Operators and Pilot Unions....what is the truth?

[SASless]

http://www.aviationtoday.com/cgi/rw/show_mag.cgi?pub=rw&mon=0299&file=interview0299.htm


The link will take you to a Rotor and Wing interview of Carol Suggs (widow of Bobby Suggs) done in 1999. Her comments about how her husband was loved by all and how the Union had nothing to offer PHI pilots seems telling somehow, especially after a bit of time has gone by.

In the interview she talks of rate increases (the lack of) and the concept that there is no future for the S-92.

One might note she sold off her interest in PHI after the union won approval by the pilots.

The rate of pay for PHI pilots mentioned in the article was $31,000 to start. That is almost 50% less than todays wage I believe.

For some reason, I think the article shines a lot of light upon the truth and it is not very flattering to some.

[Project Pilot FH1100]

Mrs. Suggs certainly had a curious "take" on the helicopter industry back then, didn't she? In the (infamous) interview, she stated that she was not a compromising woman. She might have added, "But I am naive, gullible, arrogant, vindictive, and only honest when I absolutely have to be."

She very casually mentions how PHI was at the time paying their pilots wages that were "industry standard." That's kind of clever, when you consider that what she didn't say was that PHI *set* that standard in our industry.

"$31,000 to start"? She acts as though that were a king's ransom. She doesn't mention that it had only recently been $26,000 per year and had only been increased in response to the union pro-union rumblings (the organizing drive began in 1995). I met one of the company's corporate lawyers at the New Orleans base one day. We chatted amicably about one of the upcoming election (the first). He thought the union would prevail; I wasn't so sure. He said, with an astounded look on his face, "$26,000 a year? Come on!" See, he knew. One professional to another, he knew that we were undervalued. I got a strong sense that he was happy we were finally doing something positive about it.

Mrs. Suggs may have publicly said that the two union "no" votes were big votes of confidence for her. But she could not have believed that privately. It must be remembered that the union only lost the first two elections by very narrow margins. So there was no big anti-union mandate.

In fact, the pilots were clearly divided, and many of the ones who voted against union representation actually favored it but were teetering on the fence, sincerely wishing we didn't have to go that route. And as the article pointed out, Carroll Suggs was a master politician. Very charming, very smooth, very gracious, very persuasive. She would turn on that southern charm and pilots would just melt. It was quite silly to watch happen, but happen it did. In this way, she managed to "buy" a lot of ballots, sent to her by moon-eyed pilots and kept in a big fishbowl behind her desk in her New Orleans office.

It is almost ancient history now - how Mrs. Suggs was misled by her managers, most of whom swore up and down to her that "her boys" would never go union, never betray her. Why? I suspect that it was some combination of compulsive toadyism and not wanting to be the dead messenger. Maybe even combined with a little fear of being "found out"...you know, being discovered as a former pilot who's really not exactly qualified to be in a position of management. (Think: Governor William J. LePetomaine in the movie "Blazing Saddles".) Remember, as she herself pointed out, her senior managers were all ex-pilots who's risen through the ranks. These guys were not exactly Wharton School grads, no offense intended.

We on the Organizing Committe used to laugh at how Mr. Suggs was very obviously not getting the right message from her managers. In fact, some of those managers were our biggest - if unintentional - recruiters. Nobody seemed to want to give her the real (read: bad) news. Despite what she says about employees taking an active role in defining policies, that was just not true.

I was at one of those mandatory pilot meetings in which the number four pilot in the company stood up in front of God and everyone and said, "Ma'am, the guys need more money." She was sorry, she said, but there was just no money there. She genuinely seemed near tears as she described how PHI earned just pennies on each dollar of revenue...and those pennies were put right back into the company. They just couldn't pay us any more. It was a line we had been hearing for a long, long time. Many of us had stopped believing it.

Subsequently, I was at another meeting in which a visibly angry Carroll Suggs stood up in front of God and everyone and loudly declared, "There will never be a union as long as I'm CEO of this company!" Was it a threat or a promise? We all looked at each other, the unspoken thoughts on our collective faces being: Does it really matter if someone named "Suggs" is in charge of PHI? Naaaaah.

In the end, Mrs. Suggs' arrogance and dishonesty got her a union. "Dishonest"? Yepper. I guess when you're a CEO you have certain...um, license. You can say things that aren't quite true when you're acting in what you think are the best interests of your company.

For instance! For years and years and years, PHI claimed that it simply made no profit - no "extra" money lying around to give pilots a raise. Well, true enough, if you give pilots a raise, then mechanics are going to want one, then the line service guys, and soon every "9 to 5, every holiday off" secretary in Lafayette is going to be demanding more money. So it's "best" to just say "we can't afford it" and leave it at that. Even if it's not true.

And it wasn't true, we know. Because PHI "found" over six million dollars with which to fight the union push - money that could have been given to the pilots instead. Much of those millions went to the hiring of a famous union-busting law firm and its high-profile namesake. After wasting that $6 mil, PHI ended up giving big raises to the pilots anyway and agreeing to install TCAD's in *every* helicopter within a certain time frame. So much for "no extra money."

The anti-union guys will claim that we pilots would have gotten those raises anyway, but they're wrong. PHI would have plowed along, business as usual, paying just as little as they could for as long as they could. When the contract was signed, my pay jumped from about $42,000/year to $50,000 overnight. It simply would not have gotten there as quickly without the union.

But never mind that. One thing the anti-union guys cannot claim is that PHI ever would have begun installing TCAD's in the ships without pressure from the union. They (specifically the Chief Pilot) balked and squawked at first. "Too much money," they said of course. Then they threw out a number so bogus that we literally laughed, nearly to their faces. See, we had done the homework and knew what it would really cost. PHI's numbers were based on purchasing the TCAD units at retail and using the manufacturer's projected average installation cost, as if you were buying one for your own personal airplane and were farming out the installation to an avionics shop. Did they think we were stupid? Yes. Oh my, yes!

So. Seven and a half years later, Mrs. Suggs is gone. True to her word/threat/promise, she sold the company soon after the first union contract was signed. Unlike the predictions/threats of her "Chicken Little" managers, the union was not dissolved or nullified with the sale. The oil companies did not abandon PHI en masse. PHI did not go out of business. There weren't even any big layoffs. The S-92 is in the fleet. PHI pilots now have a legally-binding contract (something that was trivialized by the anti-union crowd). They *know* what they're going to make next year and the year after that. No, it's not perfect, but it's better than it was.

The non-union companies can make all the salary/benefit claims they want, but in the end they will do whatever is necessary. And if that means going back on some promises of pay or benefits, well, that's life in the big city, kids. PHI did it for decades. And look where it got them.

PHI could have easily avoided having the union get in. If Mrs. Suggs and her minions had truly been as honest and open as they claimed to be, instead of treating pilots as petulant children who needed to be kept in their place, PHI could be union-free right now. And there still might be a Suggs running it. But nooooooo.

It would be wrong to close this post without acknowleging the showdown that is coming. We'll see who blinks first. But I have a hunch, if you'll indulge me. If it is true that Air Log has lowered their hiring requirements to just those necessary to meet FAR part-135 minimums, then this is a signal that qualified pilots really are becoming hard to find. If the PHI pilots know of this - and you can bet they do - then they'll be able to stare-down the company and not blink. It will be a short strike, but there will be a strike. Mark my words.

[SASless]

FH,

Ask the old time Air Log pilots about the effect "Rate Increases" had for them. Air Log raised rates advertising to the customers it was for pay raises and purchase of new equipment as well as rising costs. Some how the pilots found out about one of the increases and did some reviewing of the pay packets and confirmed there had been no pay rise as advertised. Without amending their contract it would have been awfully hard to do anyway.

I agree the strike is coming. As you correctly describe....the management is fooling themselves if they think it will not happen.

The tragic part of this.....just as in the last contract fight at Air Log....all that money spent on fighting the union could have been better spent funding the raises. The Union is here to stay no matter now much the management would rather it go away. As I see it, the two companies have wasted a pile of cash and untold amounts of goodwill and loyalty by waging these fights everytime the CBA comes around. The ill will that engenders is the real threat to the viability of the company operations. Piss the troops off long enough and they will become drones rather than dedicated loyal employees. When the folks really get to the point they merely show up for work without caring about what they do.....bad news for the whole outfit.

At some point the shareholders should build a fire under the Board of Directors collective butts and demand better management in that regard. Perhaps the pilots and engineers at PHI and Air Log should all go out and buy a few shares of stock and begin to attend the annual shareholders meetings and express their concerns to the board members in person. That would wake the Board up anyway!

[rotorboy]

I find it hard to believe that Air Log has lowered requirments to 500hrs for jet box dirvers in the gulf. Customers and insurance companies will scream.

Any confirmed cases of a 500hr pilot geting checked out 135 PIC?

Mayby for co-joe's. But that has been going on for a while , espically if you know someone.

What amazes me is the other operator down there, I see union writing all over the wall.

[Project Pilot FH1100]

Oh, I doubt that ALI would put any 500-hour pilots in as light ship PICs. Most certainly they are being hired into SIC slots...let me add...AS SHOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPENING ALL ALONG. The problem has always been the skewed and IMHO erroneous thinking that 212's and 412's and the like required two highly-experienced IFR captains. Yeah, it's cool to offer the customes such a "benefit" but it absolutely has a bad effect on the ability of new pilots to come into this industry and build flight time.

As for the comment about the "other operator down there," let me tell a short story. Back in 1995, it was announced to all the pilots of all the companies in the town where I was working (Venice, Louisiana) that a union rep would be in town to answer our questions. Pilots from PHI, Air Logistics and Era showed up.

PHI and ALI management simply did not take this renewed interest in forming a union seriously. After all, it had been tried before. All the operators had to do in the past was throw a little money at the pilots and the problem would go away. Unfortunately, they miscalculated this time.

However, Era took the union threat seriously. They made some substantive improvements to their pilots' pay, along with sincere-sounding promises of better things to come. We never saw the Era pilots at any more union meetings.

What's different today? Well, it sure is a new era in the GOM...

[LAFF]

Interesting reading...My late father worked for PHI from 24 years. I remember him telling me a few stories about how the pilots were treated. I hope all pilots in the GoM get the wages / benefits they deserve.

Who knows - in the future maybe I'll be out there one day flying for PHI.

-LAFF

[LAFF]

I remember my father was with Mrs Suggs one day in Lafayette where he was taking some oil company VIPs off shore. She took his hands and told the oil company big wiggs 'there was no one she trusted more with her life'

My father looked her in the eyes and said, " then pay your pilots what they deserve'

-LAFF

[Gomer Pylot]

Era isn't the same company it used to be. It's now TexAir with a new name. The former Era pilots are leaving in bunches, saying they refuse to work for bottom-feeders. There may still be a union in Era's future.

And Jerry's Kids may not be that far away. So far he's getting along by paying more money for relative new-hires, but we'll have to see how far that goes. They're having lots of accidents, but the bottom-feeders they fly for don't seem to be concerned yet. They have insurance.

There have been studies published in Scientific American, among other journals, which show that the most productive, most profitable companies have unions, and give the unions some say in how the company is run, and pay their employees well. The worst, by far, are those with a union and an adversarial relationship with the unions. Companies without unions are somewhere in the middle. But if you have no management experience, and don't read much, then you probably don't know this, or if you do, you don't care. Offshore helicopter managers are one or the other. I prefer to believe they don't know, but I'm afraid they don't care.

[chc&proud]

It's highly interesting to read the articles in this thread.
When I started flying for PHI in July 1987 a pay and pension freeze was in effect at PHI. This was a result of the period with low oil prices which had lasted for a while.

When the reputable association called US ALPA initiated a union drive in the fall to organize the pilots of AirLog and PHI, things started happening.

Within 3 months of my date of hire in July -87, in the middle of the campaign I saw 2 x 5% increases to my salary. Later on even the 401K retirement program was up and running again, having been shut down when oil prises hit rock bottom a couple of years earlier.

In addition the pilots received several letters from management each week, where management voices aggressive opposition to having a pilot union established in the company.

According to management:
* they would rather liquidate PHI than have to deal with a pilot union.
* It was virtually impossible to run PHI with a pilot union in place.
* They claimed that US ALPA was connected to the mob.
* They insinuated a connection between letter bombs and the strike action at Eastern Airlines.

It was no fun to read the letters.

The guys and girls of PHI and AirLog turned down the offer to join US ALPA. There are lots of reasons why this union drive failed, however then as well as now it is hard to fathom how seemingly sensible people could stumble and fall flat on their faces like they did by turning down the US ALPA initiative.

Since then both the GOM pilots of AirLog and PHI has joined a high quality labor organisation named Office and Professional Employees International Union -OPEIU. The representatives from OPEIU as well as the pilot representatives are doing a great job to support the pilot members.

Carol says that her late Husband was loved by all. Myself, I can not recall any conversations leading in that direction back in 1987-88, quite the contrary. It seemed to me back then the air was laden with fear of retribution if one elected to be outspoken.

Love was not part of the equation as far as I recall.

[Devil 49]

There are a lot of things that PHI did, and probably still does, right. Employee relations wasn't one of them. I didn't read the article cited, but if Mrs Suggs led one to believe that there hadn't been a successful organizing drive prior to the OPEIU, I beg to differ- somewhat-
I believe ALPA made two attempts to organize, not just PHI, but all three major GoM operators, simultaneously. Their second PHI referendum "carried", in that a majority of those voting favored the proposal- but it didn't meet ALPA's minimum acceptable ratio of 70% Pro. I think Air Log hit the number, and don't remember Era's results. The point is there was majority vote by the pilots at PHI, that was not acted on by a union. The handwriting was on the wall.
Before that, I believe OCAW(?) had tried unsuccessfully. And after I left, OPEIU succeeded.

I was at a PHI base staff meeting in, I think '95, when the the head of HR and a couple of other VPs were down telling us how Lafayette was doing everything they could for "Their people in the field", poor mouthing, times were hard in a competitive industry, etc.
To the point- Holiday pay had been rescinded 4 or 5 years previously, on the understanding that it would be reinstated as soon as possible. One of our mechs asked about holiday pay, and was told that it was still not possible. His next question closed the lid on the coffin "Why do the people at the Lafayette hangar get holidays or pay, then?" Instant, tomblike silence.
The HR Veep jumped up and took the floor, telling the mechanic that the "Guys in the hangar worked real hard, and didn't get 7 days off in a row, they had to work weekdays..." Insult to injury.

[chc&proud]

There are lots of colleagues around the world who are in the know. It's important to get educated for all of us. We need to know where we come from, where we are right now, then make a plan and establish goals for the future.

As of now, the vast majority of helicopter pilots operating within the petroleum industry in Europe are members of a pilot union affiliated with IFALPA and ECA (European Cockpit Association). Collective labor agreements are in place.

In the GOM both of the largest helicopter operators have established pilot unions. In addition the majority of the pilots working for LSSI at Fort Rucker and Air Methods are members of OPEIU. All have collective labor agreements in place.

In Australia the colleagues of CHC have a collective labor agreement with the company, and are members of AFAP. Australian Federation of Air Pilots).

In addition, pilot are members of unions or associations in many more countries, such as Spain, Italy,Germany, Brasil, Mexico, Thailand etc.

The above is obviously not a complete listing, but aim to gove an indication of direction.

Africa in many respects seem to be the darkest of continents when it comes to the issue of pilots getting together to chcat about important matters.

Keep in mind that our employers discuss matters of common interest with each other. Our customers do the same. What is wrong with us doing the same?

[donut king]

Don't forget the Canadian Helicopters Ltd. EMS pilots who certified last October or so under the OPEIU representation. They are the only Canadian commercial helicopter pilots to vote union.
After Air Methods, this is one of the biggest indications of a change in attitude (at least from the Canadian perspective!) within the ranks. Just reading the thread about PHI's union evolution, brings back memories of my days at CHL. Textbook bad management is one of the greatest causes of labour unrest.
Happy workers don't vote union! Bad management just helps create the demand!
DK

[SASless]

PHI is headed towards strike on the current CBA it appears.


As I think about things, considering the price of oil, historical record profits for the oil companies, shortage of pilots, shortage of aircraft for available contracts, work boats all but impossible to obtain as they are all on contracts, the growing militancy (if you will) of the pilots....it begs belief to think the management at PHI think they can win over the pilots should it come to a strike.

Usually a company can do that if they can hire replacement workers and fulfill the majority of their work commitments or are able to entice enough of the striking workers to fold their tent and return to work and thus undermine the Union solidarity. Along the way they then orchestrate a de-certification maneuver and do away with the union representation.

This does not sound like the time for the management to gamble on such a move.....if they do and lose....they will have sold the outhouse for sure.

[Project Pilot FH1100]

SAS, please don't be deluded: PHI has consistently shown horrible judgement with respect to the union. Why should they change now? The managers may be shovelling the same crap to Big Al that the pilots will simply never strike and PHI can certainly, easily handle one of they do. Yeah. Right. Maybe Al should give Carroll a call and ask if there's anything she might have done differently?