justfun

ALPA has been in trouble for a long time, because they are dealing with a two headed monster in their ranks. They have both the regionals and the mainline to deal with, which is at times contradictory. The regionals want the mainline flying and the mainline guys want to keep that flying. This has caused ALPA to become fragmented. ALPA can not continue to support the regionals at the expense of the mainline pilots.
Lee Moak was asked about this situation while he was speaking to the APA BOD a few years back. He just soft shoed around the answer.
I believe that in order for us to gain back what was stolen from us, we need to come together and use pattern bargaining in order to make that happen. Also, if there is a slow down or job action at one of the majors, then the other majors must do the same in order to show that we are together in this endeavor, or we will never regain what has been stolen from us. The management teams have been very successful in their use of pattern bargaining and in the use of BK to extract what they needed from all employee groups, so why can't we work together to do take advantage of a similar situation?
Food for thought.
We, the pilots of AA and LCC will need to work together to begin this long journey.
Best to all of us.

Flyby1206

This is the biggest threat to ALPA but it seems they havent been addressing it. All of those ****ed off and mis-treated regional pilots will one day make it to mainline. Then we will see all majors de-certify ALPA one at a time, DAL, UAL will have their independent unions because nobody will have any desire to be a part of a union that has screwed them for years prior. Regionals will be obsolete and much smaller, so ALPA will be left with their d*ck in their hands.

cactusmike

Did you see the letter from ALPA to American? The mighty ALPA reduced to begging for a seat at the mainline table for their regional pilots.

I was involved in two organizational drives for ALPA, at Henson and at AWA. My dad was a proud ALPA member for 32 years at UAL. But I would not vote for ALPA again unless the association went through a complete change in philosophy and management priorities. Not that I expect to ever have that opportunity to vote for ALPA again.

LittleBoyBlew

Agree totally. I earned an ALPA pin with a battle star...I mailed it back to them. A worthless association..

aa73

Wow, where do I start.

While I am no fan on how APA was started, I need to correct a couple of things you wrote:

B scales: Everyone loves to blame APA on starting B scales. Well guess what. A little history will reveal that UAL pilots under the poisoned leadership of one John Ferg - best buddies with Dick Ferris, UAL CEO - signed THE MOST CONCESSIONARY CONTRACT in history back in '81 or '82 known as "Blue Skies." This contract was deemed so concessionary and damaging to the profession that Bob Crandall, sensing an opening, expanded on that and one year later pushed B-Scales onto the AA pilots, enticing them with the world's largest aircraft order. The AA pilots, knowing that UAL pilots had signed Blue Skies a year earlier and were watching UAL start to kick tail, relented and signed. APA was simply guilty of piggybacking off the UAL pilots in the downward spiral.

You wrote, "Over and over again APA has helped management diminish the career expectations of the American Airline pilots and in many instances leading the rest of the profession down the drain. "

Wow, that's a strongly worded sentiment. A question: Where does ALPA fit in to this statement? Because last I checked, ALPA has had a long history of one blow to major airline pilots after another, while at the same time representing countless regional airline pilot groups that have exploded at the expense of major airline pilot furloughs. What has ALPA done to stop that? How can you blame APA, representing ONE pilot group, for "leading the rest of the profession down the drain" when ALPA has done exactly that while representing HOW MANY major airline pilot groups???

Secondly, APA was THE ONLY major airline pilot group who stood up to management's outrageous and hideous attempt in absolutely DECIMATING our careers in Ch 11 BK, spit in their faces, and in the meantime engineered a merger IN BK while kicking current management to the curb. WHO HAS EVER BEEN ABLE TO PULL THAT OFF?? Granted, we had previous Ch 11 cases to study and learn for, but I don't think it would be a stretch to **THANK** the APA for setting the standard for all future airline BKs and the raping associated with that.

APA had a clear cut strategy from the beginning of the Ch 11 filing and it worked. We now have better management and the start of a new beginning while we were able to preserve much of our old contract AND get increased pay rates out of it.

I'd say APA RAISED the bar for the profession this time around.

eaglefly

APA definately has their criticisms, but considering this situation they took a chance and ended up producing some critically impressive results. Not only did they force the ouster of someone who would have ground us into the terrain over time with a bankruptcy contract that would have taken a decade to recover from, they spearheaded a process that ensured a way OUT of that contract almost immeadiately, instead of waiting that decade.

They killed two dodo birds with one phone call.

The crap bankruptcy contract agreed to will be sweetened via the MOU's transition agreement and ultimatley improved once more as part of a JCBA to bring the carriers and pilots together. The result will be a contract at or very close to industry standard in a very short time compared to the near decade its taken the other 4 major airline pilot groups to get back to. Timing had a lot to do with it and they had a lot of help from the very guy who tried to screw us way too far. Horton had it all the day they announced the Chapter 11 and lost it recklessly. I'll bet he kicks himself for the rest of his days thinking about what could have been, if he only played it differently. If anyone needs proof of Hortons lack of fitness to lead this carrier into the future, one only look at the past 10 years and especially the last 16 months. With him and the keystone kids at the helm and the stand alone tombstone plan, competing against either the Big 2 or LCC's would have been a futile anvil drop and we'd be in a fragmentation scenario within 3-5 years.

Now, there is a chance at a future. The question is, will Parker learn from both his own mistakes of the past AND Horton's recent ones ?

We shall see...........

Night Hawk 6

ALPA was created in the early 1930's for the pilots and airlines of that era. Unfortunately ALPA is still organized and conducts its business as if it was still in the 1930's. The pilots and the airline industry was brought under the governance of the Railway Labor Act in 1936 by the efforts of then ALPA president and founder, who believed that the only way for ALPA to be effective was with support from the politicos in Washington. Today the way ALPA is organized works against the pilots, limiting the leverage any union needs by all but destroying any chance for unity across company lines. The biggest roadblock to ALPA and all the "associations" is the Railway Labor Act and the way it has been administered since deregulation. Ideally getting out from under the RLA would be the most desirable objective however the chances of that occurring are almost nil. Getting the RLA amended should be a serious goal. The last time it was amended was in 1936 to bring in the airlines. That means pilots labor relations are governed by a law written for the railroads in 1928 and last amended in 1936. The APA BOD shot down a resolution passed at the domiciles, to have the next contact include a provision that all contracts become effective as of the amenable date regardless of when negotiations are completed and that on the twelve month anniversary of the amendable date there will be an automatic 3% across the board pay increase and on each 12 month anniversary there after if their is no new contract. These two ideas id were to provide some motivation for management to negotiate in a timely fashion. The average NMB mediated pilot contract has taken in excess of 5 years to complete in the last three decades. Now if you want to get under your ALPA leaders skin I dare you to ask what ALPA is doing to amend or get out of the RLA. The response so far is "The RLA isn't even on our radar." How is that for having your head firmly planted in the sand. Without a drastic change in the way pilot labor is represented the airline pilot profession and everyone in in are condemned to be relegated to less than Greyhound Bus driver status, and my apologies to bus drivers.

aa73

That I can agree with 100%

But you can't solely blame APA without including ALPA. They are both guilty of the same thing.

I still maintain that APA scored a major victory with this deal, for the entire profession.

Night Hawk 6

The vote last year was a pleasant surprise and showed more backbone than I thought existed within the rank and file at AA. As you will remember though it was a vote opposite of what the APA BOD and officers were supporting. It was also a no brainer unless you were the 30% that always vote to suck up to management. In over two decades there has never been a reason to vote yes at AA.

aa73

True statement the first time around, but we now have the advantage of the rear view mirror where we can see why the APA BOD wanted a yes vote: simply b/c they knew that it enabled the merger inside BK, and would result in the TA simply being a "bridge contract" to the MOU (and eventual JCBA.) This is exactly what we ended up with when we voted yes on LBFO2. I think with LBFO2, the membership was starting to see why the BOD wanted that yes vote.