Aquagreen 73s wrote:
The legal fight is a result, not a cause.
Not the way some here are portraying it. They have made this personal and their pride is going to be just as big an impediment to contractual gains as that of the east.
Cheeky, but you know the significant differences between ALPA national leaning on AWALPA on behalf of AAALPA, and a bipartisan group of moderate east and west pilots who can hammer out a C&BL s free from the shackles of DOH. To keep USAPA you would have to allow all of the USAPA radicals to vote on a constitutional amendment to strip out DOH. Think that'll happen?
Changing unions puts USAPA on the defensive to prove why clinging to DOH is in their best interests. Keeping USAPA just enables lazy west pilots to participate through Paypal rather than developing a physical, tangible union that moderate east pilots can rally behind. That takes far more effort than clicking a Donate button and donning a lanyard.
Recall that the DFR evidence in Addington started under a different union. Changing CBA's does not break the chain of evidence. DFR II is going to be much less expensive than DFR I regardless of who the CBA is.
With all due respect, and without any intention to attract flame: Blah! Blah! Blah! You can spend 2 million or 2 billion on Addington and it still doesn't solve anything. It just takes you back to the point where USAPA passed their DOH list. Leonidas has not been forthright with it's supporters in this regard. An Addington win in DFR2 doesn't win anything. USAPA is just as free to hand out a DOH contract as it ever has been. I am sick of those folks who live on every word that comes from the court, while a generation of pilots is laboring under substandard wages because they are under the tyranny of a fake union.
If Cleary is the problem, then what is to prevent him from assuming power in the next union?
I think Cleary thrives on apathyand ignorance. It makes his histrionics all the more theatrical. If he had a well-informed electorate they might ask him hard questions.
The ratification of a new union would be the repudiation of Cleary's tactics. I would not be surprised if he quit shortly after a new union was installed. Or he would blather on in a little read blog somewhere.
But you more or less said otherwise by saying that by removing Cleary changes the landscape. If it does, then why the new union?
No, I said removing Cleary is step 1 in re-defining labor relations at USAirways. Less confrontational, but far more productive. Less sizzle, more steak. But USAPA is just a litany of failed ideas and any one of the CLT reps would fill his vacuum and change nothing. A new union would shed the baggage of USAPA and make for more efficient negotiations with the company. If pilots on both sides knew that this was a union that was spending it's time money and effort at the negotiating table and backing the initiatives that mean something to pilots instead of playing Matlock in a courtroom every week or so, it would be voted in by a wide majority.
There is no fix for USAPA. All the Bondo and JBWeld in the world can't patch that hulk up, and I for one don't feel like spending 2% of my salary on a patched up hulk that has no history of performance anyhow.