Pilot labor thread week 4/27-5/3

[nostradamus]

Clue quote of the day

refering to any airline employees asking for a raise.


"Folks, I hate to rub salt into this, but here is the difference:

Even in today's market, there is still some demand for somebody with, say, a CPA as a cost accountant. Or, with an MBA and strategic planning skills. These folks are among the few and the proud who can easily find other employment, in many cases paying more money."

 

[toganoflex]

pales in the fact that he did not know when to retire.

Just like most of the east pilots.

 

[nostradamus]

Bonus clue by four quote


"One might compare my addiction to frequent flyer perqs to that of unionized labor and exhorbitant contracts, but I'm not going there. Really.[smile.gif] It's a whole new world for everybody, eh?"

Click on this persons history, previous posts. This is an arrogant anti employee person. Please click on find members quotes, scroll back. This is five years of union, employee hating posts.

This is not personal. This falls under the category of consider the source.

 

[nostradamus]

Just like most of the east pilots.

Why should the EAST pilots retire? Be specific and to the point.

 

[NiceLandingCaptain]

Well, there's a bunch of us westyz that are smiling - just a little, mind you - at the CO news. Many of the pieces are beginning to fall into place for the LCC/UAUA merge.

I can see the steam starting to waft out of Lord Bradford's big old ears now - soon he'll start looking like Engine #9 steaming its way under load going uphill. And poor old Sir Theuer will loose the rest of what little hair he has left. So many yellow lanyards, so many lost dreams. What will Seham do? Probably send his last bill over to the usaps office and call it a day.....

Hey east, hey nostro, hey endofalpa - what say yee? I suspect the keyboards will be smokin' now....

Its gonna be an interesting week. Lets get rrrreddy to rrrrrummmble!!!!!!!!!!

 

[nostradamus]

Well, there's a bunch of us westyz that are smiling - just a little, mind you - at the CO news. Many of the pieces are beginning to fall into place for the LCC/UAUA merge.

I can see the steam starting to waft out of Lord Bradford's big old ears now - soon he'll start looking like Engine #9 steaming its way under load going uphill. And poor old Sir Theuer will loose the rest of what little hair he has left. So many yellow lanyards, so many lost dreams. What will Seham do? Probably send his last bill over to the usaps office and call it a day.....

Hey east, hey nostro, hey endofalpa - what say yee? I suspect the keyboards will be smokin' now....

Its gonna be an interesting week. Lets get rrrreddy to rrrrrummmble!!!!!!!!!!

No west person is smiling now. We sent john and mitchClick here for the white panthers pictue and tina back to flying the line.

You make fun of USAPA founders, but they are the most respected pilots around, your mistake is judging your popularity by jump seating pilots.

Their is no rumble sir, your fate will be decided by wall street not Main street.

 

[nostradamus]

.

 

[Leonidas]

Well I guess the fun is about to start for uSCAba. DOH is DOH and you can't selectively apply it, I wonder what this lawsuit will look like. Clowns

"Dear Capt. Bradford,

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS on doing something that I have been hoping would happen for the past 30 years, and that is....getting rid of the ALPA curse!

As I prepare to celebrate my 30th anniversary (April 26th, 1978 - April 26th, 2008) with this company and don the service pin with 3 diamonds, I look back on my career here at the combination of Empire Airlines, Piedmont, USair(ways) and now America West. I am greatly concerned about one last bit of ALPA business that may once again come back to haunt this pilot group, DATE-OF-HIRE seniority.

You may or may not remember how ALPA, during a push to unionize smaller airlines during the mid 1980s, was allowed, even encouraged, to make an example of the Empire Airlines pilots. To show what would happen if an ALPA carrier bought you and you were not ALPA, the pilots of Empire Airlines were stripped of their rightful place on a date-of-hire seniority list, and placed BELOW pilots that had not even started training...........sound familiar? I lost 7 years of seniority. I have been punished for the past 25 years. I have been denied the ability to bid holidays off, my choice of schedules, my chance of advancement.

What am I asking you to look at and consider? Just like that time long ago when ALPA failed to abide by a date-of-hire merger policy, and just as USAPA has professed to truly support and demand a date-of-hire integration, I ask that USAPA immediately place ALL Empire pilots (or any other group) in their true positions on our USAirways SENIORITY list so that if and when ALPA returns in one demon form or another (a merger?), USAPA will be able to hold it's head high and state with the utmost truthfulness, that we are, in fact, a DATE-OF-HIRE airline?

I am not asking for a windfall. I have paid the price for 25 years (A loss of about 2.5 million dollars just in DIFFERENCE in PAY). I am just asking that I be able to use my 30 years here to exercise my seniority just like any other pilot on our list. DATE-OF-HIRE is DATE-OF HIRE!!! There can not be any exceptions.....because 'EXCEPTIONS' were what ALPA was all about!

We are now the IN HOUSE UNION....just like Empire Airlines Pilots Association was.............when ALPA shows up again.....are we as USAPA pilots prepared to go to the BOTTOM of the list as Empire did so that ALPA can show, once again, what happens to pilots that defy ALPA's will?

Conditions, restrictions??? If you must...........but put my name and those of my fellow Empire pilot's on the seniority list where they always should have been, according to their DATE-OF-HIRE!!!!!!


Sincerely,"

 

[Leonidas]

Hi all--
> >
> > The story of how this occurred was told to me thusly, but keep in
> > mind I wasn't there when it happened and didn't talk to the crew
> > involved, so can't vouch for parts of it being entirely accurate: A/
> > C 589, our somewhat elderly 737-300 which was due to be retired the
> > next day, landed at BDL around midnight last Friday night. Arriving
> > at nearly the same time was the "USAir West" flight from PHX.
> > Determined to score a minor victory in the ongoing East-West
> > skirmish, the 737 pilot (a 40+ year guy) made it his business to get
> > to the gate before those whippersnappers from Tempe. His taxi
> > clearance, in part, was to go via runway 19, which is a small G/A
> > runway that is used only occasionally. Our hero hadn't been to BDL
> > in a couple of years and apparently didn't check the recent Jepp
> > airport diagram, which would have showed him that runway 19 has been
> > shortened from what he remembered, and no longer intersects runway
> > 33 or the ramp like it used to. So in his haste he taxied right
> > between the pretty red threshold lights and off the pavement. The
> > dirt, having been recently worked, was soft and sandy. The airplane
> > turned left and headed for the nearest taxiway but ran out of
> > momentum and sank in, with the nosewheels just missing a concrete
> > catch basin, and stopped with the nose gear about 6 feet from the
> > edge of the pavement. He apparently had high power on the engines
> > as the exhaust had dug a trench in the dirt behind #1. After
> > getting the pax deplaned and the bags offloaded and the airplane
> > defueled, they left it for the night.
> >
> > Next morning we begged, borrowed and stole whatever planking and
> > ramps we could get hold of. The R/H MLG wasn't too deep so we
> > leveled the dirt in front of it and laid down some plywood. The
> > left MLG was deeper, but we had some thick laminated planks from
> > ASIG (they keep them around for their fuel trucks) so we dug down
> > and put them in place for tracks. Smaller ramps went in for the
> > nosewheels. We tried to move the airplane but the nose ramps were
> > too steep and the shear pin in the towbar let go. As we were
> > considering plan B, reinforcements arrived--Pryz and another
> > mechanic from PIT, who had some experience with this sort of thing;
> > an engineer armed with the Boeing Aircraft Recovery Manual; and four
> > mechanics from PHL. We now knew we'd have to lift the nose and get
> > some better surface under it. The airport fire department offered
> > an air bag, which looked too small for the job, so we got some
> > bigger ones on the road from PIT. The engineer was concerned
> > because the airplane wasn't laterally level, so we tinkered with
> > strut inflation and got it very close, then tried the small air
> > bag. It worked like a charm and started to lift the fuselage at
> > only about 3.5 psi. The rest of the job went pretty smoothly from
> > there, and with some planks and plywood under the nosewheels, we
> > towed it up to the taxiway. A quick assessment revealed no damage
> > or engine FOD, and we took it to the ramp. We did what we could of
> > the "off-runway excursion" conditional inspection in MM chapter 5
> > and it ferried to PIT on Monday for fuse pin inspections and a gear
> > swing, which turned out OK as far as I know.
> >
> > During the process I powered up the airplane to charge the brake
> > accumulator. When the ACARS lit up there was an unacknowledged
> > message on the screen from the night before, from the dispatcher to
> > the pilot: "So--what 'in' time do you want me to show?"
> >

 

[P51Pilot]

Well, there's a bunch of us westyz that are smiling - just a little, mind you - at the CO news. Many of the pieces are beginning to fall into place for the LCC/UAUA merge.

I can see the steam starting to waft out of Lord Bradford's big old ears now - soon he'll start looking like Engine #9 steaming its way under load going uphill. And poor old Sir Theuer will loose the rest of what little hair he has left. So many yellow lanyards, so many lost dreams. What will Seham do? Probably send his last bill over to the usaps office and call it a day.....

Hey east, hey nostro, hey endofalpa - what say yee? I suspect the keyboards will be smokin' now....

Its gonna be an interesting week. Lets get rrrreddy to rrrrrummmble!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think the United pilots will want a merger where there weak condition can be used to disadvantage them as the ALPA lovers would so want to do, or might they an embraces DOH with conditions and restrictions as they slide toward the precipice. A position USAPA is constitutionally bound to extend and rightfully so.

 

[Bear96]

I'm speculating a little here. But I would expect the sequence of events in any future merger, such as UAL, to be first, negotiate a seniority list; and second, vote on a union.

In other words, the SLI (seniority list integration) would need to be addressed first. In which case USAPA is the CBA for our side, Alleghany-Mohawk and the legislation passed in December would govern; and only afterward would a representational election be held.

So like a year ago, don't get too excited about cashing in any lottery ticket you may think you have.

You mean the legislation that looks a lot like the ALPA merger policy (the parties try to work it out themselves; if they can't, they go to BINDING ARBITRATION)? That legislation?

 

[700UW]

I believe you may have it a bit back-arse-wards...again. From memory, weren't the AAA & AWA mechanics members of different unions? Did not the NMB declare that they were of single carrier status? Did they not then vote for a single Collective Bargaining Agent and eventually a new contract?

No they did vote on a new union, the IBT could not gather enough cards for a vote, so the NMB gave the IAM the certification and they just ratified a combined CBA.

 

[luvn737s]

We sent john and mitch and tina back to flying the line.

Tina??? Do you even know who you're talking about? We'll send you a program.

You make fun of USAPA founders, but they are the most respected pilots around, your mistake is judging your popularity by jump seating pilots.

Oh, yeah, just ask anyone who's watched his performance on YouTube. Respected, yeah that's the word I was looking for, right!

 

[KTM300]

A smart fellow named George Nicolau neutered the east pilot group-- what they say or threaten to do at this point is of little consequence, especially with an ALPA super majority on the property with AWA + UAL. USAPs are done.

What makes you so sure that you would have a super majority. I had a senior 777 check airman on the jumpseat, CLT-MYR. I pointed out to him that his ALPA pin on his tie was upside down. He told me it was intentional and that many pilots at UAL feel the same way about ALPA as the majority(meaning those that voted for USAPA) of pilots at USAirways

 

[prechilill]

If UAUA and LCC get together, watching the USAPs squirm will be definitely the best entertainment since the days following the Nicolau decision. Hands down, this will truly be a sight to behold, to watch the desperate convincing of each other that USAPs will have life at the end of this possible merger. The subtle, tenuous fear is already noticable in the toned-down rhetoric from a few of the seniority gold diggers from the east. As I said earlier, I thought the legal system was going to hammer a stake through USAPs disorderly union but we may not even get to that! Holy cow, what a turn of expectations that would be for all of those aging, hungry first officers out east salivating over their imagined monopoly on all the upgrades. And just to have it disappear in one company announcement!
Look on the bright side, at least you guys on the east may have an opportunity to work under a contract not mirroring a bankrupt regional airline. UAL ALPA will take care of you certainly better than you are capable of doing for yourselves if history is any measure. So if I were an east pilot I would be hoping and praying UAUA comes in and rescues LCC because if they don't you guys at best will be living a life of LOA93 with an onslaught of furloughs coming your way under the Nicolau seniority list.