JoePatroni

Wrong. Page 27 shows he earned $208,700 in 2003 and $227,217 in 2004. Both years as a reserve 737 CA, both years 33%-36% more than people in his relative seniority. Not only is he named in the Fagone Report, he is one of the biggest offenders.

Scott Stoops

Your naivety on this is astounding. You really want ALPA National choosing the attorney and strategy for either or both sides in an adverserial arbitration? ALPA National formulated the merger policy. That's it. Each MEC chose not only their own merger committee, but their own strategy. ALPA National has no hand in any of that. Nor should they. The arbitration panel has nothing to do with ALPA National other than interpret and apply the letter (and arguably intent) of the merger policy as written. That one side completely disregarded the vast majority of the merger policy has nothing to do with ALPA National and nor should it.

Sure, you pay your dues to ALPA National, and part of those dues monies (not nearly enough if you ask me) comes back to the individual MEC to be used as seen fit by the MEC under the direction of the local councils and through elected representation, the pilots themselves. How could ALPA National have even known CAL's strategy before it was presented? No, if you feel wronged, look no further than your elected reps. They made those decisions.

Scott

cadetdrivr

You, or your source, have it precisely backwards.

This is why each individual MEC had a special merger assessment specially to cover the expenses of their side of the process. General ALPA dues could not be used for the very reason (conflict of interest) that you blame. Each MEC hired its own legal council.

baseball

Can you provide a source document that says this? The merger and fragmentation policy that I have says that MEC's can set up a merger fund, via assessment, but it doesn't say what to spend the money on. The way I have always read it, it says in an ALPA-ALPA merger, ALPA National will NOT let the two MEC's spend ALPA money on attorneys or advisors fees. So, that would lend one to "INFER" that ALPA National controls the entire process. The merger and fragmentation policy repeatedly (and I do mean repeatedly) speaks of "the process." Regarding funding, I am aware that MEC's need to meet OFTEN, so that it would be logical that the normal trip-loss budget would be blown through, and the assessment moneys would be used to cover that stuff. But the policy specifically prohibits spending of the moneys for attorneys and advisors. I would say you would be correct if it were alpa-non alpa merger. Different though.....No?

baseball

Keep in mind 96% of all CAL pilots had very little knowledge of ALPA. Remember ALPA was broken in 1983 and so what you may call "naivety" I would call lack of experience.

I think the real difference here from my EXPERIENCE that that Legacy United had a more robust knowledge of and experience in all the ALPA muck and those of us who were IACP, all we knew was really IACP. Even our policy manual was essentially a carbon copy of the IACP policy manual, which ALPA approved. Why do you think the entire triploss scandal even happened under the ALPA watch? They were still playing by the IACP rule book. Not enough time for the pilot group and the leadership to get all the alpa stink they needed, so, yes, I definitely trusted the ALPA process and that tool-box do-hickey (whatever that is).

baseball

during that time was Lynch the "EVP"? Just trying to understand what his role was back then.

So, he never paid any of this back? How in the world did Lynch get so "embedded" inside of ALPA and what would be the rationale for keeping him there?

Well, he should have paid back the money, and if he didn't he should have been booted from ALPA. That sounds like outright theft.

For some reason I didn't consider lynch a "rep" like Shoe or some of those other guys so I definitely omitted him. Sorry.

XHooker

Not to pile on and my understanding of the proposed JV LOA was limted, my information was second hand, and it was a while ago, but my recollection was it was targeted at ANA specifically and had no domestic or even necessarily Trans-Atlantic component. It was all about Pacific flying.

CAL never got to 6,000 pilots. It was at its largest at the end of the '97-01 hiring, just prior to 9/11 and then when it hired for almost three years from '05-'08 beginning a couple of months after (not before) the ratification of CO2.
I'm not going to go into the conspiracy theories, but in the end, the MEC did turn it down. My understanding is it was presented by the then NC Chair and had the backing of Jay Pierce, but as we know was voted down. The NC Chair wasn't around long after that and I never heard anything about Dave Zullo being involved until now.

The airline environment of the last decade made CALALPA's scope an untenable starting point, so saying the merger was done to get around it is a huge stretch. As far as stagnation, believe me when I tell you I achieved it anyway.

cadetdrivr

So far so good.....

I think this is where the confusion happens. The individual MECs represent themselves but cannot use normal dues funds (collected by ALPA national) for this. Just because they cannot use normal dues does not mean that the money comes from ALPA National or National controls the arbitration---other than establishing the policy in the first place.

Sure.

Here's a excerpt from a UAL MEC email sent shortly after the merger was announced:

"Referendum on Merger Expense Fund Assessment

At the April MEC meeting, the MEC passed a resolution calling for a membership referendum on a proposed UAL Merger Expense Fund assessment. If approved, this fund will be for the exclusive use of United’s pilots to help offset the costs of the announced merger between United and Continental. The assessment will initially be set at 0.50%. The funds collected from this assessment will be used exclusively for activities associated with this merger. ALPA policy prohibits the use of normal dues to be used in this merger."

baseball

I have seen a seniority list with 6006 pilots on it.

It was right before PBS implementation.


The info you have on the JV LOA is not correct. I definitely agree it had the backing of Pierce, but all best indicators are that Zullo was given a green light to do it and the NC was not involved. Immediately after the second refusal for the LOA Zullo resigned. He actually wanted the MEC to adopt it and NOT send it to the pilots for a vote. That was probably why it failed. ANA was a peripheral piece. The real meat and potatoes was to essentially outsource the flying to get the price of a pilot lower. The proof here would be obvious. CAL thought it could negotiate partnership agreements with international carriers (code share) to do the long haul flying as we never really replaced the DC10 fleet upon retirement. With a lack of wide-bodies, and no way to solve that problem (lack of orders, and no-caving from MEC) CAL thought it juicy to look at the route network via a merger. UAL made sense due to three factors: ALPA-ALPA, wide-body-international network, and non overlapping/non redundant domestic network. With only 9 overlapping domestic routes, and keeping all 9 it made it very appealing. But, I think it all started with that JV LOA. It wasn't really a joint venture. To do a JV you would need to name a suitor. The JV LOA would have likely precluded a merger, however, it for sure would have postponed one. Since CAL hadn't had a meaningful pay raise since contract 98 the JV LOA with the 2 percent pay raise was simply a slap in the face. It would have only absorbed about 60 percent of that years cost of living increase due to inflation.

baseball

Thanks. That helps.