Rise & Fall of ALPA

[Rvrrat]

The other day radio commentator Dave Ross was speaking on the absurdity of United Airlines financial woes given the fact that said airline is majority owned by....it's own employees, of which the pilot group is the largest class. He ended by stating that it would indeed be an event when a company folded because if its own employee/owners.

In other threads, there is discussion of ALPA's "agenda".

I submit that since the pilots of United are quite tied up with ALPA, ALPA will ultimately dictate what is to become of the airline, and with it, the future of ALPA itself.

When he died in 1902, Lord Acton was considered one of the most learned people of his age, unmatched for the breadth, depth, and humanity of his knowledge. He has become famous to succeeding generations for his observation -- learned through many years of study and first-hand experience -- that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." & "Liberty is the prevention of control by others."

 

[flydog]

I think its important to remember that United's woes are not due to the pilots, mechanics, flight attendants, etc. Although they are owners on paper and have seats on the board they do not set long term strategy and fiscal policy, run the day-to-day operations and make management decisions. This is the job of the CEO, Chairman and the upper echelons of management. To say that the employees are responsible for the current problems and ultimate demise of United is irresponsible and not factually correct.

I think the bottom line is the employees as shareholders have to balance out their personal obligations to their families, their own creditors, and their dependents before they commit to saving an airline that may or may not survive. How easy do you really think it is taking a pay cut from $150,000 a year down to $100,000 if you have a mortgage to pay, kids in college, car payments, etc. Would you risk personal bankrupcty to save your job?

From a business and economic perspective the best way to save a company is to reorganize in such a way as to maximize profit and cut losses. This requires layoffs. Cutting 30% of your revenue and keeping 100% of your workforce wont fix the problem wether they take a 10%, 20%, or even 50% pay cut.

The employee owners know this and so does Wall Street. Its time for United to face the facts and get some competent management at the helm to save this company instead of spreading propaganda about how the employees are killing the airline.

 

[RJFlyer]

Would you risk personal bankrupcty to save your job?

This statement is exactly what is wrong with the thinking of the pilot groups at the majors. Can you not see the absurdity of this statement?

How easy do you really think it is taking a pay cut from $150,000 a year down to $100,000 if you have a mortgage to pay, kids in college, car payments, etc. Would you risk personal bankrupcty to save your job?

If you do not take the risk to save your job, you will be UNEMPLOYED. How far away is bankruptcy when you have no job?

Last time I checked, a job paying $100,000 per year is a bit better than no job paying $0. Maybe you need to move into a more affordable house. Maybe you need to drive a Toyota instead of a Lexus. Maybe your kid needs to go to a state university instead of that expensive private school. Maybe your current wife needs to go get a job. But $100,000 a year is not exactly chump change, and certainly shouldn't precipitate bankruptcy.

This requires layoffs. Cutting 30% of your revenue and keeping 100% of your workforce wont fix the problem wether they take a 10%, 20%, or even 50% pay cut.

Let's see. You're saying that to save a certain amount of money, the only way to do that is through furloughs? There is no way to save the same amount of money through pay concessions? That is absolutely ridiculous. You'd rather keep your fat paycheck and see several thousand junior guys on the street (and driven to bankruptcy?), than give up a little and let everyone keep their jobs?

I think you need to get a better grip on fiscal realities.

 

[B1900DFO]

I think what flydog was trying to say is that the ual pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, etc. are not responsible for United's current condition and pay concessions will not return United to a dominate position in the industry. I think everybody would agree that united is suffering from a terrible lack of vision when management pisses away close to a billion dollars in a year over ventures such as avolar, failed merger, mypoints.com, etc. For several months after 9/11 Ual's daily cash burn rate exceeded their payroll. Ual pilots have no guarantee that giving up 20-30% of their payroll will do absolutely anything to improve the company's prospects. Look at Us airways whose pilots gave up 30% in pay as well as furlough protection to secure the ATSB loans and the company still went chapter 11. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think the issue is as black and white as you make it out to be.

Also Rvrrat what in the world does Alpa national have to do with Ual's future? Any agreement made between the pilots and management will be formulated by ual's own mec. Alpa national is merely a bunch of overworked elected reps from varying airlines who have no say over what Ual's pilots agree to.

 

[Rvrrat]

Uncle Duane signs the bottom line; the Mecs might concoct the language and specifics but they don't have the legal ability to make it official. If ALPA wants things a certain way at UAL which may not be the prudent thing any other owner would do, the pilots (who are the largest class of employee-owners) will either choose as an owner would or follow the dictates of their union. It has already been demonstrated that the choice the pilots make is followed along with by the machinists & flight attendants.

I could well be wrong in my premise & supposition and hope that I am; yet the fact remains.

As a precursor to my next statement, I admit that I have not read UALs documents of corporation and do not know if the stock shares the employee-owners hold are voting shares or not. I will continue to be crass enough to presume they (the employee-owners shares) are votable.

Should UAL go into bankruptcy and fail to recover, any class of owner cannot be held blameless; the voting owners ultimately control the board who in turn sets long term policy and goals for the executive management team to carry out. In the case of UAL this is further enhanced due to that fact that both the pilot class of employee-owners & the machinist class of employee owners have two of the twelve board seats with a third seat occupied by the management/salaried class of employee-owners. This has been the case since 1994; I will grant that top-down initiated change takes time however, eight years is sufficient to have noticed a trend...

 

[MetroSheriff]

How easy do you really think it is taking a pay cut from $150,000 a year down to $100,000 if you have a mortgage to pay, kids in college, car payments, etc. Would you risk personal bankrupcty to save your job?

If you can't make a go of it on 100K, then you a in serious need of some financial advice. Try living within your means instead of leveraging everything to the hilt. Especially in this industry, put some aside for a rainy day.

 

[furloboy]

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"If you can't make a go of it on 100K, then you a in serious need of some financial advice. Try living within your means instead of leveraging everything to the hilt. Especially in this industry, put some aside for a rainy day."
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I know what you're getting at but this sort of statement is tiresome. Why 100K? Why not 80K? Some folks will say the same thing about 50K. If I wanted, I could move to Nebraska or some other of the more affordable states (not necessarily a bad thing) and live on my miliary retirement and still pay for food and electricity. But I want more.

I want more to do more and to give more. If my current income was cut to 100K I wouldn't be able to do what I do--for myself or for others. I get tired of reading blanket statements from folks that in effect make 100K look like the end-all in terms of income.

It ain't. Still you're right--folks should live within their means. And for some folks that is 20K. For others it is much more.

 

[328dude]

How many people growing up were very aware of what some airline pilots made back then. How many dreamed of oneday flying heavy iron and getting the big bucks.

Haven't we all dreamed that dream before? Seems pointless in todays industry, but non the less, you still dream the dream.

Flame away.

 

[Rick1128]

What a lot of people are missing is that the employees of UAL have been there, done that and got the #@%!!!!! T-shirt before. They and employees of other airlines have given 'give-backs' before. And it got them exactly NOTHING. There were still forloughs and lay offs, equipment sales, etc. And the management still tried all sorts of things with the 'give-back' money. I believe that the UAL employees are looking at US Airways and the past and saying 'We want to see the real books and need to see a real plan before we do anything."

Blaming ALPA National for UAL's problems is like sticking your head into the sand. It is counter productive. To quote J. Dawson Ransome the former owner of Ransome Airlines 'When an employee group unionizes, it is managment's fault.' I have been a member of ALPA, airline Teamsters and a couple of inhouse unions. I found that we got much more for our money with ALPA than any other union.

One other thing, there is much more to ALPA than just higher pay. Many of the regulations we operate under were instigated by ALPA and its safety people.

 

[publisher]

thread

this thread speaks more to what is wrong with this situation than to any solution. As I have said before, companies do not exist to employ, they employ to produce profits for the shareholders or owners.

If the employees are paid over what management can produce in terms of revenue as a percentage of cost, most companies shut down or hire different employees.