The above is taken from OCP's original post.Oldcommercialpilot wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 12:26 pm
Uncertainty - WJ has launched an Unfair Labour Practices complaint against ALPA. ALPA will likely do the same in the coming weeks. Then there is the almost-certain filing of Common Employer status, etc. In other words, this is about to get very messy for a very long time and there is no telling how this is going to play out after the courts/arbitrators/CIRB are done. I'm curious what Swoop is even telling their applicants in the interviews. I'm not entirely sure how they can even hire any pilots without knowing if they are legally allowed to circumvent their Union and hire from outside. Picture this... Today you are hired and are pilot #1 on the Swoop list. Months from now a CIRB ruling comes down in ALPAs favour and WJ must amalgamate the pilot lists. So... You go from Captain #1 to pilot #2500 and are now below the lowest FO on the Dash-8 at Encore.
I would like to clarify the words outlined in red font. Although someone posted in this forum that I think I'm a lawyer or some such idea, the truth is that I just don't trust what people tell me. Especially from partisan supporters, but more generally I just don't trust people. They lie. You lie. I lie. They misunderstand. You misunderstand. I misunderstand. So I research and try to understand things I don't understand and that I want to understand.
So when I read the above excerpt, I went: "Wait. What?"
Some facts. Within the last year, ALPA went to the CIRB and submitted two applications for certification of two bargaining units, WJ and WJE pilots, outlining who the members of the classes of the proposed bargaining units were. They weren't forced to do so. They chose to do so. They willingly requested that the CIRB approve their (ALPA) proposed divisions of WJ pilots and WJE pilots into two separate bargaining units. The CIRB agreed.
Fact. The CIRB, having agreed to the two separate bargaining units, at ALPA's request, is not now, or soon (possibly ever) going to agree to an amalgamation of the two pilot groups into one bargaining unit (absent a significant change in the business composition, or the agreement of WJ/WJE management). Read and understand the CIRB past decisions.
So, the above scenario as posited by OCP can't happen. Perhaps, and only perhaps, WJ and Swoop could be the target of a single employer application, but that is a dubious proposition. Swoop is not purchasing simulator time from WJ. It is going elsewhere in the market. There are no initial 737NG courses occuring at WJ right now (Encore flow or OTS) and won't be until the fall so simulator time should be available. So why is Swoop doing so? Well, I think you know. Swoop is being organized so that its business is safe, or as safe as it can be from a single employer application. Period. In every department. WJ is likely paying big, big money to people who know the law on how to do so.
OCP's post above is fluff. He knows not of what he talks. Not only is he not a lawyer, but he is guilty of not trying to understand the issues. He just wants to believe. Or maybe does understand the issues and is just ltying. I suppose I can't fault him for that. Humans are emotional creatures. OCP and others are slowly realizing the truth of what certification with ALPA (at WJ and WJE) has done to career expectations for junior pilots at WJ, and all of those at WJE. It has changed those expectations. How, I can only speculate. But since I'm not being fiancially affected by any of the above, I'm not spending a whole lot of time trying to figure it out. I'll leave that to those affected.
There is only one path forward that will get those career expectations back on track. Resign your membership from ALPA. Be ready to sign the decertification card when it is offered to you. Regain the collaborative relationship that the WJPA had with the principals at WJ, versus the antagonistic relationship that ALPA now has. History at WJ has shown that there was a way forward so that WJE pilots could have, without penalty, flowed to Swoop and then flowed to WJ with some proper seniority credit for having done so. Mainline FO's who chose to do so, could have flowed to Swoop as Captains and returned to WJ with some credit for having done so.
How can any right thinking person believe what we have now is better?