WestJet FAs Claim They are paid less than minimum wage

[thor]

There are misinformed older WestJet ALPA members who supported a pension thinking that it will pay off their best 5 years of service without the tenure to support it. I think they are counting on it.

[conehead]

I find it surprising how many people don’t know how pensions work...

[DEFCON]

A union is only as good as its members honour and willingness to participate.

Unfortunately, a considerable percentage of pilots simply expect results in return for dues and don't otherwise contribute to the 'cause'; they're usually the noisiest, most demanding and least likely to be seen at a meeting. 

Like any democracy, if the constituent members are selfish & apathetic, the result will speak for itself.

ALPA seems to have embarked on another divisive strategy by classifying what's close to the majority of its members as 'fee for departure'  carriers and pushing the notion that wb flying is the be and end all of piloting.

While it may be easy to fool new entrants into drinking the cool - aide, when the economy short circuits and the inevitable downturn follows, opinions will change and the FFD pilots will find themselves on the short end of the stick just like the so-called Regionals before them.

 

   

 

[Guest]

Defcon: going back to my days as a "Union Rep" you discription of pilots 

Quote

 considerable percentage of pilots simply expect results in return for dues and don't otherwise contribute to the 'cause'; they're usually the noisiest, most demanding and least likely to be seen at a meeting. 

is no different from most unions and their members. In fact you can also say the same of Voters. 

[boestar]

Same reason AC was always suffereing in Maintenance.  They shared a union with the rampies and they all turned out because they had the most to gain.  The maintenance guys were nver there i great numbers.  of course this is going back 25 years or so.

 

[DEFCON]

I share your sentiment Malcolm.

I recall that amalgamation Boestar; I don't recall a single non- involved airline employee of the time, even the suits, thinking the experiment would go well for licensed maintenance personnel.

 

 

 

[Maverick]

6 hours ago, boestar said:

Same reason AC was always suffereing in Maintenance.  They shared a union with the rampies and they all turned out because they had the most to gain.  The maintenance guys were nver there i great numbers.  of course this is going back 25 years or so.

 

Not sure about AC but at CAIL the rampies outnumbered the AME's by around 4-1 so nothing we did or wanted mattered to the masses.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Maverick said:

Not sure about AC but at CAIL the rampies outnumbered the AME's by around 4-1 so nothing we did or wanted mattered to the masses.

 

to be more accurate, it mattered to the masses but not to the minority.  A great example of what happens when you mix trades/licenced employees in one bargaining group. Just imagine one untion representing pilots and flight attendants in a common bargaining unit.   The majority will always be able to out vote the minority, just like in most of our federal elections. 

n

[DEFCON]

"Just imagine one untion representing pilots and flight attendants in a common bargaining unit."

Although membership was more encompassing, that's essentially the model WJ was employing and it didn't work there either.

 

[Critter]

Small correction. 

While there was an umbrella employee group, each sub group ran its own show. The pilots negotiated for pilots and no one else.

[Longranger]

On 2018-03-19 at 7:37 AM, j.k. said:

I've worked at a 9 different companies in aviation.

Best one (by far) was the only one that was a union job.

I’ve worked for 11 aviation companies, the  Best (by far) was non Union...WestJet. 

[Longranger]

On 2018-03-19 at 10:21 PM, thor said:

There are misinformed older WestJet ALPA members who supported a pension thinking that it will pay off their best 5 years of service without the tenure to support it. I think they are counting on it.

You are bang on, and misinformation is rampant in the Flight Attendent ranks as well, on a whole host of issues including the topic under discussion on this thread.  With social media now, it’s amazing how distorted information and untruths get spread and people take it as the truth.  The majority of people now get their news and information from Facebook, and if as has come out now, Facebook had an undue influence on the U.S. election, and even Brexit, and on pipeline and environmental policy in Canada.

As well add in a natural bias at the CBC, where this whole article originated toward union support, as well as other news outlets picking up the story, without doing any independent journalism research on their own (maybe due to cutbacks in staff etc), and you have a case of a story taking on a life of it’s own.  There are Flight Attendents at WJ with T4’s well over $100,000, but that wouldn’t make very good headlines with the CBC would it.... 

As has already been mentioned on this thread, this is Industry standard, (with variations at individual airlines) Flight Attendants at WJ were paid on Duty time years ago, but voted in the negotiated present agreement by a majority.