A brief attendance at the ALPA-I [effectively, the North American Pilots' Association] Board of Directors' biennial Conference in Las Vegas, proved to me that wherever in the world we fly, whatever our cultural differences, we are challenged by the same problems! With some airlines seeking to 'divide and rule', others who persist in the belief that draconian cuts in staff pay and conditions will solve structural defects in their business model and sadly few who seek genuine partnership with their key employee groups: America sounded just like Europe.
ECA and ALPA-I are in regular, close contact; both to coordinate professional pilot input to the EU-U.S. Air Transport Agreement negotiations, as well as for genuine mutual support. I believe that we can share our experience of many nations working together, given the world's race to globalise. And we in Europe can learn much from their experience of mergers and consolidation.
Maybe there are other things we can learn from our American cousins, too. They believe in being organised to protect each other, relying less on the law to protect their job security, and rather more on mutual support. They employ significant numbers of specialist staff to advocate on their behalf and deliberately become involved in their political system. All this costs money, and the membership fee to ALPA-I is 1.95% of salary - yet they continue to deliver high overall membership levels. Ironically, it is at the most difficult moments, when the challenges are at their greatest, that some members choose to leave the family of pilot unions and stand alone. This is usually the time when we most need to stand together - both as individual pilots, and as pilot associations.
In order that we can persuade flight crew to join and remain members, and flight crew groups to join and remain within the family, we who spend the resources must do so wisely. We must also ensure we understand their concerns and explain our actions and successes on their behalf. We need to see the approaching 'train wreck' and work to avoid it, as well as deal efficiently with today's work.
At ECA, this is what we aim to do - give the maximum return for the resources we are afforded. Our mission is to "represent the collective interests and complement the work of (our) Member Associations at European level; providing leadership, guidance, advice and coordination." If we are successful, we should be able to demonstrate tangible gains for each professional European pilot in terms of their safety, job security, terms and conditions and social rights. In the end, they will judge.
