Oletimer

Interesting discussion. I'll be outta here pretty soon and yall can have my seat next year and keep discussing it. A few things of interest for discussion sake may be; we don't need to keep moving the goal posts, and there's no way to make it all equal. Everyone got hired under different decades, much less different contracts. We all didn't get hired on our 29th birthday the day after the Vietnam war ended. I don't see how to equal it all out. Best not to try. it'll just make people mad when we really need to really get on with and finish up all this merger business.

My first contract the plaid polyester leisure suit was in. This is my last contract and thank goodness we aren't still wearing that garb. So great we have improved and the thong bikini is now in style.

anywho - I don't see much going on as far as negotiations are concerned, so no one single rep will make that much of a difference if this is all about one single rep at one local council.

On paper the merger is done. The reality is, until the spill-over issues left from when Continental was still in business are all straightened out we still have unfinished business to attend to. Some things need to be made right, and some things we just need to forget about. Maybe the real reason that Martin and Co are no longer in contract compliance is because of these spill-over issues that are still unfinished business. Sometimes just re-arranging the deck chairs isn't enough.

JoePatroni

You are dead wrong about Prater. I flew with him regularly YEARS before he became the head of ALPA and it was clear as day that he firmly believed the age should change. His various positions at ALPA leading up to him running the show, in my opinion, was just filling the squares until he could finally get the change going ........he was anything but "happened to be there." There were hoards of CAL guys spending days on end in DC knocking on doors and talking to senators/congressmen, it was an extremely well organized effort that got pooh poohed by just about everyone. One of the ringleaders wormed his way into the training department when he turned sixty and then came back to the line when the age changed.

The whole thing was sickening.

baseball

I never flew the line with Prater, but I flew two check rides with him and I agree. I typically would not talk about anything discussed in the flight deck, but I would tend to agree with your observation. The briefing room and in the break room Prater talked it up allot. He definitely had a positive spin on it, and he talked it up the more grey-haired types were around. He talked it down if the audience in the building was younger.

What to me was sickening, was that the polling data showed a negative opinion on changing the law. Then, ALPA would simply re-poll, and try to ask the question a different way. We must have had 5 polls just for one subject matter. The same thing happened with PBS. We need polls to interpret the polls when the polling data doesn't go your way.

Then we need the reps to tell us "we need to save you from yourselves." It's not actually a democracy, but a representational democracy.

I believe that's why Prater wasn't re-elected. Even his own pilots at CAL didn't support him after the age change. After the age change, all of the scabs at CAL were out of the MEC, and the demographics within the union clearly changed, mostly due to recalls back on property. Within a month of age 65 changing, even the MEC Chairman at CAL MEC was recalled. It wasn't going to be too long until they got Prater out of office.

Ottolillienthal

This may be a bit off topic, but I sort of gather allot of our negotiated failures happened when scabs were involved in the process.

Did ALPA forgive all the scabs, or just the ones at Continental?

cadetdrivr

Just CAL, and techicnically it wasn't so much forgiveness but the merger of IACP and ALPA that facilitated their re-entry to the fold.

JoePatroni

Panarello and his scab buddies did more damage than anyone can ever realize, the IAH scab contingent coupled with the Guam scab contingent joined with the FI's and usually CLE to do what they wanted to do.

cadetdrivr

Yup. And it was a follow-up to the one put out several months ago.

Despite all that it appears a certain percentage of our group is totally prepared to believe what they want to hear despite hard facts to the contrary.

Ottolillienthal

Yes. I remember poor Larry Beck and Al Brandano, and Kate Malone getting hammered by these guys. I think the votes were typically 7 to 2. The non scabs in EWR always lost the votes on big issues. I believe Panarello resigned before being recalled because the new reps in IAH, Bolleter, and Beckman let him know his last days were coming soon. The balance of power shifted roll-call vote wise once Stone/Shoemaker, and their scab friendly replacements Gustitus/Sebastianelli were done.

Ottolillienthal

I see. Thank You.

Also, Any idea of how many scabs are left? Both forgiven and unforgiven?

JoePatroni

Shoemaker was one of the biggest pieces of **** to ever wear a pilot's uniform, fortunately kharma smiled on him.