Employment while on leave?

v1valarob said:
Just because something doesnt work for everything, dont give it up.
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I got that, but was trying to relate it to my post. I certainly wasn't saying that unions were worthless. Oh well..carry on. Back to Dave's dilemma. Yes Dave, of course you can get a job while out on leave. Good luck bro...hope you get back soon.
 
Airdale said:
And thats where ALPA edges out the other unions. They do provide a lot of resources, no doubt. But the reality is that ALPA hasn't been able to stop the landslide in this industry. Too often people like to paint ALPA as God's greatest gift to unions, thats where I disagree. They are the best the industry has, but they've been getting pushed into the spinning toilet bowl just like everyone else.

Just look at what has been and is taking place with Midwest. Management has nearly succeeded in the outsourcing of their own labor. Look at what this industry has become. Its sickening. Then to top it off you have pilots arguing with pilots, when the reality is this solves nothing.

Sure, ALPA is better than Teamsters in a lot of ways. But if your job gets outsourced Rob, then ALPA's resources will be of no use to you.
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The only mistake I can see ALPA making is with RJs. But if your members vote for it, then it's settled.

It's kind of funny how people think ALPA is bad and ALPA can't do anything. There is no MR. ALPA. ALPA is a functioning entity of it's members' voices. Why has pilot pay decreased? Well we are only 8 years removed 9/11 which reshaped our airline industry. Management teams needed pay concessions or people were going to lose their jobs. After that came Post-9/11 Bankruptcies.

In February I attended the ALPA Leadership Conference in Herndon we got a great presentation from Bruce York, Director of Representation (aka Labor Lawyer/Contract Admin) he showed us a chart of Airline Pilot pay increasing 10% year over year for the last 3 years (or about 3.3%/yr). ALPA and it's members are making strides to better the industry. It bothers me that the Teamsters guys (not RPA spec.) will ride ALPA's coat-tails to a good contract.

With Midwest MGT they got to pit an ALPA vs. Teamster pilot group against eachother. Had that been an ALPA pilot group, the turnout may have been a lot different. However- Midwest mainline pilots should be flying that mainline jet, period.

You did admit that ALPA has an edge. They are the voice of the professional airline pilot. When you get your medical back straightened out, let us know. I know the Colgan Pilot's will stand beside you if you want ALPA, and believe us...YOU NEED ALPA.
 
Doug Taylor said:
I'm a little lost, what could a union do beyond a work action outside of the confines of the RLA which would have been illegal?
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Bingo. Issue doesn't lie with ALPA, the Teamsters or even the USWs representing FAs. The deck is stacked against every union in the aviation industry thanks to the archaic RLA. As for outsourcing, that's why a scope clause is THE number one thing people should look at in a contract. If Midwest had a good scope clause, the outsourcing wouldn't have happened. Hindsight is 20/20, and I'd wager when Midwest pilots signed their deal, no one would have thought regionals would be flying the 175 with their sights set on bigger airplanes. The best thing to do is to take the situation, learn from it and apply it in future contracts to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Might as well say "Damn. I can't believe Chamberlain bought into what Hitler was selling."
 
SmitteyB said:
It bothers me that the Teamsters guys (not RPA spec.) will ride ALPA's coat-tails to a good contract.
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You're kidding me, right? Management has used the Mesa (ALPA) contract against us TWICE already in referring to work and pay rules for our new contract. The day after this new one was voted in by Mesa pilots, our management was talking about it to us pilots to beat us down. Coat-tails...puuhlease.
 
The MESA is the most-recently negotiated contract. Let's wait for XJT, COM, PSA, PDT who all have upcoming contract negotiations.

I wasn't trying to single out Pubby.
 
SmitteyB said:
The MESA is the most-recently negotiated contract. Let's wait for XJT, COM, PSA, PDT who all have upcoming contract negotiations.

I wasn't trying to single out Pubby.
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What's Pubby? Is that a new name for us? Cute, I like it.

At any rate, we're deep in negotiations right now and we're hoping that companies will be looking towards our contract when all said and done. Do you not think that Alaska & ALPA didn't look at the SWA contract during their latest rounds? SWA guys make upwards of $50 more/hour than Alaska guys, so it goes both ways...each and every airline will look at other contracts to see where they can improve and go above & beyond.
 
typhoonpilot said:
My advice would be to ditch western medicine and search out a change in your diet that will fix the problem without medication. Try going to the Optimum Health Institute in San Diego or Texas. Even one week might be enough to fix a digestive issue.


Typhoonpilot
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I'm not necessarily a proponent of ditching western medicine, but a lot of the time the issue is much more simple than HMO doctors are aware of. Medicine these days has gone toward writing a prescription rather than solving the issue.

I have a coworker who has had severe intestinal/digestive problems for years - dozens of doctor's visits and pills. Turns out, she has what's called Celiac disease, which is simply a gluten intolerance. She cut out gluten, and all is good in the world again.
 
SmitteyB said:
It's kind of funny how people think ALPA is bad and ALPA can't do anything.
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Smittey Smittey Smittey.....I never said ALPA is bad! :)

I think its funny how so many people are stuck to the teet of ALPA, like they're some sort of union GOD.

The facts are simple. Unions can only do so much in this industry. ALPA is better than Teamsters, hands down no question about it. I'd love to see ALPA at Republic, I think a lot of us would. But, you need to have realistic expectations.

Folks like to point fingers at Teamsters for not stopping the Midwest/Republic deal. Well, ALPA wasn't able to do anything about it either.

I think a lot of people have a skewed perception about unions and what exactly they do in this industry. If you think a union has the power to control executive decisions at a the CEO level, please, pass the crack pipe.

Unions negotiate labor contracts for the interest of the employees, and how often are those labor contracts stepped on by the executives and how often are those contracts ruled against in court? Its a lose lose situation 95% of the time.

For some reason, pilots, supposedly a group of very smart individuals, think that through their union they can control business decisions of their employer. This is a myth, kind of like the one where an airplane can't take-off on a treadmill. Hello!?!?! I can't believe any educated aviator would argue that an airplane wouldn't take-off from a rolling treadmill. But, seeing how professional pilots think they somehow have a controlling hand over their CEO's business decisions would lead one to not be surprised at all that an airplane couldn't takeoff from the treadmill. :cwm27:

Now you could make an argument that in fact, pilot unions have been successful in altering or preventing certain business decisions from taking place, but this is just a false perception. You have no control over your CEO's decision to engage in a deal for the financial health of their business. But but if we engage in this deal other pilots will get put on the street!! Yup, and do you think your CEO cares? Nope. Do you think anybody other than the pilots really care? Nope. What ya gonna do to stop it? Nothing, because you can't. Because you aren't the CEO, you don't get paid to make those decisions. How about a job action? Yeah...remember when I asked if anyone cared? The government isn't going to support your job action because you can not control your CEO's decisions! Its called free market or some kind of horse poo like that.

Pilots for some unknown reason, maybe ego, think they can and need to control everything. Sorry guys, shareholders don't appoint the pilot group to run the company. It takes a special human being to become a CEO. First of all you need a black heart, you need to have no regard for the quality of life your employees experience and you need to be greedy for the dollar.

Pilots unions can do nothing but negotiate their employment contracts with their employer. And provide some very valuable resources to you, which is probably the best thing the union's do. You're not going to march into your CEO's office with a clan of union cronnies and bust some skulls because you don't like the fact that you are being used as a whipsaw or tool against another pilot group. Sorry butch, nobody cares.

The industry is and will continue to be run by executive monsters who care only about their own bottom dollar. Its a fact of life, that pilots at some point just need to accept. The only thing that could have any effect over this fact, would be government re-regulation.

But yet, we pilots will continue to argue with each other and point fingers and play little games in our own distorted percerption of reality. Its not the CEO's fault that Republic is destroying Midwest, its the PILOTS fault. Those greedy punks want all the flying to themselves. How dare they! And shame on those Teamsters union, they are worthless!! If they were ALPA..........

My point, if ya haven't gotten it yet, is that no union is going to control business decisions. ALPA is the best union we have, because of the resources they bring to the pilot group. But they aren't the white knight in shining armor who will sweep in and save us from our perilous careers.
 
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