What will ALPA do for HER?
Who cares what ALPA does for her. That's not what it's about. It's what her being ALPA does for others.
My company is currently gearing up for contract negotiations to start and the MEC is working VERY hard on trying to brand and package a message that will unite our pilot group for the huge mess that's about to get started here. Here's what we've realized.
The younger/newer pilots who have been hired don't understand the word "profession". They *might* understand "professional" but most of them have no clue that them being a member of a pilot group, and even more so a profession of pilots, is much more important then their individual job. It's a very hard sell to tell one of these guys that they maybe should take a financial hit or upward mobility hit because it is better for the profession as a whole. Sure, we could be flying big exciting 90 seat jets RIGHT NOW, but were not, because it is what was best for the profession. If we'd got those airplanes it would have meant more upgrades, more (and longer) routes, and probably more growth down the road. It would also have meant that we took another step backwards as far as pay goes.
A guy I have a lot of respect for wrote an excellent piece on why we should take the airplanes for the rate they were offering to secure the flying and then worry about getting the pay up later. He wrote intelligently and used rational arguments. But thank god, he didn't convince enough people to vote yes, and we told them company to shove it by over 80%. And we didn't do that because it was what was better for us. Hell, we all wanted growth. We all wanted to go fly to new places. But it wasn't worth it for the industry as a whole because if WE took the planes at that rate, you can be damn sure that the next company that was starting 900 operations was going to use our rate as a base line.
(A quick side note... the single fleet rate was proposed to us mostly because of Skywest's rate. Our 70 seat pay, at least on the captain side, was already better then the "override" that they had so the company thought that because they had a single rate for a fleet type and we were already above it, we should be thankful to get new airplanes. Thanks guys...)
Anyhow, her (and Colgan) being ALPA ensure a common bargaining strategy that will make sure that the Q flying doesn't go for a terrible rate (too late for that now) so that when Horizon (and maybe PDT) work on rates for the airplane in their next contracts, there is a higher place to start from. Her being ALPA limits the amount of possibility of her carrier being used to whipsaw another carrier for lower rates to capture flying. Her being ALPA increases the leverage other carriers have over their management by the shear number of pilots who are part of the group.
The question is of course, of all those things, does her 2% actually directly benefit her? Nope. And that is the problem my MEC has run into. It is a generalization, but many of the new hires today are part of the ME generation and if it doesn't directly benefit them, they don't give a damn. They are working to further their goals, and their goals only. If the place burns down after they leave, oh well. Not everybody is like this, but there are a much larger then in the past number that are. And for those people, all you can do is say (and try not to sound biblical doing so), "you are doing this for those that come after you, because those that came before you did it for you." Most of them role their eyes and laugh and say "screw the guys coming after me. They aren't going to help me any so why should I help them?" And that is the question that ALPA now has to work through.
As far as what can ALPA do for *ME*? Well, your 2% buys you some awesome aeromedical and legal protection. It buys you some contract protections. It also buys you a rather useless magazine. People need to decide if their 2% is worth that. For me, it has nothing to do with what it does for me. I could do with out the magazine. I could do with out the free legal and medical (although it's damn nice to have). I probably couldn't do with out the contract protections. And I sure as hell couldn't do with out working together as part of a larger group to further everybody's careers.
Let me know how it works out for you...
