Airline Pilots with Military Wings

[Catmando]

It was always interesting to watch the transformation of former military aviators' attitudes towards "unions" (indeed even some bitterly anti-union) after they had entered the ruthless airline industry for awhile.

For a group normally and generally considered to be hardly "pro-union," it does not take long for most all to be totally converted. Indeed, a majority of pilot union leadership in most all airlines is run by former military aviators. And it is no accident that many of their functions are along the lines of an effective military organization.

It's also worth noting that while unions in the US have been in long decline, the airline industry remains heavily unionized and growing – pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics.

There are many reasons for this but essentially, it is because it is so very easy for an airline to take extreme advantage of its employees, or play one group against the other, as they have done since 1930s mail service and ALPA's earliest days... and still attempt to do. In fact it is the combined airline unions, ever more so than management that has lead to a safety record that is the envy of the world.

Some of the best naval aviators I knew in the Navy went on to be some of the best union representatives within the airlines. They did remarkable, voluntary but difficult work that not only benefited their members and even their companies, but especially their traveling public! And as usual, unpaid and unsung.

The honor, integrity, and dedication – in addition to the brotherhood - learned in the military easily translate to collective bargaining and pilot representation with the respective airlines. And we all are better for it!

 

[a-6intruder]

Here's my big beef about the union, with the caveat being this all occurred on one trip in 1993, and for the most part is probably a thing of the past.

Same trip to Seattle (she was the FE and still in her probation year), I'm waiting for her to land. She's about 15 minutes late already, but I finally see her 727 on short final, but it goes missed approach (Day VFR), keep the gear down, enter something akin to a PAR box pattern (probably an ILS, but I don't recall), and land about 15 minutes later. As she is walking off the jetway she tells me not to ask any questions or say anything.

Long story w/ some background. Mid-1993, the Union is unofficially flexing some muscle to "help out" the collective bargaining process and several of the more senior, more militant Captains take it upon themselves to enact a work slow down, which I suspect is totally illegal (or at least unethical). The Captain basically told her and the First Officer that he was going to do everything he could to slow things down, to show the company who really was in charge.

Apparently, in the course of the four day trip, he was able to do the following:

- Push back on time, but wait at the gate until called for taxi. Then taxi as slow as possible until Ground would come up and spin them out of the parade to the duty runway. At which point he'd get on the PA and tell the passengers that "ladies and gentlemen, we've been asked to pull aside for some higher priority traffic, blah, blah, blah..." His goal every day was to add at least an hour on to his crew day. Why not? He's getting paid from brake release to shut down.

- Flew each leg at something way less than whatever dispatch planned as optimum, so as to burn way more fuel to let the company know he meant business.

- On the day he went around at Seattle, Approach called traffic on final to the parallel runway. The First Officer informed the Captain he had a tally and it wasn't a factor. Captain elects for a go around, even says it's a good opportunity to log an extra 10 minutes of flight time. Captain makes conscious decision to fly the go around dirty (when I saw them I assumed they had an unsafe gear), so as to burn more fuel, fly slower, extend the flight time, etc. The FO and FE both query him on this and he says to relax, it's all part of the master plan. Granted, I have never flown other than as a B/N, but the few missed approaches I've been on as a passenger the pilot cleaned up when flying the box pattern.

- Same Captain remarked that he had an agreement w/ his dry cleaner to label any receipt for clothing w/ the company name as he got reimbursed for dry cleaning uniforms. It's the little things that help stick it to The Man.

- Final straw was coming out of Atlanta for final leg into Chicago at the end of the four day trip, his stated goal was to land late enough to make as many people miss connections as possible so the company would have to deal with putting them up for the night. He didn't care - he was a local commuter, and he's stretched his flying day to the tune of an extra $150 (or whatever the rate was then) for the extra hour of flight time. But my wife, who was making about $20 an hour back then got to miss her connection and pay for the $49 room for the night until she could get home the next day.

I asked her why she didn't turn him in for unprofessional, borderline unsafe behavior. She said it was her word as a probationary FE against a senior Captain and his word would trump, and nothing he did (save for the dry cleaning perhaps) could be proven - it was always Ground's decision or ATC's decision to spin them out, or slow them down, or whatever. I asked about the cockpit recorder, and she said legal challenges had determined it was inadmissable for punitive reasons, and could only be used for mishap investigation and reconstruction. And, of course, she (like most of us) didn't want to get a reputation as a tattle-tale.

I seriously question why any group (be they union or company) would want a "professional" (turd) like that as part of their rank and file.

The good news is that most of those guys seem to have faded away. I don't recall her mentioning pervasive buffoonery like that since the mid-90s.

 

[HAL Pilot]

^ I can tell you that those actions were probably from the individual pilot and not directed by the union. In fact, if the union were to direct that, the union could get in legal trouble. Here are a couple of paragraphs from my union leadership concerning this type of issue I just received tonight in a negotiations update:

Maintain status quo – we can tolerate absolutely no blue-flu episodes, etc. As always, if you are sick, you must not fly. If the airplane is broken, you must write it up. Be professional. A false sick call, or an inappropriate maintenance write-up, will not “help” in our negotiations, and may actually work to undermine our credibility, jeopardize our airline’s operation, and negatively impact our customers. Both management and ALPA are required to maintain the status quo during negotiations.

Keep it professional – now more than ever it’s critical that we continue to conduct ourselves in the same way that we always do, as the professional pilots that have helped Hawaiian Airlines become the air carrier that it is today.

 

[a-6intruder]

^ I can tell you that those actions were probably from the individual pilot and not directed by the union. In fact, if the union were to direct that, the union could get in legal trouble. Here are a couple of paragraphs from my union leadership concerning this type of issue I just received tonight in a negotiations update:

Maintain status quo – we can tolerate absolutely no blue-flu episodes, etc. As always, if you are sick, you must not fly. If the airplane is broken, you must write it up. Be professional. A false sick call, or an inappropriate maintenance write-up, will not “help” in our negotiations, and may actually work to undermine our credibility, jeopardize our airline’s operation, and negatively impact our customers. Both management and ALPA are required to maintain the status quo during negotiations.

Keep it professional – now more than ever it’s critical that we continue to conduct ourselves in the same way that we always do, as the professional pilots that have helped Hawaiian Airlines become the air carrier that it is today.

Doesn't the fact that the union feels the need to remind its members to act professionally imply that there were problems in the past? Perhaps not w/ HAL (not sure you could convince anyone of having a majority of the workforce med-down w/ the flu when you have a HNL domicile anyway!). I read wife's ALPA magazine and MEC newsletter routinely. The rhetoric seems to ebb and flow depending on what stage the contract negotiations are in.

 

[FrankTheTank]

..my experience with unions has been more akin to piracy. As in, they took half my money.

Let's be honest it WASN'T half! I know ALPA is 1.95%

Some of the best naval aviators I knew in the Navy went on to be some of the best union representatives within the airlines.

Nearly all our Union leaders are prior military... In fact, I think everyone on OUR MEC is prior... Bunch of Air Force FAGS and alot of Marines... Seems most the Navy guys would rather fly the line..

 

[PropStop]

Here's my take on unions - being totally unqualified in my experience with them... I'm normally not a fan, however, having known many commercial pilots, and seeing the above stories from some of our commercial guys, the union does indeed protect pilots. I'm not sure pilots deserved to get paid as much as they did back in "the day" but one thing is for certain - I want the HIGHEST paid and MOST EXPERIENCED guy driving the bus "it" hits the fan. The ditching last week in NY is a great example of why pilots SHOULD get paid so much.

Pilots don't earn their money by the hour, they earn their money when their skills and professionalism safely gets pax on deck who were blissfully ignorant of how much anger they were in.

Edit...I also one day hope to get paid well

 

[A4sForever]

...I'm not sure pilots deserved to get paid as much as they did back in "the day" but one thing is for certain - I want the HIGHEST paid and MOST EXPERIENCED guy driving the bus "it" hits the fan...

Well ... you can't have it both ways, Amigo ...

Look at it this way: every time I flew the PAC from West Coast-wherever to Tokyo ... I generated over $1M for the company coffers ... that's as in EVERY time I flew the route w/ 350+/- pax and some cargo in the belly ...

Soo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oooooooo .... what was my service "worth" on an annual basis ??? What did my compadres and I "DESERVE" ???

Suppose "it" had hit the fan??? (and it did on too many occasions) How much were the lives of those 395+/- pax on a full boat worth, on any given day ??? Don't ask me as I didn't know most of them and couldn't speak to their relative "worth" ... ask their families instead .... this is not hype or justification or B.S. .... it's reality. It was NOT "heroic" ... it was just our job.

PLUS ... what did we have to do to "get there" and ultimately pull down the comfortable salary ??? If I had devoted the same time, effort, skills, and blood/sweat/tears to say ... the medical profession ... I would have been a specialist (in a way, I guess I was ... ) and I would have been "paid" (or rewarded??) even more generously for my skills and efforts ... maybe even a TV show (??) .... PLUS ... as a doctor I would NOT have needed another doctor to do a full running jump-start anal cavity "exam" on my buttocks every six months .... *GASP*

Here's my take on unions - one day hope to get paid well

And when you do -- you can thank the ALPA guys who came before you for their hard work, sacrifices, and perseverance ...

Believe it.

 

[HAL Pilot]

Doesn't the fact that the union feels the need to remind its members to act professionally imply that there were problems in the past? Perhaps not w/ HAL (not sure you could convince anyone of having a majority of the workforce med-down w/ the flu when you have a HNL domicile anyway!). I read wife's ALPA magazine and MEC newsletter routinely. The rhetoric seems to ebb and flow depending on what stage the contract negotiations are in.

Yes the union needs to remind it's members to act professionally because the National Labor Board and the courts seem to hold the union responsible even when the actions taken by pilots are within the bounds of the contract - and even when the union tells the pilots not to take the actions. One pilot circulating a memo for a sick out can get the whole union in trouble because of lopsided view of the courts. And there is always the 1% who thinks they know better than the other 99% who are acting professionally.

That damn status quo thing is a killer. Last summer, United took the union to court claiming the pilots were conducting a job action by refusing to work overtime or on their days off. The UAL pilot contract does not require any pilots to work overtime or on their days off but historically they have accepted these assignments. A bunch of pilots got fed up with the number of times they were being asked to work overtime and on their days off, so within the bounds of the contract, they started refusing. The union never told them or hinted in any way that the pilots should refuse these assignments. But because they had historically accepted them, the status quo was not being met. The company sued the union (instead of hiring more pilots) and the court decided that although the pilots were following their contract, they were not following the status quo and were thereby conducting a job action. Airline pilots are bound by the Railroad Labor Act and are not allowed to conduct job actions unless specific procedures are followed and specific criteria met. The court for all practical purposes modified the pilots' contract for the company.

At Hawaiian, our primary pilot base is HNL with a very small base in SEA. If one of the pilots gets sick on a layover, there are no reserve pilots within a distance to get the flight off reasonably on time. They usually get delayed 8+ hours and even until the next day. This happens very rarely because most of us do not want to inconvenience the pax (there is that professionalism thing) unless we are REALLY sick. So what have we done? We've established a status quo that is biting us in the butt. We should be calling in sick more often but if we do, we are conducting a job action. Further, the company shut down our LAX and SFO bases as a cost cutting move in 2002 causing many pilots to become commuters. We should have these bases because of the reserve situation and their closure made many of our pilots' QOL much worst. But unless a bunch of flights start getting canceled for sick pilots, we won't get the bases back. But if we call in sick on layover, we're breaking the status quo and conducting a job action. Big catch 22 caused by our professionalism.

I've been ALPA since early 2001 and I've never heard of any ALPA unit or ALPA National condoning the actions you described in your earlier post. There are always a few pilots advocating these type of actions but the vast majority put the pax first and fly professionally. And those that don't are usually quickly sorted out by their fellow pilots or the union's Professional Standards Committee as their actions put all the pilots and the union at risk for court imposed punishments (usually financial).

It's obvious you are anti-ALPA/anti-union. Nobody and no union is perfect but it's the best we've got. Without ALPA, APA, Teamsters, SWAPA - and even those scumbag USAPA - pilots would have no defense against management greed and there is no doubt after the last 6-7 years exactly how greedy management is. They've raped and pillaged every employee group while collecting obscene bonuses for doing it. The unions are our only protection and very necessary. Anyone who wants an airline career needs to understand and embrace this.