Amerijet On Strike!

Doug Taylor said:
I do believe the internet was our best hope, but considering the theatrics of some of our loudest voices, it may be a lost cause.

From the outside, it would look like it's "Join us or die" vis a vis, jumpseat wars, broadening and greying the definition of scab and other type thuggery.

All of the stuff like improving schedules, working with the FAA to improve safety, accident investigation and safety all are becoming labor sideshows that gather no attention.

Loud voices of inexperience on one side, loud voices of experience but piss poor delivery on the other, all while management laughs its ass off.
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I get your point here and agree with much of it. BUT, I think that one weakness that ALPA (or more correctly, ALPA members) have had is that they are not a typical union. ALPA does get involved in important operational issues like investigation, safety, and other areas...but they also need to be a labor union. It is almost like many members of ALPA view themselves as a professional association (like the AICPA, the ABA or the AMA) while another very important faction wants to be viewed as the John L. Lewis, hardcore trade unionists. It is a difficult issue - you have what used to be very highly paid professionals, and I think that knock down, drag out labor fights was almost viewed as beneath them in some way. It is almost like an organizational schizophrenia. At this point, with the hits pilots have taken, I would be of the belief that ALPA should resemble the old school Longshoreman or Teamsters...but I also understand your points as well. It is a tricky issue becuase I see ATN's point and can see merit in that view...but I also see your point and its merits as well.
 
I think it lies someplace in between.

I'm a bit more "radical" than I lead to be on the internet, but I generally save that when it matters. Trust me, ask anyone on my MEC about my views and I'm seen as a diseased pariah for the most part. I really don't mind because largely we have been milquetoast on a variety of career-affecting issues.

If I go next door to my neighbor, a very successful small business owner and scream, "Hey! If you buy a ticket on (whatever) airline, I'm not talking to you any more and you can kiss my ass, LOOOOOZZAAAAAAAR", he's probably going to whip my butt and do it anyway.

But if I can approach my neighbor, calmly and educatedly make my case on how he should refrain from sending any shipments through forwarders that utilize Amerijet because of the following reasons, I've not only helped the strikers, I've also planted a seed of knowledge in him that can grow into a better understanding of airline labor and other current airline events.

Personally, I'd like to see ALPA control the issuance of ATP certificates, minimum hiring standards, minimum pay standards per equipment and zero subcontracting.

How can we possibly achieve this? A single unified front.

How are we going to achieve a single unified front in an industry chock full of fiery keyboard commandos, Type-A personalities and some with entitlement complexes?

Education, calm reasoning, a freer flow of information and outreach.

So far, I've done my best to get the word out through Jetcareers, but it's really all I can do. Some folks have volunteered to help, others disapprove of my approach.

Sadly for me, my approach is losing the battle. If I could just sauce it up with a couple of pole dancers, perhaps we can achieve something new and beneficial rather than continuing to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The Southernjets guys will get this. For every 1 Dave Bushy that falls on his sword for the pilot group, there are 10 Joe Kolshaks that are chomping at the bits to replace him.

And any Southernjetter will absolutely know what that means.
 
Regardless of what anyone thinks of me or my opinions my views of ALPA continue to spiral downhill every time PCL or Velo post on this forum. Just putting it out there.
 
Well, you're terribly myopic and didn't listen to a word I said.
 
I used to be fairly anti-union, probably by not being educated about them in a calm way and being chased away by the militant loud-mouths that I did not want to be associated with. But this Amerijet strike has really brought a lot of those issues forward and the calmer voices on this thread have helped establish the fact that unions ARE needed. So I'm glad that this has been posted and kept up here because it's definitely an eye-opener.
 
GlenA said:
I used to be fairly anti-union, probably by not being educated about them in a calm way and being chased away by the militant loud-mouths that I did not want to be associated with. But this Amerijet strike has really brought a lot of those issues forward and the calmer voices on this thread have helped establish the fact that unions ARE needed. So I'm glad that this has been posted and kept up here because it's definitely an eye-opener.
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GlenA... Free Beer +1
 
Doug Taylor said:
I think it lies someplace in between.

I'm a bit more "radical" than I lead to be on the internet, but I generally save that when it matters. Trust me, ask anyone on my MEC about my views and I'm seen as a diseased pariah for the most part. I really don't mind because largely we have been milquetoast on a variety of career-affecting issues.

If I go next door to my neighbor, a very successful small business owner and scream, "Hey! If you buy a ticket on (whatever) airline, I'm not talking to you any more and you can kiss my ass, LOOOOOZZAAAAAAAR", he's probably going to whip my butt and do it anyway.

But if I can approach my neighbor, calmly and educatedly make my case on how he should refrain from sending any shipments through forwarders that utilize Amerijet because of the following reasons, I've not only helped the strikers, I've also planted a seed of knowledge in him that can grow into a better understanding of airline labor and other current airline events.

Personally, I'd like to see ALPA control the issuance of ATP certificates, minimum hiring standards, minimum pay standards per equipment and zero subcontracting.

How can we possibly achieve this? A single unified front.

How are we going to achieve a single unified front in an industry chock full of fiery keyboard commandos, Type-A personalities and some with entitlement complexes?

Education, calm reasoning, a freer flow of information and outreach.

So far, I've done my best to get the word out through Jetcareers, but it's really all I can do. Some folks have volunteered to help, others disapprove of my approach.

Sadly for me, my approach is losing the battle. If I could just sauce it up with a couple of pole dancers, perhaps we can achieve something new and beneficial rather than continuing to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The Southernjets guys will get this. For every 1 Dave Bushy that falls on his sword for the pilot group, there are 10 Joe Kolshaks that are chomping at the bits to replace him.

And any Southernjetter will absolutely know what that means.
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Thank you for your response.
 
Doug Taylor said:
So you did or did NOT like the poledancer part? :)
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Anytime you can involve poledancers into any thread...it is a huge win! Actually, it isn't a bad idea for ALPA - come to the meetings, get involved, and they will be catered by hooters girls and have poledancers. You will have the most active union in the world.

One thing about the Amerijet strike - they are making wonderful use of the internets with the Scabvision thing. Is this the first 121 strike since the advent of the interwebs?
 
Nah, we had a VERY VERY short strike at Skyway in late 1997 -- back in our old execpc.com/~taylord & mindspring.com/~taylord days! ;)
 
WacoFan said:
Anytime you can involve poledancers into any thread...it is a huge win! Actually, it isn't a bad idea for ALPA - come to the meetings, get involved, and they will be catered by hooters girls and have poledancers. You will have the most active union in the world.

One thing about the Amerijet strike - they are making wonderful use of the internets with the Scabvision thing. Is this the first 121 strike since the advent of the interwebs?
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The ComAir pilots posted some scab pics online during their strike.

IMHO, it was an opportunity wasted. The scabs, if I recall correctly, were retirees. They wanted more money and a retirement.

If nothing else, guys that reached their endpoint in their career at CMR and needed to scab to provide for themselves, while still scabs, is a strong statement to how little you make over the course of a career that didn't include the majors.

You're still a scab, but I think the union could have used it as their "piss bag".
 
WacoFan said:
Actually, it isn't a bad idea for ALPA - come to the meetings, get involved, and they will be catered by hooters girls and have poledancers. You will have the most active union in the world.
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Give them some credit, most of the guys running the show are pretty bright. There's a reason the Board of Director's meeting is held in Vegas.
 
Diego Dangers. said:
If you strike against a company and then everyone that flies the cargo is a scab so people choose not to fly the cargo therefore the company doesn't make any money and closes, what does that mean for the pilot group? Will the union still pay strike bennies? It seems to me like all it will do is put a few dozen pilots on the street.
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At a certain point, the job ain't worth having. I believe that people strike only when they get to the point where they're thinking, take this job and shove it.

Think of it this way. At any job, you required to give up something in exchange for a paycheck. I don't care if you're the CEO of a company or a front line employee. In any job, there's crap you don't want to do which you consider very distasteful. You suck it up and do it because you're getting paid to do it.

But when the stuff they're asking you to swallow becomes more than you think the paycheck is worth and you get to the point where you're thinking, screw this job, that's when you strike. Or if you're in a field that allows it, find another employer who will pay you more and screw with you less.
 
surreal1221 said:
I don't know man.

Let's not kid ourselves. Management is not labor. They, largely, make their decisions regardless of what the labor group says.

Kalitta Charters II is a non-union shop. I'm surprised they didn't just force pilots to fly the freight, instead they asked - albeit - I understand that it opens the door up to pilots innocently becoming a scab if they're not aware of AmeriJet's situation - but, they could have been order to do it instead of asked.

Either way, I'm glad they're not flying struck work.
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Here you have a case where management actually listened to the front line employees. Some may be offended that management even asked.

But the bottom line is this -- the feedback was accepted, and nobody at the company is being asked to fly struck freight. That's what counts.

MikeD said:
It's possible that a good tactic as a middle manager would be to take the poll from your pilots, get their obvious answer, take that answer back to upper management with a "here you go....told you," sentiment. Thats one way to make a statement of the pilot group, collectively, to higher management. Maybe that's what happened?
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Having worked the trenches of corporate management before, that is EXACTLY the way you want to do it. If you don't want to do something, but you are being asked to do it, find a way to come to the table with ammunition as to why it's a bad idea.

So, they made the calls, found out that the pilots would be pissed, and the idea died.
 
tonyw said:
At a certain point, the job ain't worth having.
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This is what Amerijet sounds like to me personally. The minute someone asks me to pee or poop in a ziplock is when I begin thinking that maybe I'm not livin the dream. If they can strike and get the little they seem to be asking for back, then great. If they strike and the company folds and they have to take another job...at least there is a good chance that they will be pooping on an actual john that flushes.
 
rd757 said:
I'm glad pilot unions aren't asking for $70/hr manufacturing jobs! :rawk: I'm in the opinion that UAW contributed significantly to the destruction of 2 of the Big 3. But this is a thread about Amerijet so I'll head back to that topic.
[/offtopic]
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Yep, off topic...shall we all agree then that the UAW was responsible for the crappy designs of autos for 30 years, non existent quality assurance, and bloated managements?

And that while all that was happening, Japan, Inc., came here under the Marshall Plan, studied how Detroit worked in the 50's, went home, perfected what they learned, improved management accountability while encouraging employee input into product improvement and went from a joke in the 60's to kicking our asses?

...we now return to our regularly scheduled programming....
 
Glad someone said something in defense of the UAW. This joke that the union was handcuffing management into running the company into the ground is brutally dishonest.
 
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