Captain Jeffrey Anderson Addresses the Danger of the Largest Pilot Union (ALPA) Actively Lobbying Against its Own Members – While Trying to “Sell” Congress on False Narratives Like Denying The Pilot Shortage Exists and the Growing Experience Gap On Airline Flight Decks.
“…the ALPA position against raising the airline pilot retirement age is a very narrow and personalized need to create member support inside the union to elect or re-elect certain officers.”
A Gear-Up Landing for ALPA?
How the Pilots Union Campaign Against Its Own Members Could Mean Heavy Turbulence for Organized Labor and Their Champions in Washington
Captain Jeffrey C. Anderson
Nothing screams of “self-induced error” in aviation more clearly than landing your plane without first extending the wheels. In fact, even getting to late final approach without “throwing out the gear” is considered a red flag about your piloting focus and prioritization. The last year or more in Washington, as Congress has slowly dropped down toward landing an FAA Reauthorization bill essential to the country, certain leaders on the flight deck of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and their affiliates have distracted themselves with political agendas inside their union. The result could be catastrophic, and not just for them.
America and the world are in the midst of a critical pilot shortage; a shortage in raw numbers, and more impactful, a shortage of experience. The staffing shortfall has been only somewhat masked for the time being by rampant hiring of young and minimally-experienced license holders. The outflow and decline of cockpit experience however, remains unabated. A proposed solution to both problems is to incrementally raise the outdated mandatory airline pilot retirement age from 65 to
67. Given advancements in general human health condition, the specific fact that airline crews are always multi-person, and that airline pilots are medically examined and professionally tested and certified multiple times each year, this idea is broadly considered a no-brainer. Strangely enough, the president and some executives of ALPA, along with their supporters are the only voices of opposition to including that measure in the FAA Reauthorization bill. Not only would their preferred outcome deny the public what it badly needs, a real consequence of just taking that position and leveraging legislators to follow it could trigger the downfall of organized labor.
Apart from the increasing examples of hazards to aviation safety and the associated threats to America and the world – all of which justify raising the pilot retirement age – this is a story about people leading a union and using that union to deny union members the right to work. Take a minute and wrap your head around that one.
It is a sad fact that the driver of the ALPA position against raising the airline pilot retirement age is a very narrow and personalized need to create member
support inside the union to elect or re-elect certain officers. Everything about career progression and opportunity for rank-and-file U.S. airline pilots is based on relative seniority within the membership. So, the internal political tool their union leaders have created is a false concern about career opportunity among the growing faction of newer members, with a pledge to be the people who will solve it. The straw man pitch is that the possibility of retaining safe, experienced pilots up to an additional two years will somehow slow down young pilots’ chances to take their place.
Never mind that that narrative is identifiably false. And let’s accept that it’s perfectly okay for a union to openly press for the best income and other conditions for its members, even to Congress. Indeed, the zig-zag history of ALPA’S position both for and against pilot age limitations has always been based on the economic interests of its members. What is grossly off track in this instance is that ALPA and other pilot union leaders aren’t presenting their argument to legislators and the public in that honest light, but are instead weaving a film of unsubstantiated safety concerns, possible international implementation obstacles and – of all things – corporate cost worries to support their position against raising the pilot age; all of this to leverage their 92-year reputation for being honest brokers of fact and perspective on aviation policy. As their piecemeal and disjointed practical arguments have been dismantled and refuted one-by-one, these individuals have checked down into a straight political leverage play on the historic supporters of organized labor in general, congressional Democrats. Indeed, right now Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee are being targeted by ALPA with a blunt, “we are labor and this is what we demand” message, backstopped only weakly by the one argument they have tried with any tractable success, possible international differences (a minimal challenge that, in fact, has answers). This is new, troubling and dangerous ground in a number of regards.
First is the abrupt and startling abandonment of ALPA’S longstanding advocacy principles: that they simply present substantive facts, share data and provide circumstantially-supported opinion about aviation matters, then let government legislators and administrators deal with the policy sausage making. This is a new venture into bold, purposeful spinning of information and political maneuvering.
Second is the decision to do so under the guise of representing the entire union membership, when broad support of the pilot group is known to be absent. The forming and presence on Capitol Hill of large organizations made up of ALPA and other union pilots such as the Let Experienced Pilots Fly coalition, and other individual pilot advocates, speaks to the fact that a substantial portion of union
members – not to mention the safest and most experienced – actually stand for increasing the FAR Part 121 pilot retirement standard. Keep in mind that while ALPA musters fully-paid-for and specifically trained individuals to lobby and otherwise engage Congress, these grass roots advocates do so on their own time and own dime – a far superior commitment. A recent open letter to Congress over the signatures of 56 ALPA union officials addressing the disagreement and the lack of any pilot group topical education and dedicated polling reflects that even the elected representatives and committee officers closest to the rank-and-file recognize that ALPA’s lobbying position, purpose and methods in this case are highly questionable. Atop all that, a likely federal Duty of Fair Representation (DFR) lawsuit against ALPA brought on behalf of thousands of union pilots demanding the association stop advocating against their fair right to work makes very clear to every objective observer that something is badly awry.
Third is the further, bold willingness to actually misrepresent facts and conditions in the technical areas for which ALPA has built a legitimate level of respect and reputation, and to do so in order to gain a legislative outcome that is 1. specifically against the public interest, and 2. only pursued in order to support internal union politics.
Last, the final desperate breakdown into bullying Senate Democrats with a labor vote and dollar support threat. This is absolutely the point where the landing gear needs to go down, and the question is, will it?
The modernized philosophy of organized labor progresses from an original, largely socialized enterprise to a business model that makes complete sense across the political spectrum. Simply put, unions are the representative providers of the most precious and important commodity on the planet – human labor. Today’s unions are increasingly cognizant of the fact that industry and corporations have to be healthy and viable in order to make a reliable place to work and earn. Within that environment, unions serve to ensure that the fundamental unit of those firms, sectors and of all economies – workers – are respected and rewarded according to their contribution. Regardless your own place on the working or corporate/investor side of business, or your personal political orientation, unions are important to you and to America. It is simply a fact, however, that the lion’s share of mutual political and legislative support between unions and elected legislators in America has traditionally been between organized labor and Democrats. Accordingly, there has been a strong counter press by Republican politicians and conservative workers to depower unions’ political power. The Right to Work agenda is primarily structured to defund unions in such a way as to greatly diminish their ability to
make substantial political contributions or otherwise engage in influential lobbying activities supportive of Progressive and Democrat interests that range beyond pure industrial and membership matters. The overarching justification is that workers should not be required to contribute dues money as a condition of their employment, to unions that may then spend those dollars supporting politicians and efforts those workers may not agree with. The abbreviated ideology is, “you have a right to work, and unions should not be permitted to limit that right.” Of course, any law or regulation that effectively diminishes union membership, or certainly guarantees workers union benefits without requiring they pay dues, stands to kill off unions altogether.
The aggressive ALPA leadership campaign against rightfully raising the FAR Part 121 retirement age arguably gifts the most strident Right to Work advocates the best example ever of union impingement on individuals’ fundamental freedom to work. ALPA president Jason Ambrosi and his political supporters are dragging affiliated AFL-CIO union representatives in and dragging labor-friendly Democrats under with a mission clumsily destined to greatly damage organized labor and their important champions in government. Nothing says more clearly that a union can and will step on your right to work than your union using your dollars and your organization to tell you and other actual longtime, loyal dues- paying and volunteering members – qualified safe and experienced airline pilots, no less – that you no longer have that right.
With FAA Reauthorization at a critical process juncture, this awkward and precarious situation presents both a problem and a single, simple solution. Given that increasing the airline pilot retirement age is absolutely in the public interest, AND given the additional national public interest in fulsome, virtuous and constructive unionism, the U.S. Senate must include in its FAA bill, the House of Representatives measure passed this summer modifying the FAR Part 121 standard to age 67, and that legislation should be promptly moved to ratification.
… Gear, Down.
Captain Anderson is a Navy veteran and 33-year airline pilot for a major U.S. carrier. He is also a 33-year member of the Air Line Pilots Association, International and previously served ALPA as a pilot labor contract negotiator and government affairs chair.