How to get rid of ACPA?

[thrust set]

I do remember a few weeks ago in the YYZ crew room a pilot showing my F/O a website regarding change designed by a junior group of frustrated pilots.

I only got “ heresay” so cant comment any further.

Anyone else heard of this?

TS

[Johnny767]

I do remember a few weeks ago in the YYZ crew room a pilot showing my F/O a website regarding change designed by a junior group of frustrated pilots.

I only got “ heresay” so cant comment any further.

Anyone else heard of this?

TS

That website is designed by a low time loud mouth that is counting his AC Seniority in weeks and months. Had over 1000 posts on the forum in no time, doing nothing but complaining. 250 hr Jazz guy and in 24 months is at AC - everyone from management to ACPA knows who he is. Ink is still drying on his ATP, beaking off about being a Q400 Captain and on the Jazz Negotiations committee.

Poster child for "Entitled Millennial!"

[Art Garfunkel]

I do remember a few weeks ago in the YYZ crew room a pilot showing my F/O a website regarding change designed by a junior group of frustrated pilots.

I only got “ heresay” so cant comment any further.

Anyone else heard of this?

TS

That website is designed by a low time loud mouth that is counting his AC Seniority in weeks and months. Had over 1000 posts on the forum in no time, doing nothing but complaining. 250 hr Jazz guy and in 24 months is at AC - everyone from management to ACPA knows who he is. Ink is still drying on his ATP, beaking off about being a Q400 Captain and on the Jazz Negotiations committee.

Poster child for "Entitled Millennial!"

Complaining or asking good questions?

[Johnny767]

The guy is insufferable, most people join a new employer and keep their head down to learn the culture. Not this clown, he has ALL the answers. Stupid enough to go on Yammer and whine about not getting J class on a B pass.

[Dry Guy]

You heard it here guys, keep your mouth shut and like what the senior guys have given you, and what they've kept for themselves.

[Johnny767]

Nice try, for the record I would like nothing better that seeing ACPA gone and ALPA in. Do it with some respect, not running off at the mouth.

[thrust set]

I made some inquiries, seems nobody wants to talk about it to me.
Just with an annoying text, “things are in motion ...don’t stick my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
This was there logo.

[Jean-Pierre]

Just curious as an outsider how much seniority do you need to get J class on a B pass?

[RippleRock]

For the most part, you guys commenting on this thread have NO CLUE the damage ACPA has done to our collective agreements over the past two decades. Our colluding reps are responsible for the direct loss of lterally hundreds of millions of WACON changes to the companies benefit and direct detriment of the pilot group. Something happens to these guys when the enter the "ACPA domain". They literally change. They become an arm of Flight Ops Management, and believe that by marginalizing the very pilots they represent, they are effectively "saving us all" from ourselves and making the company stronger. Like the pilot group needs to align their "views" with the Shareholder for the betterment of the entire enterprise. We have one ELECTED national rep that sees how rotten ACPA has become and he is absolutely sickened by what he has seen. Even though he has been elected, he has been declared an "outcast" and been isolated by the other reps. Unreal. We stand by and do nothing.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that a healthy company is important, but we have little to offer, and much to lose. We are one of the most underpaid, and overworked national airline pilot groups in the first world.

The simple lack of "snap-back clauses" that would give the company "temporary" lets during difficult times has been nearly non-existent. Once they "give" to "help out" its GONE, permanently. ACPA has rarely been careful in what they have offered as "help". Our reps are always the first group into the "burning building", and rarely do we come out without permanent scars. Pilots are too expensive to downtrain which would minimize layoff right from the start. This apparently wasn't even considered last May.

How many direct jobs were saved by the 55 hour MOU? Probably none. The company will crew the airline to the crew required, period. The fact that pilots within 100 numbers of layoff are currently in expensive aircraft conversion training programs showed the companies intent. MINIMAL LAYOFFS, that were NOT affected by the massive pay concession taken on by the entire group FOR SIX MONTHS. AC has nearly 10 billion in liquidity, but now has many pilots on the verge of selling their homes through necessity. What did the 55 hour MOU add to AC's bottom line? Maybe 5 days of further liquidity.

Thanks ACPA. Muppets with Flt Ops hands running them. This pilot group is a joke if they think they are being well represented.

Stick to the F@#%ing CONTRACT like you are SUPOSE TO. Its there to protect us. No more MOU's.

[Lt. Daniel Kaffee]

it's all so easy from the cheap seats....

[Raymond Hall]

it's all so easy from the cheap seats....

For the most part, you guys commenting on this thread have NO CLUE the damage ACPA has done to our collective agreements over the past two decades. Our colluding reps are responsible for the direct loss of lterally hundreds of millions of WACON changes to the companies benefit and direct detriment of the pilot group. Something happens to these guys when the enter the "ACPA domain". They literally change. They become an arm of Flight Ops Management, and believe that by marginalizing the very pilots they represent, they are effectively "saving us all" from ourselves and making the company stronger.

It is so ironic that I should find myself actually agreeing with anything that Kaffee posts. Nevertheless, his comment is apt. Because you have criticized the ACPA reps for a period of two decades, you have actually slandered many, including myself. May I respectfully disagree with your criticism! When I was Chair, we received a 97% strike vote, with a 98% participation rate. On three separate occasions over the summer of 2000 I had written and signed the 72-hour Notice to Minister of Labour that is required prior to commencing strike action, and had it in my fax machine ready to hit the SEND button. The MEC had spent over 30 weeks in intense negotiations with one and only one interest—providing the membership with a contract that reflected their valued contribution to the enterprise.

On the third occasion, August 31st, 2000, I received a call at 12:30 AM from the Negotiation Committee Chair that negotiations had failed and that we should announce the strike in the morning. At 7:00 AM, I received a second call. Air Canada had capitulated and accepted our final offer. No strike.

We were thrust into the same dilemma the following May. Air Canada announced that it was planning to contract out to Skyservice a good portion of our flying. Another standoff, for two weeks. I won't go into too much detail, but I can tell you that there was much disagreement within the MEC and the Negotiation Committee as to what to do, with many favouring an illegal strike.

I had kept silent during much of the two days of discussion, but when a decision was about to be considered, I presented a copy of a paper to each of the MEC and Negotiating Committee members that I had written in 1981 for one of my MBA courses, showing what happened after a previous illegal strike.

For a course that I was then taking, Government and Its Environment, we were required to submit a research paper. I had chosen as a subject, the U.S. Air Traffic Controllers strike. On November 11, 1981, I traveled to Washington D.C. and spent three hours interviewing the President and the Vice President of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association. The majority of their members, after starting their strike, had been arrested in chains. 99% of those controllers lost their jobs, with many losing their houses after being denied mortgages and bank loans, not to mention winding up in jail and/or having to pay legal bills. Clear evidence of what an illegal strike can do for you. So, I had no misunderstanding of the potential adverse consequences for us, should we take that option, especially with the then recently-appointed new, young AC President planning to change the corporation.

I then put my job as MEC Chair on the line. No illegal strike, or I would resign. I offered my resignation then or when the strike was announced. We adjourned the MEC meeting without resolution. Then, a few days later I persuaded the VP of Air Canada Flight Ops to re-convene the negotiations that had broken off.

All of the MEC, all of the Negotiation Committee, as well as our Labour Relations staff then met face to face with Air Canada's team, including the current President and CEO at a hotel on the strip in Toronto, with the two facing tables stretching over 30 feet. I can honestly tell you that that confrontation was one of the most intense experiences that I have ever had in my over 50 years of flying and over 30 years of practising law. The entire future of the Association and its members was at stake. We stood our ground. To say that "very strong words" were expressed by our negotiators would be an understatement. The only concern in our actions was ensuring that we effectively represented those who elected us. Air Canada adjourned, and then returned and withdrew its proposal for contracting out. The contract was kept intact.

So may I respectfully suggest that you think twice before you label your elected representatives as weak, conflicted or self-interested. You would do well to get involved and see things from the inside. From the expensive seats, not the cheap seats.

[RippleRock]

The cheep seats you say....I assure you Daniel, that we are both paying and we are far from done.

A lot has happened since you were in "office" Ray. I'd say the Gary Tarves years were the last unified front shown by our leadership, perhaps JMB as well, but he had little to no support. Gary was quoted as saying that the "SS ACPA" (contract) was a ship covered in patches, but it had few holes. You could drive a semi-truck through the holes left in the crap TA1 deal in the form of LOU's. I lost count of the numbers of "letters of intent" to clarify contract language at a future time, like WTF? It was said that it arguably cost the group on the order of $150.000,000 of "bargaining capital". What a let down, what a sell-out. I could go on at length starting with the Sky Regional pole that resulted in the loss of the 175's, but I'd be wasting my time as that ship has sailed, as has the 50 fin Rouge cap.

The "gives" since we entered CCAA are nearly incalculable. Fracturing of the membership was allowed on multiple levels, the most serious of which was the loss of the DB pension. FOS and the creation of Rouge was never contended, but was instead "embraced" by ACPA and enshrined in a ten year deal that was bought with $10,000 of our own grievence money. The sell job was aggressive, putting it mildly. The concept of letting the deal stand on its own merit and letting the Membership debate was never entertained. The forum was shut down, and all questions were filtered through the ACPA portal. The promises made by ACPA used to sell the deal, broken.

We are still at the mercy of "leading question" surveys. Who knows what will be done with the latest, but given ACPA's resolve to do their own thing, all of us "cheap seaters" should be losing a bit of sleep.

[skypirate88]

Ray, I respect what you did then and thank your for your service. There were and still are some people within the halls that are doing or trying to do some good work.

Unfortunately the ACPA you knew is no longer the ACPA apparently serving the members. It has grown into an incredibly siloed organization with little factions making side deals. We have committees that work in isolation with little oversight, a legal department unwilling to take a stand and a MEC that largely bends to the companies demands.
We have fully displaced reps, some of who haven't flown the line in years.

There was a time when we were better served by ACPA. As the industry has grown we have grown increasingly isolated as Air Canada pilots. We are the largest pilot group in Canada, and for better or worse we set the contract trends in this country. We have allowed companies to pit is against each other. It's time we (pilots) stop seeing each other as the competition, let the companies worry about that. We must work together to advance the labour agenda and our profession.

We must look inward when considering the failures of our past. Obviously government intervention has done immense damage to our group but we must also share some of that responsibility. The apathy within our group will be a challenge to overcome but I believe a change in banner might be what we need to wake up the members.

We are facing something completely unprecedented in the history of our profession. The decisions made now by ACPA will have lasting impacts for the rest of our careers and unfortunately I have lost faith in the association's ability to navigate these troubled waters.

[skypirate88]

Double post

[Dry Guy]

Would it be possible to get pilots out of negotiations entirely? They just don't have the IQ to go toe to toe with the executives but they have the ego to think they do.

[Johnny767]

The negotiators on the other side of the table (the Witness Protection Plan) are Pilots on our seniority list. We have had some very smart Pilots in negotiations over the years, the part you are forgetting is what country you live in. We have very limited power, what ever percent pay raise they give Pilots, they are in a corner to give the unskilled workers.

We are all equal in Canukastan. Unskilled labour is overpaid and skilled labour is underpaid, feel very sorry for the licenced AME's.

The Executives are the only ones that have it figured out, they look after themselves, Union members are all lumped together.

[RippleRock]

The negotiators on the other side of the table (the Witness Protection Plan) are Pilots on our seniority list. We have had some very smart Pilots in negotiations over the years, the part you are forgetting is what country you live in. We have very limited power, what ever percent pay raise they give Pilots, they are in a corner to give the unskilled workers.

We are all equal in Canukastan. Unskilled labour is overpaid and skilled labour is underpaid, feel very sorry for the licenced AME's.

The Executives are the only ones that have it figured out, they look after themselves, Union members are all lumped together.

Disagree. We did, and do not have smart negotiators. They THOUGHT they were smart, and tried to convince the membership of such.

They WERE smart enough to be very, very dangerous to the contract and membership. They have caused irreparable damage. A better description is arrogant, and extremely naive.

ACPA is outclassed, and out negotiated at every turn. We are swimming with sharks. Don't forget that KV was thanked personally in front of hundreds by CR for "enabling AC". ALARM BELLS went off, or should have. Also, who can forget the love in with Ben Smith? A personal invitee of the MEC to help sell the further expansion of Rouge. Nearly made me ill with all the back slapping. He never represented the pilot group, only the shareholders. He worked us like soft putty. We are unique in the pilot world to invite a senior Manager onstage with our MEC to "sell us a contract". Ray never would have. BS is still spoken of by many pilots as having some "mystical quality". He is a master manipulator that worked us and our MEC like a cheap marionette puppet.

Again, don't get me wrong, I am an absolute believer in a healthy organization. I'm just tired of the pilot group always being the willing "low hanging fruit". Tired of being the first employee group to jump into the fire to drag everyone else out. Tired of getting continuously burned. Tired of an MEC that think its their sole mandate to save the Corp by continuously handing over crippling MOU's to "help out", when the impact of those MOU's on AC's bottom line could be calculated in fractions of percentages.

Our MEC needs to know that they DO NOT hold the reigns of Air Canada in their hands, they hold the reigns and future of its Membership. They are responsible to US first, NOT second. Other employee Unions understand this, ACPA does not.

[Dry Guy]

Some of the the most intelligent people I've ever met have been pilots and I sit next to them thinking what a waste this guy is operating a machine for a living. Without exceptions they are all very nice guys too. What I want negotiating for me is someone that smart that isn't nice. The actual sociopaths that chair boards, and sit in court getting murders off free. That's what the other side has.

[Johnny767]

Since the days of CALPA Pilots have used the association as a segue to Management, taking their place on the other side of the table. Association work attracts a similar personality to Flight Ops office work, someone that doesn't particularly like flying Airplanes. On occasion someone who is not very good at it! Is much happier sitting around home in their underwear answering emails, or some small dingy office with no windows convinced they are important.

Professional Negotiators has been debated for decades, we just can't seem to get away for MEC Members that are pure puppets to Flight Ops Management. Add to that ACPA being a stand alone (inbred) Association with no oversight.

Paying themselves 82 hours/month to play golf while the dues paying member is earning 55. If that doesn't tell the tale, not sure what does?

[RippleRock]

The cheep seats you say....I assure you Daniel, that we are both paying and we are far from done.

A lot has happened since you were in "office" Ray. I'd say the Gary Tarves years were the last unified front shown by our leadership, perhaps JMB as well, but he had little to no support. Gary was quoted as saying that the "SS ACPA" (contract) was a ship covered in patches, but it had few holes. You could drive a semi-truck through the holes left in the crap TA1 deal in the form of LOU's. I lost count of the numbers of "letters of intent" to clarify contract language at a future time, like WTF? It was said that it arguably cost the group on the order of $150.000,000 of "bargaining capital". What a let down, what a sell-out. I could go on at length starting with the Sky Regional pole that resulted in the loss of the 175's, but I'd be wasting my time as that ship has sailed, as has the 50 fin Rouge cap.

The "gives" since we entered CCAA are nearly incalculable. Fracturing of the membership was allowed on multiple levels, the most serious of which was the loss of the DB pension. FOS and the creation of Rouge was never contended, but was instead "embraced" by ACPA and enshrined in a ten year deal that was bought with $10,000 of our own grievence money. The sell job was aggressive, putting it mildly. The concept of letting the deal stand on its own merit and letting the Membership debate was never entertained. The forum was shut down, and all questions were filtered through the ACPA portal. The promises made by ACPA used to sell the deal, broken.

We are still at the mercy of "leading question" surveys. Who knows what will be done with the latest, but given ACPA's resolve to do their own thing, all of us "cheap seaters" should be losing a bit of sleep.

I need to correct myself. The LOU's I refered to were actually called LOC's. Letters of commitment. TA1 had around 16, yes sixteen or more "letters of commitment to "clarify contract language, or missing clauses at a future date" Language that WASN'T included in the TA1 contract. This alone was a non-starter. Not one LOC should have appeared. This was downright sloppy.

The second was the loss of the 175's. This was an FOS issue, not a Sky Regional issue. Still, it should never of happened, and we should have fought FOS (which was illegal under our bargaining charter) tooth and nail, right from the get go. Instead we locked it in permanently through our fabulous 10 year deal which has "cost zero" reopeners at three year intervals, and an "airtight" promise to lock the cap on Rouge at 50 fins. Brilliant.

This paltry 10 year deal didn't allow us to repatriate ANY gains lost in the previous "contract engagements" and effectively locked us up at a "below cost of living wage uplift 2%" for a decade. The trade off for this "backward movement" during times of unseen prosperity for the AC Shareholder was a "locked in" airtight deal that supposedly couldn't be breached in rough times.

RIGHT. So what does ACPA do within ONE MONTH of the pandemic??? They violate the contract that was suppose to protect us all in rough times and lower our wage to 55 hours across the board for SIX months without Membership input. It's important to note that we are ALONE in this move. No other employee group did this to their Membership. Not one. However not three months in, the ACPA elite didn't like the 55 hour pay-cheque, so they VOTED themselves a raise back up to 80+ while the rest of us struggle with a decimated salary. Again brilliant. Not sure who ACPA works for, but it isn't the Membership. Crystal clear.