January 5, 2001
PBS Arbitration
The arbitration on PBS is scheduled to take place February 1. The arbitrator will
have seven days to issue his decision, which means the earliest you can expect to return
to line bidding is bid 177, which begins March 4.
Mayo HMO Question
For those of you who enrolled in the optional Mayo HMO plan, you may be wondering
where your insurance cards are. Our R&I committee has learned that it’ll be a
month before those are issued. Our committee suggests that you give your provider your
social security number and AWA Group number “H150,” and have them call Mayo and
do a “manual lookup” to obtain coverage information. You can always try calling
Employee Benefits. Their number is 480 693-8912/13. Of course, you’ll get the dreaded
“voice mail,” and you’ll wait for a call back. Let’s hope you’re
not bleeding or anything.
Speaking of calling Employee Benefits, the Chief Pilots office advises that if
you’re having trouble getting through, try calling Kerry Chou at x8233.
Calls to the ALPA Office
Over the last holiday weekend our office answering machine took nineteen calls. Ten
of them were inaudible.
Our office staff asks that when you leave us messages that you try to speak clearly and
leave your name and phone number. Background noise can ruin the recording. Also, if you
leave a hotel room phone number on Saturday night, it’s not going to do us a whole
lot of good on Monday morning. Remember that your LEC status reps carry cell phones and
their numbers are published, so if it’s urgent, try to reach one of them.
Participation
Our PBS vote participation was 61%. Our last local council election participation
was 79%. The average in ALPA for votes relating to contract issues is 85%. Three things I
ask:1) You can’t vote if you don’t get a ballot. Whether it’s a mail ballot
or a telephone ballot, you get the instructions in the mail at your address of record. If
you don’t keep that address current, you won’t be voting. So get us the accurate
address. 2) When a ballot comes, don’t throw it into a pile of unopened mail and look
at it once a month. Open it up right away, look at the deadline, read the instructions.
Then if you have a question about the issue or a candidate, call your reps and talk it
over before you vote. 3) Form your own opinion and vote your own wishes.
58% of you have not attended a local council meeting in the last twelve months. If the
meeting times are not good for you, speak to your council rep and ask them to schedule
meetings at a time that is good for you. If you give someone your proxy it has to be
properly executed and no member can vote more than three proxies. If you can’t be
there ask your local council chairman what ‘s on the agenda and tell him or your rep
your thoughts. Often times, local council issues will later be brought to the MEC
meetings, and this is where the wishes of the pilot group as a whole are implemented.
The next local council meeting will be January 25th at the Doubletree.
Wear your ALPA pin. When you’re called upon to be a neighborhood block leader or
to attend a family awareness event or another union sponsored activity, say yes and be
there. This is not the time to be passive.
We Have no “Special” Members
As of 12/29/00 we have 1512 active members. We have 231 apprentice members. We have
one executive inactive, one personal leave, and 57 sick active members. Virtually all our
check airmen and office pilots are active members in good standing. We have 22
non-members. We have fifteen members who can’t vote because they’re in bad
standing, which generally means they’re more than 60 days in arrears on dues. If
you’re not on dues checkoff, it’s real easy to get into arrears.
On a percentage basis, our numbers are a little better than average throughout ALPA.
However, whenever I hear from one of you about United’s contract, I’ll have this
to say: UAL has over 9000 active members, and they have 2 – count ‘em – 2
members in bad standing. They have no EA’s or EI’s.
The door is open for our one EI member to return to active status. The door is open to
non-members to come settle their differences with the Association and move on. Payment
plans are available for anyone who has cash flow problems. This MEC does not want there to
be any special classes of “privileged” or “underprivileged” pilots. I
urge each active member to reach out to one of our non-members, ask him what his gripe is,
and see if you can get him to reconsider.
The Old Year, The New Year
The year 2000 was a year of building for this union. We focused on three things:
building a better contract, building a better union, and building a culture of contract
compliance. We put in 11 months of hard work getting better language on much of our
contract. We spent a lot of time and energy learning how to better govern ourselves. Our
staff and volunteers focused on concrete improvements and put in a lot of real work on
your behalf. We put the spotlight on a lot of careless attitudes toward contract
compliance and we’ve begun to see changes. I’d like to thank all our volunteers,
but particularly Jack Ryan, Dave Chambless, Eric Durnal and Gary Bakewell for serving you
this last year. Sometimes it has been a thankless task for them.
The year 2001 promises to be more dynamic. Fuel prices, the economy and a new
administration will bring about more changes. The FAA is on the defensive and needs to
look tough. 10 carriers have gone bankrupt in the last 12 months, and before all of you
read this another may join them. “Niche” carriers are turning out to be a bad
idea. Regional carriers are growing by leaps and bounds, but for pilots the issue will be
are they “career” airline jobs or just “developmental” jobs. If
they’re career jobs, they need to get paid career wages. America West needs to decide
what kind of airline it is, and then we as pilots need to get on a par with other pilots
who fly like equipment. We at America West may be a part of industry consolidation or we
may continue to stand alone. Either way, major changes in our pay, benefits and working
conditions are overdue and this year they will change. We are talking scheduling and hours
of service next week and the week of the 22nd. The remaining issues are the big
ones: compensation, retirement, insurance, duration, scope, along with sick leave,
training, vacation, minimum pay guarantee and general. I see some real benefits to putting
all these items together and accelerating the process. I don’t know yet if we can do
that, but we’re going to try.
This year, more than ever, I expect you to make and keep your commitment to ALPA. Your
career is on the line.
That’s all for this week. The next hotline will be Thursday, January 11. Thanks
for listening.
- PBS Arbitration
- Mayo HMO Question
- Calls to the ALPA Office
- Participation
- We Have no “Special” Members
- The Old Year, The New Year
| MEC Hotline | ||
| This is MEC Chairman Roger Cox with the MEC hotline message for Friday January 5th. Topics tonight are:
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