Airline Unions
 

Hello and Happy Holidays to all!!!

Here is a quick quiery for all my fellow airline pilots.

I work as F/O for a European major, where industrial
relations are battered by the precence of way too many
unions.

I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling me how
many unions are present in your Airline: just to figure
out whether my company is the exception or simply
follows the rule.

I would be particularly interested in getting inputs
from airlines such as British Airways, Delta, Air France
and Lufthansa.

I will be thankful to anyone who will kindly reply to this
thread.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy 2003.

Clear skies and good winds...

Lufthansa:

1 Pilots union the company talks to + 1 smaller, not recognized one

2 Cabin staff unions (the smaller one rapidly taking over from the bigger, because it doesn't also represent lots of other aspects of the industry)

Don't know about the others...

Pilot Unions
 

There's two (Swiss Pilots Association, ~1000 former Crossair pilots, Aeropers, ~700 former Swissair pilots) in Swiss International Airlines (Former Crossair). Instead of uniting in order to protect the Swiss pilots interests as such, Aeropers (former Swissair pilots) had embarked on a highly destructive crusade to subdue the (larger) union of the former Crossair pilots, ever since having been given a new job in former Crossair (now Swiss). This has opened the gates for management to play out one part of the pilot force against the other.

A model of how not to do it.

Comparison?
 

@ .78: You are right with the example being a bad one. But I would blame CCP with at least 80% of the current problems.

For Austria: We have a crew union within each company. There is another organisation, Austrian Cockpit Association, which is the link internationally beside the Star Alliance interlink.

Christian

Hi Christian,

I´m happy for you that (perhaps) things are better organized in Austria, but please refrain from judgement about the Swiss situation if you don´t know all the in´s and out´s.

The 80% blame (how on EARTH did you come to this figure anyway :rolleyes: ?) is further evidence of the total randomness of your statement.

Back 2 topic:

Hi Meerkat,

Regardless of who is to blame for the present situation at Crossair, pardon me, SWISS, ( ;) ) indeed proves that 2 captains (unions) on a ship/airplane does NOT work.

BTW Meerkat, how many unions are there at the place where you work ?

you are right Christian too many unions doesn't work.

AIR FRANCE has one big union SNPL(Syndicat National des Pilotes de Ligne) plus 4 or 5 minor ones.

AIR LIB : 6 pilot unions (SNPL, SNPNAC, SPAC, UNAC, CFTC,ALTER) and 3 cabin crew unions.
and all theses unions represent less than 10% of the employees !!!

SAS, 3 pilot unions (Swedish,Norwegian and Danish). They sit down, agree (although sometimes it takes forever), and face the company with one voice. Works allright, although sometimes too many compromises with too many local preferences mixed in.

The rest of the company, twenty some, repeat, twenty some unions. Pure horror, and has made, and makes for a lot of striking activity.

Delta
 

At Delta only the pilots have a union , ALPA , even the 22000 Flt attend. don't have one . And manegment is doing everything they can to keep it that way.

More on Airline Unions
 

Hello to all you folks!

First of all thanks a lot to everyone who took the time
to send in a message. I appreciate it.

To tell you my side of the story, in Italy we have two
main Professional Associations as such, plus a whole
bunch of general workers' unions that want a share
in the game.

We have ANPAC and UP (previously known as APPL)
that we call Associations, to distinguish them from
the proper workers unions (all sponsored by
political parties) which also and mainly represent
all workforces in the country, from ironworkers
to employees!!! In these unions pilots are only a
fraction of the total number of workers.

The two main professional associations, on the other
hand, represent all Italian pilots, from my company
to Police, Firefighters, small private and charter companies.

And there is the big problem: there are too many
workers unions (approx 6) and my airline 2400 pilots
(have guessed it yet? :) are severely divided among
all these.

The end result is that my Company takes full advantage
of this: it deals mainly with the biggest association
(ANPAC) but plays along with all the others, putting one
against the other and creating major differences between
how fellow pilots are treated.

With some colleagues we have now started a new
association to represent only and exclusively the pilots
belonging to our airline. The goal will be reached when
the majority of my airline's pilots join us.


But the question is: have we simply created another
union for the Company happiness or is the "single union
for the single airline" idea the solution to our problems?

I would appreciate an idea of the percentage of pilots
that each major union in each airline represents. I believe
that the majority always sits with only one union and
that the association in return only represents pilots from
that one airline, but I need confirmation.

I apologise for the lenght of my post, but the problem is
a hard one to resolve and I am not sure we have the
right answers.

I thank you once again for being so kind to read me this
far and, if you wish, to post a reply.

Happy landings!!!

The Meerkat

Pilots association
 

Hi,

I suggest getting in contact with IFALPA http://www.ifalpa.org as the Industrial committee is the right way to get information about your subject.

Regards

Christian

Austrian Cockpit Association, Industrial Delegate
www.aca.or.at