Striking pilots, airline for Amazon, DHL head to court

RJM62 said:
Piloting doesn't lend itself to apprenticeship in the same way as other trades do.
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I think you might be surprised how much is NOT taught in airline training programs and is informally picked up on the line or in the sim from willing co-workers. Very informal of course, but since crews sink or swim together...

I've talked with a number of folks who've "shown the FO something they didn't know" about the aircraft or about how the company does certain things or even just a better technique, within the confines of the airline's specs, of course.

But that's not formalized and the unions missed their chance to do so, I think. Not in the way other trades do, anyway. They don't have to own the aircraft or the sims to define levels of capability and mentors.

FAA seems interested, didn't they announce a mentorship system they'd like to see happening fairly recently?
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
There was no struck work anywhere but CVG and ILN, so that's not an issue.
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The only struck work would have been if ABX attempted to operate flights or if ABX attempted to hire contractors to operate the flights to replace ABX flights. AFAIK, ABX Air made no such attempts.

The strike was against ABX Air, not DHL or Amazon.

There were picket lines at CVG and ILN so those were the only two locations were ATI, Atlas, Southern, etc. crews would have encountered a picket line. Most of those crews choose to honor the picket lines in those locations but crossing those lines did not constitute performing struck work.

The ATSG/DHL/Amazon relationship can make this confusing. Imagine if American Airlines was on strike. Struck work would be flying AAL planes or flying passengers and/or cargo under contract to AAL. The Delta, United, Southwest, etc., pilots would continue to fly and some of their passengers may have been stranded AAL passengers. That is not struck work. The passenger is the customer in that case just as DHL or Amazon is the customer in the ABX strike. The strike is not against the customer.
 
Been ALPA twice....would send my certificate back to the Feds if I had to be a member there again.
Been Teamster's twice....same as ALPA but a more openly corrupt leadership
Been Independent Unions twice....The ONLY way to go IF and only IF your group is unified...mine is...

I work for a company where the original interview questions were 1. Blah Blah Blah 2. More Blah Blah Blah 3. Do you have a problem being a member of the Teamsters? Yes or No...Yes? Thank you for your time today, have a nice career somewhere else.

When we as a pilot group voted out the Teamsters, the company was completely shocked and dismayed. They only had their management structure to blame. We all hired on with a "let's charge hell with a water pistol" attitude. My joy had being hired (not my first airline by a long shot, but the most stable) was quickly (took 45 minutes on the property of the first day of class) to steal that. I am grateful for my job, but it is just that a job. I will be completing 30 years next summer and could go for a couple of more years but absolutely no way. I am back into flying general aviation and have had my love restored.
Still it is a great job and career but it is definitely not fun anymore.
 
MD11Pilot said:
I am back into flying general aviation and have had my love restored.
Still it is a great job and career but it is definitely not fun anymore.
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Yup, felt the same way when I retired. I put up with it to 65, barely. The last year was a real pita. Trying to get the love back myself.
 
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Used to belong to an independent union , only problem with that is you don't have any horsepower. You send a man up to congress and all the congress critters ask "you're with who ?" , "you say you represent how many?".
 
Excusing airlines from the umbrella of the RLA would recover some actual teeth to the power of organized labor wrt airline pilots. The NMB are a bunch of pro-management jackals, right along with federal BK judges. That so called mediation process is a joke. It dilutes the power of airline unions to the point of being laughable. There's no good faith mediation going on, just more corporatist "get back in line serf!" injunctions and ice periods, while people are forced to work under contracts (or NO contracts!) with amendable dates 4 years in the past. Gimme a break.

Look no further than the issue of this very thread. Judge already swept the rug from under the pilots. Nothing to see here, move along. Standard. If you didn't see that coming as quick as it did, you're smoking glue.

My concerns going forward is the threat of cabotage gaining actual traction in an all majority anti-labor Congress. The flying plebe continues to demand utility-like access to airline travel, and they don't care one iota about perceptions of safety. They get on board Allegiant airplanes every day even with the prior knowledge they don't run a full weekly schedule (stranded) and have had the most egregious frequency of engine related precautionary landings as of late (ValuJet part deux). Pilots to them are overpaid bus drivers, and I'm convinced consumers really don't care about being flown around the CONUS by flag of convenience tails and Southwest Asia crews. Once they crack the cabotage door, it's game over. The regionals will dry up and the house of cards collapses, because nobody in the aggregate is going to go through this hassle if the pot at the end of the regional pay cut is merely to earn 75K in the left seat of a category II aircraft, let alone 120K for the left seat of a cat IV ship.

If you're over 50, sure this doesn't keep you up at night. But if you're younger than 40......

One thing is true about this industry. Post 9/11/01 and the explosion of the internet, no one has the excuse of "I had no idea the industry was this volatile..." anymore, myself included. We make our bed, we lay on it.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Excusing airlines from the umbrella of the RLA would recover some actual teeth to the power of organized labor wrt airline pilots. The NMB are a bunch of pro-management jackals, right along with federal BK judges. That so called mediation process is a joke. It dilutes the power of airline unions to the point of being laughable. There's no good faith mediation going on, just more corporatist "get back in line serf!" injunctions and ice periods, while people are forced to work under contracts (or NO contracts!) with amendable dates 4 years in the past. Gimme a break.

Look no further than the issue of this very thread. Judge already swept the rug from under the pilots. Nothing to see here, move along. Standard. If you didn't see that coming as quick as it did, you're smoking glue.

My concerns going forward is the threat of cabotage gaining actual traction in an all majority anti-labor Congress. The flying plebe continues to demand utility-like access to airline travel, and they don't care one iota about perceptions of safety. They get on board Allegiant airplanes every day even with the prior knowledge they don't run a full weekly schedule (stranded) and have had the most egregious frequency of engine related precautionary landings as of late (ValuJet part deux). Pilots to them are overpaid bus drivers, and I'm convinced consumers really don't care about being flown around the CONUS by flag of convenience tails and Southwest Asia crews. Once they crack the cabotage door, it's game over. The regionals will dry up and the house of cards collapses, because nobody in the aggregate is going to go through this hassle if the pot at the end of the regional pay cut is merely to earn 75K in the left seat of a category II aircraft, let alone 120K for the left seat of a cat IV ship.

If you're over 50, sure this doesn't keep you up at night. But if you're younger than 40......

One thing is true about this industry. Post 9/11/01 and the explosion of the internet, no one has the excuse of "I had no idea the industry was this volatile..." anymore, myself included. We make our bed, we lay on it.
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Well said, agree 100%. Especially the red highlighted.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Judge already swept the rug from under the pilots.
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Actually, the strike was fairly successful.

Two of the three items over which the pilots struck were resolved in the pilot's favor. The third issue was declared a "minor dispute", under the RLA, and will proceed to arbitration.

The two resolved items were regarding vacation denials and day/night transition scheduling. The item sent to arbitration was with regard to the timely restoration of the days off (D6 days) lost to emergency assignments in excess of six.
 
The PR spin was interesting on the national radio news tonight. I'll do my best at a direct quote here...

"A judge issued a temporary restraining order against the strikers because they threatened the holiday shopping season. The carrier flies packages for Amazon.com."

Obviously that's "correct" in a way, but not really all that accurate in that it misleads the public. The "news" wants to spin it as all about the listeners who won't get their Amazon goodies for Christmas -- which wouldn't be true even if the strike had continued.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Excusing airlines from the umbrella of the RLA would recover some actual teeth to the power of organized labor wrt airline pilots. The NMB are a bunch of pro-management jackals, right along with federal BK judges. That so called mediation process is a joke. It dilutes the power of airline unions to the point of being laughable. There's no good faith mediation going on, just more corporatist "get back in line serf!" injunctions and ice periods, while people are forced to work under contracts (or NO contracts!) with amendable dates 4 years in the past. Gimme a break.

Look no further than the issue of this very thread. Judge already swept the rug from under the pilots. Nothing to see here, move along. Standard. If you didn't see that coming as quick as it did, you're smoking glue.

My concerns going forward is the threat of cabotage gaining actual traction in an all majority anti-labor Congress. The flying plebe continues to demand utility-like access to airline travel, and they don't care one iota about perceptions of safety. They get on board Allegiant airplanes every day even with the prior knowledge they don't run a full weekly schedule (stranded) and have had the most egregious frequency of engine related precautionary landings as of late (ValuJet part deux). Pilots to them are overpaid bus drivers, and I'm convinced consumers really don't care about being flown around the CONUS by flag of convenience tails and Southwest Asia crews. Once they crack the cabotage door, it's game over. The regionals will dry up and the house of cards collapses, because nobody in the aggregate is going to go through this hassle if the pot at the end of the regional pay cut is merely to earn 75K in the left seat of a category II aircraft, let alone 120K for the left seat of a cat IV ship.

If you're over 50, sure this doesn't keep you up at night. But if you're younger than 40......

One thing is true about this industry. Post 9/11/01 and the explosion of the internet, no one has the excuse of "I had no idea the industry was this volatile..." anymore, myself included. We make our bed, we lay on it.
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Amen Brother. I left 121 eight years ago and fly crop dusters now. Do not miss the union/management
 
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