How to get rid of ACPA?

[Eddietheeagle]

Everyday, I become more and more disappointed with ACPA. Everyday, I read on the Pilot forum or the numerous other forums embedded in the AC Pilot group that ACPA has to go....I wholeheartedly agree!
But the question is, how the hell does the Pilot group go about doing so? I haven’t the slightest clue but sure wish someone in the Pilot group would get the ball rolling.

Thoughts?

[rudder]

https://www.labourwatch.com/faqs/decert ... al/general

[mmm..bacon]

ACPA has to go....

Thoughts?

Better a devil you know?

[Daniel Cooper]

The reason the American unions are so strong is because they can and will strike for gains. They've proven this time and again. America is a capitalism society. Canada is more a pseudo-socialism system where labor groups like Air Canada pilots are openly prevented from striking. Without this tool the unions will never be strong and will never see the kind of prosperity that our American neighbors have enjoyed.

Before changing unions we likely have to change our government and maybe even our whole society if we ever want to have strong labor groups. Many will argue the American system goes too far and contracts get too lucrative for workers. They have, for example, flight attendants making $250k USD/year.

That's debatable though with modern costs of living, and when houses costs millions of dollars. I'd argue instead that non-unionized wages have fallen way too low.

[goldeneagle]

Before changing unions we likely have to change our government

You do realize, it was a conservative government that took your strike power away?

Changing government will just bring back the crowd that screwed the AC pilots in the first place, because it was Lisa Raitt as transport minister with Stephen Harper at the helm when that happened. But ya, I get it, those of you with terribly short memory will blame that on current government rather than the one that actually did it.

Grass is always greener over on the other side of the fence....

[altiplano]

American Pilot Unions are unified. Pro-management scabs get put in line or ostracised. The membership sets the brake when their contract is violated.

In Canada the Union Reps are the pro-management scabs, and when our contract is violated they tell us to do it and then grieve it, but the grievance fails to launch or gets settled with a permanent concessions inked into our contract.

With their solidarity, American unions do so well because they use pattern bargaining. Delta betters United, SW gets the best NB rates, so American has a lever to top both, then United gets a go and matches that only to be beat by Delta again... on and on.

In Canada AC has been all alone in terms of a mainline-calibre contract and nobody ever betters it so it's easy for ACPA reps to justify their failures. They hire consultants to tell us why we're not worth more, why we can't compare ourselves to other legacy pilot groups that fly the same machines on the same routes, code shared even with our airline.

I'm all for going to ALPA Group A status if we can still get it.

But we need to get new elected people, get out of those offices, and put out all the existing staff who have been so ineffective on every file from lobbying our causes (duty regs), to fighting for our rights (FOS), to maintaining our contract and fighting violations (sky), to communicating with membership (guys are on the street and the MEC is silent), to being responsible with our dues (YYZ office!?), to IT ('new' ACPA website).

ACPA representation/governance is broken also. 2 reps for half the pilot group? 5 for the other half? That's worse than the Canadian Senate!

[Yycjetdriver]

Before changing unions we likely have to change our government

You do realize, it was a conservative government that took your strike power away?

Changing government will just bring back the crowd that screwed the AC pilots in the first place, because it was Lisa Raitt as transport minister with Stephen Harper at the helm when that happened. But ya, I get it, those of you with terribly short memory will blame that on current government rather than the one that actually did it.

Grass is always greener over on the other side of the fence....

You do realize that poster didn’t say current government. It would be reasonable to assume changing government meant all the flaws in the current system in general, including the systems brought in by past governments and current governments.
As a side note it’s understandable of you to assume he was implying our corrupted, college drop out, part time drama teacher of a current leader.... and in typical liberal fashion jumping to his defence. No wonder he thinks he can do whatever he wants.

[goldeneagle]

Before changing unions we likely have to change our government

You do realize, it was a conservative government that took your strike power away?

Changing government will just bring back the crowd that screwed the AC pilots in the first place, because it was Lisa Raitt as transport minister with Stephen Harper at the helm when that happened. But ya, I get it, those of you with terribly short memory will blame that on current government rather than the one that actually did it.

Grass is always greener over on the other side of the fence....

You do realize that poster didn’t say current government. It would be reasonable to assume changing government meant all the flaws in the current system in general, including the systems brought in by past governments and current governments.
As a side note it’s understandable of you to assume he was implying our corrupted, college drop out, part time drama teacher of a current leader.... and in typical liberal fashion jumping to his defence. No wonder he thinks he can do whatever he wants.

Take a very careful re-read, you'll notice that nowhere did I defend current government, simply pointed out that the current alternative is the one that brought about the situation bring griped about.

But reading comprehension is not the strong suit, we already knew that.

[co-joe]

Who could forget, the "Minister of Forced Labour" Lisa Raitt?

[Daniel Cooper]

You do realize that poster didn’t say current government.

That is correct. I didn't mean the current ruling party. The whole system is against us.

[Dronepiper]

Are there really US flight attendants making 250k a year?!??!!!??!!?

[airway]

I'm all for going to ALPA Group A status if we can still get it.

But we need to get new elected people, get out of those offices, and put out all the existing staff who have been so ineffective on every file from lobbying our causes (duty regs), to fighting for our rights (FOS), to maintaining our contract and fighting violations (sky), to communicating with membership (guys are on the street and the MEC is silent), to being responsible with our dues (YYZ office!?), to IT ('new' ACPA website).

ACPA representation/governance is broken also. 2 reps for half the pilot group? 5 for the other half? That's worse than the Canadian Senate!

What is ALPA Group A status? Been an ALPA member for 20 years and never heard of it.
Also, what part of your contract has SKY violated?



.

[altiplano]

I'm all for going to ALPA Group A status if we can still get it.

But we need to get new elected people, get out of those offices, and put out all the existing staff who have been so ineffective on every file from lobbying our causes (duty regs), to fighting for our rights (FOS), to maintaining our contract and fighting violations (sky), to communicating with membership (guys are on the street and the MEC is silent), to being responsible with our dues (YYZ office!?), to IT ('new' ACPA website).

ACPA representation/governance is broken also. 2 reps for half the pilot group? 5 for the other half? That's worse than the Canadian Senate!

What is ALPA Group A status? Been an ALPA member for 20 years and never heard of it.
Also, what part of your contract has SKY violated?
.

https://www.alpa.org/about-alpa/our-leadership/evp

Group A all get their own EVP at the big table. The other groups elect one EVP within their group of airlines. For example Group C, which is all the Canadian airlines today have a WJ Pilot as their EVP at ALPA, used to be a Jazz guy... I realize he's referred as the "ALPA Canada President" but in the big boy Union he's the Group C EVP.

The creation of sky violated article 1 of our contract (scope).

We grieved it and "won" but all we got was $650K and the damage continues...

Look who the Grievance Chair was too... is there anything that guy wasn't involved with to fuckus some more?

Grievance Committee - Newsletter #02



February 7, 2014



***************



Fellow pilots,



Arbitrator Kevin Burkett has delivered his award regarding the Sky Regional Grievance. In short, he hasawarded ACPA the sum of $650,000.00. The arbitrator's decision in this case establishes an important legalprecedent for ACPA regarding the awarding of damages for violations of our scope protections.



As you may recall, this grievance was based on the start-up of the Q400 operation out of Toronto IslandAirport by Sky Regional Airlines. In his award, Arbitrator Burkett takes into consideration the extenuatingcircumstances surrounding this grievance.



ACPA's position was that the Company was in violation of our collective agreement by starting thisoperation without the formal approval of ACPA through language in our collective agreement. ACPA soughtdamages in an amount equal to that which would have resulted from a "wet lease" negotiation under Article1.11 of the 2009 - 2011 collective agreement.



The Company's position was that, although it acknowledged that it had breached the scope clause of thethen collective agreement, on the facts, no damages were warranted because the grievance was moot.



On February 25th, 2013, arbitrator Burkett rejected Air Canada's mootness argument and found that damagesfor a breach of the scope provision were in order. Although arbitrator Burkett ruled in our favour regardingthe violation of our scope provisions, he also ruled that ACPA, by delaying the restart of negotiations afterthe May 19, 2011 rejection of a tentative agreement, had failed to mitigate for this period. At this point,he directed the parties to negotiate a settlement with regard to damages. Despite our best efforts, we wereunable to negotiate a settlement, which resulted in the above stated award being rendered by arbitratorBurkett.



Besides the monetary compensation that we were able to extract from the Company for violating ourcollective agreement, we also won a decision that now sets an important legal precedent. Until this award,violations of our scope language that resulted in compensation by means of wet lease payments were resolvedon a "without prejudice" basis. In other words, they could not be used as a precedent in future arbitrations.This important legal precedent will now assist us in future grievances and arbitrations dealing withviolations of our scope provisions.



The MEC will now decide how the monetary award should be implemented. This can be done through severaldifferent means. This will also have to be discussed with the Company.



Overall, this was an important win for us in defending our scope language. Scope, as always, is one of, ifnot THE most important provision of our collective agreement.



Kevin Vaillant



Acting MEC Grievance Chair

[Dry Guy]

Are there really US flight attendants making 250k a year?!??!!!??!!?

$250k US, so about $340k Canadian

https://simpleflying.com/delta-flight-a ... ling-milk/

[alkaseltzer]

I thought Calin Rovinescu despises the shadow-CEO, Rob Giguiere (who wishes he were the AC CEO).

Never let a crisis go to waste - let's get rid of the crooks who sold out the juniors.

[fish4life]

The reason the American unions are so strong is because they can and will strike for gains. They've proven this time and again. America is a capitalism society. Canada is more a pseudo-socialism system where labor groups like Air Canada pilots are openly prevented from striking. Without this tool the unions will never be strong and will never see the kind of prosperity that our American neighbors have enjoyed.

Before changing unions we likely have to change our government and maybe even our whole society if we ever want to have strong labor groups. Many will argue the American system goes too far and contracts get too lucrative for workers. They have, for example, flight attendants making $250k USD/year.

That's debatable though with modern costs of living, and when houses costs millions of dollars. I'd argue instead that non-unionized wages have fallen way too low.

Maybe you need to look into the railway labour act, airlines in the states can almost never go on strike as a result of it.

[rooster]

You do realize, it was a conservative government that took your strike power away?

Changing government will just bring back the crowd that screwed the AC pilots in the first place, because it was Lisa Raitt as transport minister with Stephen Harper at the helm when that happened. But ya, I get it, those of you with terribly short memory will blame that on current government rather than the one that actually did it.

Grass is always greener over on the other side of the fence....

You do realize that poster didn’t say current government. It would be reasonable to assume changing government meant all the flaws in the current system in general, including the systems brought in by past governments and current governments.
As a side note it’s understandable of you to assume he was implying our corrupted, college drop out, part time drama teacher of a current leader.... and in typical liberal fashion jumping to his defence. No wonder he thinks he can do whatever he wants.

Take a very careful re-read, you'll notice that nowhere did I defend current government, simply pointed out that the current alternative is the one that brought about the situation bring griped about.

But reading comprehension is not the strong suit, we already knew that.

Let me get this straight, you miscomprehended Daniel Cooper's statement about changing the government (as you assumed he meant the current body, rather than governance in general), then you go and slander yycjetdriver for lacking comprehensions skills. Think about that for a sec there eagle man.

[Mrbobmarly111]

Just wanted to say I like ACPA and I know lota of others eho are happy with their Representation.

[Ratherbe]

Me too Bob. Not over the top crazy but content enough not to want to destroy everything for the ALPA sales job we’re getting from some former ALPA reps.

The $250k FA is bull - not the norm. The article clearly states she was getting paid 4 times the average pay.

Also the salary comparison to our US brothers is an old story. How about comparing the difference between Doctor or Lawyer salaries south of the border? Or with our passengers salaries?

If we’re not happy with your union then we should run against the reps next opportunity or support someone we respect.

The talk from Cooper about strikes getting the best contracts is also bull. ALPA like every other union gets good deals by negotiating. Strikes are for when things go wrong.

[Dry Guy]

Would you say things are going right? At the moment, and for the last decade?