my APA contacts that they should come up with some bank of sick hours concept that new hires get so that they're not facing disability if they break their wrist or anything else in the first year or two. Supposedly there's some sort of sick bank plan for new hires in the new contract. I saw it but don't remember the details.
What is PAC? Need to know what to look out for in 2 weeks. Thx
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Old 11-13-2023, 11:49 AM
  #18  
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Originally Posted by Flapps3658
What is PAC? Need to know what to look out for in 2 weeks. Thx
Unions aren't allowed to use member money for political action, so they must collect money seperately. I'm a cheap bastard but do $5/paycheck. If everyone did it, it would be almost $2m to use towards buying some political influence in Washington.

Like it or not, $$ buys access and without any access we're left out in the cold in regards to legislation. Note, I didn't mention political party, because it's party agnostic.

It's $120/yr, I try not to judge people with personal finances but it's one of the easiest, cheapest, ROIs you can get in this industry. Saying you can't afford that because "student loans" is an absolutely cringe worthy cop out.

With automation and the threat of removing pilots moving forward, we need all the access we can get.
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Old 11-13-2023, 11:51 AM
  #19  
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Originally Posted by Margaritaville
I think ALPA is a better choice than APA, but it isn't going to magically fix all of our problems. ALPA has its own share of corruption and bloat. Also, it's likely that the same reps will just get new pins and lanyards and bigger slush funds unless we clean house.
Valid point.

But (speaking from recent experience) a potential path forward would be to elect (mostly) new reps, leveraging folks who have relevant experience at their previous airlines... breaks the old-boy paradigm, gets in fresh blood, new ideas, youthful vigor.

You'd still benefit from ALPA national backstopping the process, and the prior airline union experience of the new reps.

I'm sure there a at least a few good guys in APA, keep them too for continuity.
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Old 11-13-2023, 12:53 PM
  #20  
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Originally Posted by 8802
I was all for a merger, but undecided on a card drive/decertification.

How they've handled this IT failure had me print out and sign a card. Bush league doesn't even begin to cover it.

Here we are bidding for December, and none of the OAC tools are available. In a large bid status the pairing sorter and looking at historical bids (especially with the holidays) is borderline essential. Rob also has said APA will stop providing PBS Bid Award data for LiteSabre trips going forward, which is amazingly helpful to see what trips you can hold.

But don't worry, they got that PAC donation link up and running lickedy-split.
I worked in IT for years before I came to AA. Seeing this from the sideline, this is completely pathetic. I cannot believe that an org with this small of a footprint (APA) got their butts kicked this bad. It should not take a weeks to restore from backups - Which means they had crap for backups, crap for documentation, and crap for any kind of DR policy. Basically, a total $hitshow in the IT world. If this was a real business, they'd be going out of business.

I'm also hearing that they aren't responding to password reset requests. Good jorb.
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