10 (ICPU Presidents Roundtable, Casey Murray, Nick Silva, Yngve Paulsen, Paulette Gilbert)

Today's SWAPA Number is 10. That's the number of panels featured during this year's International Conference of Pilot Unions. Subject matter experts from Wall Street, the FAA, and four pilot association representatives were in attendance alongside SWAPA teams, as we not only addressed common issues in the industry, but the proposed solutions and way forward.

Also joining us were president of the Allied Pilots Association, Nick Silva, NETJETS Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots, Vice President, Paulette Gilbert, President Yngve Paulsen of Local 2750 of the International Aviation Professionals, and SWAPA president Casey Murray. We sat down with them for a frank discussion about why independent unions are so important, how and why we collaborate, and what is on the horizon for the industry at large.

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Transcript

Matt McCants:

Today's SWAPA Number is 10. That's the number of panels featured during this year's international Conference of Pilot Unions. Subject matter experts from Wall Street, the FAA, and four pilot association representatives were in attendance alongside SWAPA teams as we not only address common issues in the industry, but the proposed solutions in way forward.

Tony Mulhare:

Also joining us were president of the Allied Pilots Association, Nick Silva, NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots, Vice President Paulette Gilbert, president Yngvee Paulsen of Local 2750 of the International Aviation Professionals, and SWAPA President Casey Murray.

We sat down with them for a frank discussion about why independent unions are so important, how and why we collaborate, and what is on the horizon for the industry at large.

Matt McCants:

I'm Matt McCants.

Tony Mulhare:

And I'm Tony Mulhare. And here's our conversation with Casey, Yngvee, Paulette, and Nick.

This podcast is going to reach a number of different audiences, and I think whether you've been at your respective companies for 20 years and you've heard the union speeches over and over again, or you're low time at your companies and this is your first pilot organization, what are independent unions at large and what makes them unique?

Nick Silva:

Yeah, this is Nick Silva. I'm the new president of the Allied Pilots Association, APA. I've been in office for eight days, but I've been working for six years on both the economic and financial analysis, as well as the negotiating committees.

Our independence makes us unique in terms of our ability, like I've heard Captain Murray say, our ability to advocate for just the unique needs of our pilot group alone. All of our revenue comes from our members and their dues. And then all of our expenses are based on things that we think advocate for the best things for our memberships.

Yngve Paulsen:

Yngvee Paulsen, Atlas Air President, local 2750.

So I guess technically we're not independent and in that we are underneath the IBT umbrella. However, one of the good things about being in the IBT is that every local is traded autonomously, bottom up. So we effectively can do what we want when we want it.

And I echo the same thing of being independent, you are able to do what the membership wants and maybe even in the more important part is, you can collaborate with others through CAPA, through conferences like we just had in Dallas, and others. Whereas if you're part of a bigger organization, you may or may not have that ability.

Paulette Gilbert:

I'm Paulette Gilbert, Vice President of NJ ASAP, which is the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots.

Unity to us and being an independent union is key to everything that we do. We are very nimble. We can change direction very quickly. It makes us able to respond to the pilot needs and whatever's going on in the moment, which is very good, especially when something is time sensitive and critical.

I think having that flexibility and that quick response time is the key to being an independent union. And then just like my peer said, our issues are going to be unique based on the company that we fly for. Simply because, for example, we don't have domiciles, we have 200-plus bases that our pilots are based at. So it's a huge difference when you talk about basing issues, and we are able to adjust and achieve what our crew members want in a very efficient way.

Casey Murray:

For SWAPA, I hit two or three different things on this all the time. One of them is being completely independent and all four of us here kind of hit on that, but not having certain affiliations, AFL-CIO, is critical because it allows us to write our national airspace policy and carry it out singularly from our board of directors to the Hill. And so all of our PAC decisions are made with respect to our national aviation policy. So that's the ultimate representation of our members.

Paulette said it very good just, and she talked about being nimble. She talked about reacting quickly and not having to go through a bureaucracy. And so the execs and our board can make a decision relatively quickly, literally in minutes if not hours, and have a decision and execute on it. So I'm very proud of our independence and think it is the best value for the money that our pilots do spend.

Tony Mulhare:

So let's back up and do a little bit of a history lesson here. How did your respective organizations, how did your union decide to pursue an independent path, or change paths, versus joining an existing organization? Where does your history start, and why?

Yngve Paulsen:

We basically inherited it. It goes a long ways back. Polar/Atlas merger back in the early 2000 was ALPA represented. A part of the airline broke off to the Teamsters, and then that led us to Teamsters organizationally in the late 2000, and we've just been there ever since.

In 2019, we did leave local 1224 and start our own local 2750, and it simply for us was the right time. We were the right size. We had enough money that we could fund our own union, and we did that in 2019 and now pretty successful local within the Teamster organization.

Paulette Gilbert:

Well, interestingly, we started off as Teamsters at NetJets, back in 1997 was the first agreement. We were part of a local that represented long haul truck drivers and other industry people. So our size at that time was under 2,000 pilots. So that left us the little man in the group basically, and it was very hard to get attention for the issues that we saw during that time.

So we were able to charter our own Teamsters affiliate, and we became our own local in about 2005, I believe that was. And then we lobbied to get our own independent union, and we ratified that in 2008 with a 98% approval and about a 90% participation vote, which was pretty key for us because we reached that size where we could self sustain, and we could make enough money to run the organization. We were ready for that next step.

Nick Silva:

When it comes to the origins of APA, it goes right back to 1963 and the original split from ALPA, and there are a lot of different versions of that story. There's a whole chapter in Flying The Line that's dedicated to it about the way the ALPA felt the American Airlines MEC was behaving at the time, and that led to the split. But we've been independent ever since.

We've represented a time some, I think American Eagle was on our property for a little while, we represented them. They went back to ALPA as well, but 61 years later, we're still independent. Longer than we were ever part of ALPA in the first place though.

Casey Murray:

That sounds a lot like the story I'm about to tell. There's a lot of variations on this story, but it goes that over 40 years ago, Herb came and said, "Hey, I need someone to talk to. I need someone to communicate with, to talk to as we have issues." And that was kind of the genesis of SWAPA.

And so we've grown from there. The airline's grown, we've grown, our pilots have grown. I'm proud of who we are and what we've done.

Matt McCants:

So some checkered histories there for sure. Casey, I'll start with kicking this back to you. Is it safe to say that keeping that independent footing is crucial to moving forward?

Casey Murray:

Yes, 100%. I think it allows us, as I said, a nimbleness. Also, I feel strongly that some of the larger unions, whether we're talking the IBEW or whomever, their job is a business first. Their job is to collect dues and then dole those dues back out. And that's a fundamental difference in what we do.

We collect dues to represent our pilots, period. And I think that is what sets us apart. It allows our board of directors to set policy to represent their constituents, and we're also unique in that we have two reps from each domicile, and they represent that domicile. And then it comes nationally to the exec level. And as a 27 member board, we're able to effectively represent our pilots, again without any outside influences.

Nick Silva:

When it comes to APA, we've had, these last few years, as we've experienced several times in our history of a group of pilots who want to essentially go back to ALPA and have them represent us. It obviously would threaten our independence in some of the nimble ways, or some of the choices that we are able to make with how we spend our dues money.

From the president's seat, now it's more important than ever to just understand that that process really belongs to our board of directors and that our membership, the card drive is still an open item for us right now. The pilots who believe that we'd be better represented by ALPA have collected a significant number of cards and it's worthy of recognition, and it's not to be ignored.

Paulette Gilbert:

I think we'll always be an independent union, simply because there's no one else in our sector really that represents exactly what we do. I think that it's served us well. Our pilots routinely, when we survey them, think their dues value is above 90%. So I don't see a call for any changes. I think that that's pretty telling. That's one of the metrics that we rely on very heavily to try and address those needs. As the demographics change, we'll see where we go with that. But for right now, I don't foresee a change in the future.

Yngve Paulsen:

So I think we are in a kind of a similar situation as American and APA, not officially, but being that we are underneath the Teamster umbrella, we are paying dues to belong to them. So there's always a faction of our pilot group that's wanting to be truly independent, in which case APA and Southwest, NetJets are.

But my take on it is going to a national union is a mistake. I mean being independent and, effectively we are independent within the IBT umbrella that we do what we want to the extent we don't violate any bylaws or constitutionality, which is the same for all of your unions as well. But I think going to ALPA, to me, doesn't make any sense being that your dues are going to a different unity or unit, if you will, and you lose your autonomy.

Tony Mulhare:

So independence is key, but collaboration is also important between independent unions to push forward national interests that affect us all.

So how do we keep the synergy amongst these independent unions? Why is this week's conference important, and how do we keep this collaboration moving forward to the benefit of all of our members?

Casey Murray:

So the conference that we had is entitled Independent, but we have ALPA carriers here. It's critical that everything that we as labor and we as unions do is really collaborative. ALPA's strengths are in safety, and they're very collaborative in that space. They bring a fair amount of power to bear in DC, and pushing the greater sort of industry-wide issues forward. And we as independent are able to back that up.

We're also able to hit the issues that our pilots are interested in and concerned about outside of those as well. The right amendment and those types of things that Southwest has followed is an example of that. I've spent time talking about the importance of being independent, but that's representing the Southwest pilots and everybody's different, but all of us together are critical to the success of aviation and the national airspace system, the safest in the world. So all of us are pushing the same rock uphill.

Nick Silva:

For us, collaboration still remains key, the independence along with collaboration, because as the pilot profession has moved more towards, especially with the rise in regional and other carriers in their compensation, a pilot is moving closer to becoming a commodity in terms of, hey, there is a flat price for this, no matter what type of aircraft they're flying. And the more that we as unions, whether it's independent or not, can collaborate with each other, understand what we're asking for in bargaining, what our goals are and understanding those, it makes the profession stronger. So I think that level of collaboration is important, whether independent or not.

Paulette Gilbert:

I agree 100% with both of what you said. I think the key is while we're independent unions addressing our own specific issues at our carriers, there's a lot of commonality with threats to our industry. And by working together, we're able to address those.

So single pilot operations, for example, on the Hill, we talk about that daily. I mean, it is a huge threat and it's coming and we can't just bury our heads in the sand and pretend it's not. We have companies that are banding together and those management teams are working together to try to get their ball across the field, or across the goal. We have to do the same thing. We have to come together and make sure that we're protecting the industry as a whole, and making sure it's the safest that we can possibly maintain. And that all benefits all of us, not just our collective groups.

Yngve Paulsen:

Three of us at the table belong to CAPA, Coalition of Airline Pilot Associations, which is the trade organization for us, and that gives us a formal way to reach out to Congress and the Hill in a unified way, or while we're being organized in a methodical way of doing it.

SWAPA, you do the same thing on your own terms, and then there are others that do. So we're hitting them from every direction that we can, even as a singular group, or through the organization or independently. So I think we're hitting them from all sides.

Matt McCants:

Well, you all hit on this as we're talking about the collective strengths of being an independent union, but let's make no mistake about it, the collaboration between the independent unions and our national organizations. This is a real coalition to be dealt with on a number of different levels. But let's point to our memberships at how that collaboration with those national organizations goes and how does this rising tide that raises all boats, how does that really work, in a broad sense?

Casey Murray:

I think one of the most important things that has happened over the last eight, nine years is a lot more integrated. For so many years and seen it at SWAPA, seen it at Delta, seen it at United. A lot of times the negotiating committees weren't even talking to their boards.

Matter of fact, I saw one of our chairman of a negotiating committee years ago. We were weeks away from a TA, and a board member asked about retirement, and he goes, "I can't tell you."

So what has happened is we have seen communication across all of the unions to their members become a lot more open, but also that has allowed a lot more trust and collaboration between unions as we negotiate. And so we spend a lot of time with American and APA, we spend a lot of time with Delta. It has strengthened and brought together sort of this wide range of pay rates and quality of life that are now, with the exception of a few, we're all relatively close and now we're all relatively opening it very close to the same time. And all of that has been orchestrated because of that collaboration and it pushes the profession as a whole forward for those that aren't even born yet, as well as those that are retiring soon.

Nick Silva:

When I think about unity on a micro and a macro level, you almost, I think might be inclined to think that unity within your group of pilots at your airline is important to contribute to unity within the profession.

I almost want to think about a reverse, which is that if my membership knows that I'm talking to Casey about what he's doing and I'm in touch with the United MEC, and we're aware of what everybody else in the industry is doing, my membership is more likely to understand that we are making sure that we're not left behind. Which means that they're going to be more engaged with what we're doing. And then it is that rising tide lifts all boats.

So the collaboration between negotiating committees, and especially between corner offices is really kind of the glue that begins that collaboration with each other to make sure that the unity on the macro and micro level can be fostered.

Yngve Paulsen:

Also, it sends some message to managements that they know that nothing is going to happen because somebody else is going to tell us about it. We know we learn from each other's experiences. We don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. And I think that is probably as important as unity because unity is, at the end of the day, probably one of the most important things we have, but having management teams on their toes is also extremely valuable.

Paulette Gilbert:

And the only thing that I will add is I think our pilot groups get comfort out of the fact that we all work together. They know that we're doing the research, that we're doing the homework, that we are at the top of what's going on in the industry, and they don't have to look at it so closely and try to follow it at the level that we do. So when we can communicate that we're working together with the other teams, that that really brings the whole group together. It's like I'm getting more dues value because my union is working for me.

Tony Mulhare:

So speaking of we learned from our industry together, but we are also watching the other industry and the unions that are garnering attention right now. Nearly every kind of organized labor has had public press in the last couple of years from the auto workers, to the machinists at Boeing right now, you name it's out there.

What kind of takeaways are you taking from those experiences and watching how those negotiations have played out compared to ours in the flying world?

Nick Silva:

It's a little bit difficult to do apples to apples comparison just because of the shackles that the Railway Labor Act places on our profession and our ability to utilize some of those self-help techniques. However, it's noted that labor strife with, especially these large companies, they create uncertainty within the public. It is a tool to utilize in terms of how you create leverage for yourself. You have to be very careful with it. I'll just caveat it with that, but it's incredibly important to understand that when you're developing your overall strategy.

Casey Murray:

Over the past several years, when the writers strike a couple years ago, we were in contact with them. We were in contact and actually went out and walked with a doctor's union in California. When the railroad workers were out, we were with them. It is the strength in labor and it's all labor. It's also important to learn the nuances of what is going on with other work groups, not just in our industry.

But good example of that is what went on with the railroads a year and a half ago. The nuances of 12 that banded together and eight settled, and then four had something shoved down their throat. But then to learn the nuances of what actually happened and what was shoved down their throat and whatever your opinion is on that, it's also very important to know what Congress was looking at when they did that, and understand how then that affects us. And that's trends within the RLAs, trends within congressional attitudes, trends within the federal judicial level are important to understand and know and be able to bounce some things that we might not have ever seen in the airlines.

Paulette Gilbert:

Well, I'm happy that they're getting the press coverage that they are. I think that that's doing a lot to teach the newest generation about unions, number one, and about having to fight for the things that we deserve and require.

It's interesting that businesses haven't learned to take care of their employees even through all these centuries. Like it's such a simple equation that if you just take care of your employees, then everything goes smooth. So while it's nice to think about, they have the ability to strike, they are using that tool to bring awareness and it is getting unions in a favorable light, in my opinion, into the media and able to talk about it.

So a lot of people are very affected by what's going on. It's not just the people that are involved. And I believe that all of our contracts, especially the hotel workers strikes that's currently going on around the country, we have in our contract, you don't have to stay at that property. And we don't stay at that property. So I think that's strength in numbers, and shows that this is bigger than just the group that's out there picketing.

Matt McCants:

Yeah, there's certainly an increased awareness in what is going on in organized labor, even outside of the pilot communities as we open up the news and see these things every day.

Let's pivot back to a little bit of an internal look here, and in the big room and during this conference, we've talked about a little bit in jest of being in peacetime operations after some grueling negotiating cycles.

This comes with a number of challenges, but let's start with how we maintain membership engagement and buy-in. How does this happen?

Casey Murray:

Number one, it's important to talk about that, and it's important to understand that that is our challenge today. Everyone wants to take a deep breath. For us, it was a four-year battle. In the middle of that four-year battle was covid. We had Boeing issues, we've got business issues at Southwest, and so the respite isn't really there.

But, that being said, they pay us to fight a battle and sometimes we bring and shine a light on that, but we have to understand that fatigue. But also it's important to maintain a level of unity through it all. Everyone has to be prepared and know exactly what we're doing to prepare for the next battle. Also understand that we're here having avid discussions about single-pilot ops, about no-pilot ops, about eVTOLs. We're talking to air traffic control, we're talking to their union and trying to help them address issues as well. But again, I think it's also important to not rely on what we did last year or five years ago.

It's going to be a different battle next time, and we have to learn how to communicate better and more effectively with a more diverse pilot group. There's a lot to unpack just right there with that statement. So I think maintaining but understanding the fatigue is important, but also changing how we communicate and communicating to a new pilot.

Nick Silva:

It's the billion-dollar question, right, on how do you maintain member engagement and unity and peacetime? You don't always want to be on a wartime footing because when you make that call to rally the troops, you want them to be there. You can't have them at the ready 24/7, 365. So it's a progression to build up to it. And so you have to be respectful of that in some way. So it's something that we're definitely working to try to figure out and continue to learn our membership, especially as the demographic starts to change more and more, we have to really put ourselves on the footing of what does the group look like when we hit early openers? And then how are we starting to craft our message and craft our unity efforts to meet that group on that day so that we can hit the ground running.

Paulette Gilbert:

We haven't really had that period of peace after our contract. It's the first time in our history that that has not happened. We were all looking forward to it, obviously, but we ratified our contract in April of 2024, and then immediately they started, what we'll just call a war for now, against the union in May of 2024, and they haven't let up.

So the hits just keep coming as they say, and we have an obligation to be transparent with what's going on. So we do that to our best of our ability. But we've done that by trying to consolidate communications, put everything in one place. It's easy accessible using different formats like podcasts for example, to get the news out there to people. We have to do a huge education campaign for the people who've never seen this before.

I mean, if you think about the people that were hired at the beginning of this year on our property, they were like, "Well, rainbows, yay, a new contract. I'm making much more money, but what just happened?" And so they're really needing extra support that now we find ourselves having to learn how to give it to them properly.

And fatigue is real. I mean, people wanted nothing more than a break. I mean all of us did. And we are actively trying to get back to that labor management reset where we can fix these problems and it doesn't need to go down this path.

Yngve Paulsen:

So we came out of a seven-year battle for our contract in 2021. So we've kind of been at a quiet period, I don't want to call it a peace, because our old management stuck around for a few more years until we were purchased by Apollo, and we got a new CEO which turned the labor relations around.

So since 2023, we've had a pretty good relationship with management. So pilot group kind of sitting back watching, not really getting too engaged. So we're starting to ramp up into negotiations next year and doing that, we're going to do surveys and then in the surveys we're going to ask some questions about communication method.

I mean, clearly there's many avenues. You have podcasts like this, you have in person, TikTok, whatever, if that's even allowed anymore. And we need to figure out what our pilot group wants because there's so many different methods, and that's how we're going to try to get them back in.

Tony Mulhare:

All right, so what about inside your organization? What is this the time and the place for? You talked about some fatigue in your pilot groups going through the battles to get your contracts ratified, and some of those battles aren't quite over to more or less extent at the various unions that you represent.

But what is going on inside your union and what do you have to take care of? Is it bench building, your strategic planning, those types of things before you turn around and start this next bargaining cycle in just a few years?

Casey Murray:

We had the opportunity for the last three or four months to really sit down and speak to all of our committees as part of our strategic planning, and we've put together a 50-page document that came from those discussions. But one of them was fatigue within the halls, and bench building and those that are going to transition out, but before they do, they want to impart and educate the next coming in.

And I think that's critical for SWAPA over the next year, year and a half. But we're really lucky in that we have that recognition of the people that are there, and we have the time to do it. And so it was a hard-fought battle and as we talk about pilot fatigue, there is SWAPA fatigue. And as we do SWOT analysis on a lot of things, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, we have to see that as a threat but also recognize the opportunity that that.

 Provides. So there's constant work being done internally to make sure that we're prepared to address the threat of tomorrow and prepare for negotiations as they come.

Nick Silva:

The fatigue part for the volunteers is a big part. We've also... Bench building has been important as well, and we're starting to look at adding members to our negotiating committee or other key committees because while we're in this implementation phase, those aren't textbook negotiations in and of themselves, but it's enough repetitions of interactions with management that you can build up kind of the muscle of how to handle situations like that.

So for people who may have come from a smaller airline, or are coming from the military, or they haven't been a part of a union before, but they're immensely talented and qualified to do the work, you don't ever want to throw them into a situation where it's like, "Hey, we're passing early openers in three months and go figure it out." No, it's been a progression of you've had a year or two of being in these meetings, understanding the players, understanding the tone, tenor, how those happened. And so that's really the important part of bench building.

And the nice part, when we're thinking of the nice part about implementation is, is that there aren't very many pieces of our contract that didn't change. So each committee really has new things to figure out a way to work with and engage with management, and that creates a muscle building really all around the committee structure, as well as with our staff.

Paulette Gilbert:

Yeah, I think where we're at, it's just a little bit different than everybody else. We are actively pursuing and recruiting newer members to our volunteer structure. We think that's key for the future. And then as they rise through the ranks, identifying which ones will be good on roles like the negotiating committee, and potentially executive board leadership down the line. We invest a lot of time and effort into training those volunteers just so that they are set up for success.

Where we differ slightly, is this may not be a career stop for some of our members, so we have to keep that in mind. Not everybody is going to stay here for an entire career, and so you invest a lot of time and energy into it only to have them leave two years later when it's time to go into negotiations. So we have to be very selective, in some regard about who wants to take those roles, simply because when you're 23, you may not know what you have planned for your life in three years. So that adds a different element to our recruiting.

As far as going forward, our contract enforcement right now is key, simply because our entire contract's under attack, we'll say, we have a lot of grievances in the current process. We have to add people to those committees so that they understand how enforcing the contract is as important as negotiating the contract. Maybe more so, right? Because if you're not going to hold up those contract sections, then there's really no reason to have them.

So I think that that's key in going forward is that people understand what it means when we fight hard for something that we don't want to just hand it back over on a whim, and that can happen. So this new generation, while we've built so far what we've built, they're going to be the ones who build it into the future, and they need to understand that responsibility.

Yngve Paulsen:

You know, attrition is a huge problem, has been a huge problem for us as well. We've been losing 70-plus pilots a month, and people just kind of focus on, "Oh, pilots are leaving the company." No, they're also leaving the union. And a lot of times the people that are leaving are good union volunteers. So replenishing them has been a challenge and getting people to, willing to step up and do work is more challenging than it's ever been in the past. It's not as rewarding as it once used to be. So that's a challenge that we have, and I think for the younger generation is the same across the board for every carrier.

Matt McCants:

Yeah, I think universally we've identified throughout some of these discussions that one of the strengths within all these organizations is the talent that you have within them. So we're in this process of going through the care and feeding of that talent and building a bench so that it's always there. It's not going to be depleted.

But with strengths, we also talk about threats and threat mitigations. Let's take a look at the immediate horizon and down the road, and there's obviously some that are closer than others, but let's speak to some of the threats to our organizations, and more importantly how we mitigate them.

Nick Silva:

You have risks when it comes to your interactions with the company, and the people that you're going to deal with over there because that landscape is always changing, especially on the labor side.

And then from within, you do have a risk of burning out your volunteers or not taking care of your staff in a way that incentivizes them to work for a nonprofit, and they take a lot of depth and experience with them. So trying to juggle all those things and making sure that we're not dropping any of the balls that we're juggling is critical when it comes to the threats that we analyze.

Paulette Gilbert:

I think fear is a real threat right now for our organization, simply because of what we're seeing happening between labor and management. We see a lot more fear. Our newer pilots are scared to death of getting fired while on probation. They think there's a healthy fear of probation, but then there's an unrealistic fear where it almost is incapacitating as far as what you're seeing going on. We're getting a lot of feedback in that regard. So it is a credible threat and it's here, which we're dealing with as best we can.

The other part of that is we don't necessarily pick these fights. They just seem to come, and you have no choice but to fight them. So I can't say much because of the ongoing litigation, but this is always going to be the case. I mean, we talked about it in the big room about flying the line.

I can't emphasize enough those two books along with Fear and Certainty and Doubt, or Confessions of a Union Buster. The other fear and certainty doubt is the smaller version for aviators. So we don't have to read as many pages, but those three books are critical. It's the management playbook that's shown over and over, time and time again, and this is the tools they have and the tools that they know how to use. And so there's an education campaign that goes along with that and understanding that these contracts are not gifts and everything that we've had, we've fought for.

And by reinforcing that and showing examples, I think that's how we move forward, and let the next generation take that ball and continue moving it down the field.

Yngve Paulsen:

Threats for us being a cargo, mainly cargo, is automation, single pilot, no pilot, reduced augmentation. And I think for us, we probably will be the first carrier in the United States that will fly with any kind of autonomous reduced operations because it's cargo, and we all know that it's only three of us up there, four of us up there as opposed to 200 or 300.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah, so that's where this unity message, this speaking together with a collective voice is so important. But one of the threats that you've alluded to with your conversation about reading Flying The Line and understanding where we've been, and how that translates into where we're going is as we're all familiar with hiring a young generation of pilots in the mentoring programs that go along with that from a training perspective, NJ ASAP and APA, you guys both have mentoring programs for your union.

And speak to that and how that is important in building your next generation of union activists in your companies.

Paulette Gilbert:

Happy to. Yeah, we're very proud of our mentor program, obviously. It's very task saturated with the amount of work that these mentor volunteers do. Each mentor is a volunteer for the union. They do receive training from the union, and there are specific contact points that are made with every new pilot that comes on property. From the first week that they're on property, they're assigned this person who becomes their best friend, or phone a friend, or however you want to refer to it, that walks them through every phase of being a NetJets pilot. They tell them what to pack for IOE, what to expect on IOE, little things that don't really pertain to airline flying, like what's an FBO and how do I get there from the airline? So there's a lot of things that just aren't second nature that you have to kind of learn as you go through the process. And this person walks them through all of that.

Additionally, when they have something that goes on at home, something bad, like a relative gets sick, or God forbid they have a sickness themselves, something along those lines, they call that mentor first. That mentor walks them through all the union programs that are going to be there to help them. And it tells them the pitfalls of each and the positives and negatives of each. So in that first year, the foundation is set to where they know the union is there to protect them, the union is there to support them, and the union is going to be the one at the end the day that is going to fight for them.

Matt McCants:

I think that's a good lead-in to what we think the future of negotiations is going to look like. Pattern bargaining is heavily strategic and we're experiencing all kind of friction out there today, which begs the question, what is it going to look like during the next cycle?

So what does the 41,000-foot view of negotiations look like in the near future? Is it going to be long and protracted again or is there going to be less on the table this time around? What are some of the knowns that we are thinking and leaning towards right now?

Yngve Paulsen:

For the carriers like myself, Atlas, I mean we're still behind the curve on pay and benefits, at least total package. We did get some fairly good gains in our last contract, but it'll probably be a little bit bigger for us. Or alternatively, the strategy could be get what's most important, and if that's money and benefits, then you hit that and then you let the rest sort its way out through mid-contract negotiations.

So I think that's a new thing that's come up that never happened before is that mid-contract, we made, at Atlas, we made $120 million gain in 16% direct contribution, which has never happened before. So I think managements are going to adapt a little bit, at least on the smaller carriers. Because they realize that fighting for seven years doesn't help us because we already have an attrition problem starting early. Whereas the legacy carriers don't. That's the way I see it.

Casey Murray:

And that's a good point. I mean we all have sort of narrowed the size of the bullseye, definitely. Because we all have drawn closer into retirements, into pay, into benefits. I think it's important whomever is approaching the next one that your first thing is your members and figure out what their pain points are.

Nick Silva:

It's tough because you always want to see where's the puck going, not where the puck is right now. And we haven't had really an environment, at least from a legacy or big four point of view, we've never had an environment like this. I think the late '90s are the most comparable.

But since consolidation really occurred through all the bankruptcies, now it creates a whole 'nother ball game. And we're dealing with OEM or Boeing and some Airbus issues as far as manufacturing goes, as they're creating delays and when the delays are created, there becomes a surplus of pilots because there aren't the cockpits there anymore that you thought were going to be there. And then you also want to look from a financial analysis point of view, which is where I came from, it's what does airline growth look like compared to GDP? And you can almost kind of tell, "Well, this is probably how many pilots we expect to need." And you can look at the pipeline of how many pilots are really starting to come up.

And so maybe there might not be the same motivation from the company to make the job look as attractive. And so you have to deal with those points of view. And then you're dealing with pilots who are relatively compared to a few years ago, are making pretty decent money, and with a younger pilot group, they're going to put more of a premium on how much can I control my schedule to spend more time with my family.

And so trying to understand all those things and then understanding what impact, how the company would approach those kind of things, that's kind of Bargaining 101, but I think it's really going to be the blocking and tackling of what the next round of negotiations looks like.

Paulette Gilbert:

We had our last Section 6 in 2015. Since then we've done interest-based bargaining, which is midterm bargaining. And the benefit to that is it's quiet, right? All the fighting's done behind closed doors and you just magically come out with a contract to vote on. That's how the pilots view it. Of course, that's not exactly the way it works, but that's how they think it works. So from 2015 and Section 6, we had to use all the lawful campaigns that we could possibly imagine, and we did.

And so in 2018, we didn't have to do that for an interest-based bargaining. In 2020, we did not have to do any of those tactics. But 2024 was a game changer where we had to use Section 6 tactics to get the company to the table, and to give us a reasonable offer. We were very successful in that negotiation, putting $1.6 billion into the contract that wasn't there previously. And that was to compete with the main lines mainly, and stem the attrition and be able to retain the pilots that we have, and attract new pilots. So it all works together.

Unfortunately, we think because the interest-based bargaining, we had to rely on the lawful campaigns. We now will see that Section 6 will be the next time the company wants to enter into negotiations. So they've learned a lesson, I guess, that we will do what it takes to get a reasonable contract. And they see that now. So everything they're doing seems to be to create that fear so that when they go into negotiations, they're going to ask for concessions. There's zero doubt about the fact they're coming after concessions.

Casey Murray:

It's incumbent upon all of us to make sure that what went on before us lives on and what can happen. I think all of us have said at one point today, the playbook for management's kind of stale, but it just repeats itself. But where did it come from, and why did it develop that way? And there's a lot of history as to how the airlines became who they are.

The history is just rich and needs to be understood. And many 20-year-old and 30-year-olds need to really understand and get involved, and continue to carry that torch. They are going to be the torchbearers when we're all gone, and it's going to be up to them to continue to push all of our professions forward, and our children's professions forward, and their children's profession forward.

I do think in all of the existential threats that we talk about and all of the things happen, whether it's regulatory, whether it's economic, all of the threats with any business, I think it's also incumbent upon us to make sure that we don't let that slowly die, so that in 20 years we have forgotten what happened on 911, and what that did to the industry. Where did TSA come from? Just simple things like that. We have to keep it in mind.

Tony Mulhare:

We'd like to thank Nick, Paulette, Yngve, and Casey for stopping by to inform our memberships of the power of independent unions. If you have any feedback or questions, please drop us a line at comm@swapa.org. We really do want to hear from you.

Matt McCants:

Finally, today's bonus number is 16.2. As in 16.2 million, which is the number of US employees represented by national or independent labor organizations in 2023. Make no mistake about it, unified voices and positions are critical in advancing all of those professions, and it's up to us to keep it that way.