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All Flex (One Sky) Pilots

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April 16, 2018

To All Flight Options & Flexjet Pilots:

On behalf of the 9,500 members of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), the pilots of Southwest Airlines, I write to you today to express our unconditional support for International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 1108 and the representation services it provides to the pilots of Flight Options and Flexjet.

If the decertification effort of Local 1108 succeeds, the ramifications and consequences to our profession will be very damaging and far reaching. Unions and collective bargaining in the airline industry arose out of the necessity for safety and protection from greed and abuse by unconscionable owners and management. Today, we are faced with being pressured to fly at any cost, safety being sacrificed for profits, flag of convenience schemes, and many more problems.

Supporters of the decertification campaign against Local 1108 include some of our country’s most notoriously anti-union organizations, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Why are they involved? Because airline owners and management don’t like collective bargaining, which is a legitimate threat to the absolute power they wish to wield. Collective bargaining groups help enforce the requirement to run a safe organization, the duty to be accountable, and the requirement to provide a wage commensurate with the skill and experience required of our profession.

Our profession has been through hell and back. We have finally started to recover from several lost decades of declining wages and benefits. Today, for the first time, there is a confluence of factors in our favor: more emphasis on safety, stable oil prices, pilots in high demand with an ever-increasing shortage of qualified aviators, a recovering, healthy economy, and the public’s insatiable desire to travel. Decertification would threaten the safety of your operation and start the reversal of all of our hard-fought gains.

SWAPA’s pilot demand and pay study is located on our website at: https://www.swapa.org/. It will give some insight into the current market economics of our profession. Please also accept our invitation for Local 1108 to attend SWAPA’s second annual National Conference of Independent Pilot Unions in October. Information to the conference can be found at: https://www.swapa.org/conference.

All of us at SWAPA hope you conclude remaining in Local 1108 is not only what is right but what will protect and advance your careers and our profession. Please say no to decertification. Thank you for consideration and we hope to see you in October.

Fraternally,



Captain Jon Weaks
President
 
I also received that from a friend at Southwest. Immp is correct that they will be watching and this will have a negative effect on us Flex pilots getting on at Southwest...
 
It is absolutely imperative that we remember a union representative sits in on all interviews at the majors and regionals. If we let Flexjet become the laughing stock of the industry by decertifying, you can guarantee we will get tanked in the interview process. Not because they are petty or would be participating in some random form of blacklisting but because we will all be viewed as a cancer they can't let spread to their ranks.

Whether you were active in the decertification drive (a stage 4 cancer) or a MIGS to weak to stop it from spreading, the fact is we will be viewed as both pariahs and clowns.

If you ever have had a dream of moving on from this place to any outfit with a union on the property, you better start working overtime to make sure the 1108 stays at Flexjet.
 
It is absolutely imperative that we remember a union representative sits in on all interviews at the majors and regionals. If we let Flexjet become the laughing stock of the industry by decertifying, you can guarantee we will get tanked in the interview process. Not because they are petty or would be participating in some random form of blacklisting but because we will all be viewed as a cancer they can't let spread to their ranks.

Whether you were active in the decertification drive (a stage 4 cancer) or a MIGS to weak to stop it from spreading, the fact is we will be viewed as both pariahs and clowns.

If you ever have had a dream of moving on from this place to any outfit with a union on the property, you better start working overtime to make sure the 1108 stays at Flexjet.


I hope it does screw over all the decert guys, FW, LK, MR , and everybody’s favorite Chiken little, along with their band of imbeciles. What kind of an idiot doesn’t think for a minute that ALL pilot unions stick together. Decerting the IBT will be the beginning of the end of Flexjet, and then where are all these “wise guys” going? Certainly not an airline, they will be looked upon the same as scraps that crossed a picket line. The airlines take that stuff very seriously.

Word of advice to all the no votes, I would get a job lined up in the next few weeks because if your vote to decertify the IBT is successful, you’re possibilities of employment elsewhere are over. Good luck.
 
I also received that from a friend at Southwest. Immp is correct that they will be watching and this will have a negative effect on us Flex pilots getting on at Southwest...

Rather then having a negative effect on the pilots they should teach KR that pilots are a valuable asset.

It would be great if SWA, American, Delta, United, UPS etc would each fill a class of pilots made up of Flexjet pilots in June or July and drain 300 pilots from the Flex senority list and thereby ground half the Flexjet fleet for months to come. We already have 15 uncrewed aircraft a day. Imagine the charter costs if there were 40 uncrewed aircraft a day.
The customers and investors would not be too happy.
 
Might make this more relevant:

All I know there is no way I would mark a ballot, secret or not, to decertify a Union if I desired to work for a Major or any other airline. Can you say career suicide! Especially In this electronic age, not to mention there are still human beings involved!
 
Rather then having a negative effect on the pilots they should teach KR that pilots are a valuable asset.

It would be great if SWA, American, Delta, United, UPS etc would each fill a class of pilots made up of Flexjet pilots in June or July and drain 300 pilots from the Flex senority list and thereby ground half the Flexjet fleet for months to come. We already have 15 uncrewed aircraft a day. Imagine the charter costs if there were 40 uncrewed aircraft a day.
The customers and investors would not be too happy.

But only with proven union supporters- these decert arseholes shouldn’t be rewarded for the hell they’ve brought on at flex - you don’t want a union you shouldn’t get hired in to a union company
 
These non-supporters have no where to go. They are the true definition of a trapped employee. They think they can't give up their shiny jet syndrome position and work like the rest of us. Right now, Flex is in an emergency descent with the gear and spoilers out. As we descent thru 1,000 ft, will management figure out the position we are in and pull us out? There isn't much time left!!
 
Try getting in anywhere. I would take a photo of my vote, my dues card and quit for pretty much any job if this decert goes through.

This is the talk of the industry right now, and it’s not being looked upon favorably at all. Good luck getting on anywhere, you will be damaged goods. If NJA buys the crumbs left at Flex someday, staple job is the best you could hope for. The union wouldn’t want you at all and would demand individual veto power.

Word is CAPA, APA, UPS, all are drafting letters at this point. If you don’t have a photo of your dues paying card and flex goes under you will be our generation of scab equivalents. Stupid, stupid move. Shockingly stupid.
 
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We already have 15 uncrewed aircraft a day. Imagine the charter costs if there were 40 uncrewed aircraft a day.
The customers and investors would not be too happy.

Before I left that number was up to 25. Unless they have hired that many which is impossible. That number came straight from a high level manager.
 

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