Quad, you really don't know how HKALPA works do you?
I'm all ears. Tell me.
HKALPA cannot negotiate anything for you with your employer.
I don't want HKALPA to negotiate with my employer.
And it was HKAOA staff and GC members that got Captain Lettich out of HKG, not HKALPA. Yes they used contacts in IFALPA to help with getting him home but that merely demonstrates how the worldwide brotherhood of pilots can get together when necessary.
Yes, they certainy did. Jumpseats and passports. Which is why a direct membership with subsequent fees to HKALPA might be of benefit to most. Let HKALPA pick up the office staff if required.
BTW Captain Lettich wasn't even a member of an IFALPA union but the HKAOA guys still went in to help him.
And your point is?
Listen, disband the HKAOA on the basis of managements utter refusal to recognize and deal with the "union" in any other way then name only. The HKAOA has no collective bargaining powers, has no influence, receives no respect and at the end is held responsible failing to stop the rot by all who look upon.
The HKAOA has beein cleaning up the company's mess since 1991. While our volunteers and leadership spends endless hours trying to manage the worst of it, managers ramp up the pressure to keep us deep in our own defensive zone unable to plan even a week ahead.
When all is said and done nothing would change for the individual pilot regardless of the HKAOAs existance. Tell us about solidarity and then tell the story of the SO who was accused of rape in New York. No other example better shows how utterly alone a 3-month contract pilot stands and how the individual contract, regardless of how many negotiations we have, letters we write and lanyards we wear, still remains an individual contract.
If the company wants individual contracts then stop sheltering them from the downside of 2700 individual contracts. As it now stands, we're giving them all the benefits as if we had collective bargaining and collective contracts while we receive all the downsides of not having them bar none.
You don't need the HKAOA to be a member of IFALPA. You need HKALPA. Which, as you've graciously pointed out, has no dealings with said company.