Our Union: A Position of Responsibility

By Capt. Tim Canoll, ALPA President

The book Profiles in Courage captures John F. Kennedy’s maxim that every citizen in a democracy holds “office” in the sense that they are in a position of responsibility. The 1956 book maintains that the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. The same holds true for our union—and the success we achieve in pilot representation.

A profile—whether in words or image—is designed to capture its subject’s significant features. You’ll read in this issue’s pilot group profiles the extent to which a sense of responsibility is the significant feature of our union—responsibility to our pilot group, to our union brothers and sisters, to our passengers and cargo shippers, to our airlines and industry, and to the future of the profession.

With the new U.S. administration, we remain optimistic that President Trump and his cabinet will continue the strong support stated during the campaign regarding enforcing U.S. trade agreements and protecting U.S. jobs. ALPA will continue to call on new U.S. government leaders to apply these principles to the airline industry.

In an egregious example of the U.S. government’s failure to give its own international agreements meaning, the Obama administration late last year approved a permit to allow Norwegian Air International (NAI) to fly to and from the United States under a business model that runs counter to U.S. Open Skies agreements and threatens U.S. jobs. On January 12, ALPA, along with other labor groups, filed a joint petition for review of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals reaffirming our pledge to continue the fight against NAI.

It’s indeed a pledge by ALPA, and pilots across the industry are joining us. Our social media traction demonstrates this unity—recently capturing a photo of a United Airlines pilot, a Spirit Airlines pilot, and an American Airlines pilot meeting with one of the many Members of Congress who’ve opposed the NAI foreign air carrier permit. This meeting is just one of hundreds that ALPA pilots and staff have held with lawmakers on the NAI issue. As a result, approximately 175 Members of Congress have spoken out in opposition.

ALPA pilots who are in contract talks are equally in a position of responsibility—as are other ALPA members in supporting them in their fight. For example, more than 430 supporters of Hawaiian Airlines pilots and their pursuit of a fair contract participated in ALPA’s collective one-time tweet of solidarity. Hawaiian Airlines management appears to be listening, and it’s ALPA’s responsibility to alert passengers to a possible legal strike.

Similarly, Mesa Airlines pilots recently received $2 million from ALPA to back projects that support their effort to secure a contract that includes industry-average compensation. In another show of ALPA pilots’ responsibility to each other, more than 200 members from Spirit Airlines as well as pilots from United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Frontier Airlines, and American Airlines walked on the informational picket lines.

As has been true for decades, ALPA pilots also remain committed to promoting responsibility and professionalism in the cockpit. In response to a public message to Canadian airlines on the subject by Canada’s Minister of Transport Marc Garneau, ALPA affirmed its long-standing support for the outstanding pilot assistance and flight crew monitoring programs that safeguard air transportation.

Our union stands by its shared responsibility to build a strong airline piloting profession for the future. Capt. Paul Ryder (ExpressJet), ALPA’s national resource coordinator, is representing ALPA pilots on a new U.S. DOT working group charged with helping to increase the supply of commercially qualified pilots.

For more than 85 years, ALPA has taken extremely seriously our responsibility to engage on behalf of our members in every aspect of the piloting profession—contract negotiations, safety, pilot assistance, and security. Our union is decidedly not keeping a low profile when it comes to pilot representation.

This article was originally published in the January 2017 issue of Air Line Pilot.

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