Denny Crane

Wrong. The whole thread is about a dues reduction. Inconvenient? Except for number 2, it has nothing to do with a dues reduction at ALPA. As far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier but lets be realistic, it's literally a propaganda piece trying to get AA pilots behind joining ALPA.

Denny

ClimbClimbNow

>>The whole thread is about a dues reduction. <<

IMO, Denny is correct. The letter that was posted attempts to make the case that ALPA would be a better union for the American pilots than APA currently is. (I agree, but YMMV.)

BUT--The topic of the thread is “ALPA DUES”.

One can look at dues as a dues RATE or as a total of dues received (gross revenue). ALPA gross revenue is tied directly to the pilots pay with the dues RATE. As pilot pay has greatly increased over the past decade, so has ALPA revenue. While the dues RATE has remained essentially unchanged, total revenue has skyrocketed. It's prudent to discuss whether this is appropriate.

SO—does ALPA need this huge amount of increased revenue to continue to provide the services that pilots expect? Has the level of service provided increased commensurate with the increase in funds supplied?

An argument has been put forth that the MCF is in dire need of more money. The justification for this claim appears to be that it’s “underfunded”. SO—who decides that and what is their justification? I’d like to know what the MCF has been used for over the past 15 or so years—and the likely uses it may have in the coming several decades. I may not have all the facts here, but I believe that in recent history, most MCF money went to lawsuits and negotiations/strike prep at non-Delta carriers, Amirite?

ALPA provides a service to its member pilots. So does the guy who cuts your lawn. The ALPA service level has not increased significantly over the last decade (nor has the service level of the guy who cuts your lawn), but one of them is making a LOT more money. I think that’s the real point here.

Flytolive

The APA pilot does a good job of showing the relative value the two organizations provide. The freeloading independent unions do WRT ALPA works far better when you have a steady revenue/profit stream like UPS and SWA that minimizes the concessions during downturns, but less so at a legacy carrier like AAL.

Some know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Han Solo

Is that what you guys do at those open bar extravaganzas, come up with snappy quotes to try and distract from your excesses?

Flytolive

Is that what you guys who don't want to admit that you are reliant on a union for your livelihood come up with to try and distract from ALPA's unparalleled success?

Bucking Bar

Wow ... sorry that post was disregarded by many.

Fighting Lorenzo was worth every penny. It is a shame that JJ O'Donnell removed a lot of the lessons learned from our Admin Manual and a tragedy my generation forgot these lessons.

Our Association still reels from the disunity of small jet outsourcing.

Bucking Bar

FL370 Esq,

There are reasons which become more apparent the higher you get in ALPA service.

First, Democracy is inefficient. ALPA is truly a pure democracy based on who the line pilots vote for their Reps. ALPA has no internal resolution mechanisms, outside of politics.

You may recall my statement that "ALPA attorneys do not practice law, they practice politics." They bristle at that statement, but it is true in function. They work to provide stability and process to the mayhem of everyone competing to have their idea supported by 85,000 pilots.

Second, Reps can fire th MEC Chairman any damn time they please. Because of the power Reps have, they can (and some frequently do) lie to their membership. As you can appreciate, ALPA itself is held to a higher standard and could be sued. This lack of control over Representatives might be compared to having 19 Donald Trumps running around tweeting all kinds of things at potential plaintiffs. This requires the legal equivalent of a fire department.

Third, many pilots (not all) are morons. Pilots are conditioned by our type of work to be very expert in one skill. That does not mean we know squat about the legal environment of business. But, we think we know everything because we are pilots (and often we are correct, but often we are wrong) We are a nightmare client.

Fourth, there is always a call for "professional negotiators." Guess where most of the outside lawyers fees are actually generated? If you guessed contracts and mergers, you would be correct. We hire the best professional negotiators in the business. I only worry that some of them, like Michael Abrams are getting old and are irreplaceable. Young, talented, attorneys are not finding labor law as appealing as it was in the 1960's and early 1970's. We are all Reagan republicans nowadays -- taught that "organized labor is bad" since we were in diapers. In truth organized labor is the most noble thing since we invented beer.

... and all this is in addition to defending pilots who step on their crank and need representation.

Our contract is a nearly $5billion dollar deal. Two of our attorneys support contract admin & pilots. The other attorney supports the MEC Administration, fact checking & clearing communications from admin staff (some of whom always intentionally tried to push the boundaries of publishing confidential information to educate & inform Delta pilots).

Then we shared one national atty to support our negotiating committee and shared one atty who would act as a parliamentarian and expert on national labor relations law.

This system gets more efficient if you have a strong national leader who can run the union like a business. With the mess we have in the Delta MEC now (JMO) expect it to be a lot less efficient. We have a lot of very strong willed Reps, some with little experience.

Bucking Bar

On the subject of ALPA dues. Even ALPA would state it raises too much dues right now.

The politics of a dues reduction revolves around ALPA's funding mechanism to MEC's. Groups like Delta raise tens of millions more money than we can spend. Smaller MECs are starved for funds and cannot afford paper for their photocopier.

One answer is to fund the small MEC's from their dues and the major contingency fund, on an as needed basis. The small MEC's do not want to have to beg national for money.

C44 Rep Armando Gomez made a resolution at National to reduce dues. The benefit to ALPA would be to help consolidate the union. We would like to see APA come back and Southwest join us. We need a dues reduction to do that. As far as I know Capt. Cannoll supports the dues reduction (he is a C44 member and MD88 Capt.)

The regional airlines fought the resolution and United sometimes jumps in to support them in exchange for votes on things that matter to United.

The Delta MEC has done the best it could to play fair by the Delta pilots by processing a dues refund from time to time.

I expect the dues reduction to eventually pass at national. I do not have a read on national politics anymore, but there is a BOD coming up. The Delta MEC is currently a dysfunctional mess (JMHO) and we don't have the "Delta machine" anymore to win at national. But at the same time if they want to shoot Capt. Bartels, one way to get him out is to move him up. We shall see.

Denny Crane

Whoa! When I cash my pay check (so to speak) it says "Delta Air Lines" not "ALPA." I am not reliant on a union for my livelihood. I would most likely be getting paid less without a union but I'd still be able to make ends meet.

Denny

Denny Crane

Comments on the bolded parts.

I agree that this could induce APA/SWAPA to join the fold. Any comment about this from Flytolive?

Kudos go to the Delta MEC for doing this. It sounds like another one might be in the works.........?

After the recent elections, I don't think it's a dysfunctional mess (JMHO). Heck, didn't they have a unanimous vote on an important issue at the last MEC meeting? IIRC it was in reference to the AM JV? It certainly was dysfunctional when the last contract was being negotiated. Anyway, even if it is, I'm pretty sure a dues reduction will get 100% support from the Delta MEC.

Are you saying the "Delta Machine" could influence other MEC's to vote for a dues reduction? Maybe, but they sure couldn't at the ALPA BOD meeting.....

Denny