Fall 2008 Elections

In the past, the membership has paid little or no attention to the NWA ALPA elections. One day the elections are here. Most pilots don't know anything about the candidates. Most pilots don't vote. Before you know it, we have new leaders. Then most of us complain about our leaders actions. We have to do better. For this pilot group to recover from our terrible situation, we must have the best leaders this pilot group has to offer.  These elections are your chance to make a difference.  The difference starts now.

This next election cycle will be different. Starting now, ALPAWatch is beginning the process of helping this pilot group to recruit and elect the best people possible for all the positions open this Fall. To help facilitate this task, ALPAWatch is working on these 3 items.

We put together a chart that will show all the positions open this Fall, all the dates for nominations and elections, the requirements for applying for a position, term lengths, some idea of the level of effort each position requires, etc. When you see the deadline dates, you will see why we need to get started now. Look for that information to be published here as soon as we get it all put together.

 
For the first time, every NWA pilot will have enough advanced warning about the elections and plenty of opportunity to get into the race. This is important because some of you are going to have to find it in yourself to run/volunteer for those positions.

 
The positions that are coming open range from the MEC, to LEC Reps to Committee Chairman and other positions. Some of these positions are very time consuming and other require a surprisingly small commitments of time.

 
Those of you that simply cannot accept one of these positions need to help find pilots that will accept one of these positions. Each of you knows a great number of pilots here at NWA. Each of you know several pilots that have the skills, experience, education, dedication, integrity, sense of fairness and equity that is needed to not only fill these positions but be the strong leaders this pilot group deserves and demands. If you cannot do it, you will have to recruit others to do so. It is critical to our future success that people with these qualities be elected and appointed in the Fall Elections.

But how can the voting Membership know if a candidate has the Qualities of leadership that this pilot group deserves and needs? How do we know what they will do once elected?

You can never know for certain how someone will act once elected. That said, candidates do have strong opinions and positions on many topics. Those opinions and positions can be a good indicator of the decisions they will make if they are elected to a leadership position. In the past, it was up to the candidates to provide the membership with such information.  What has been lacking in past NWA ALPA elections is an independent organization that will ask the candidates questions about their opinions and positions. One of the reasons ALPAWatch was created was to perform this function. To get more information about the candidates than what they have traditionally volunteered themselves, the candidates in this election can expect to be offered the chance to answer a number of general and specific questions relevant to the critical issues of our day.
The questions, and each candidate’s responses, will be published on the ALPAWatch web site. Voters can use this information to help them cast a more informative vote. We are developing that list of questions now. Your input in this process is welcome. The more input we get from the membership, the better these questions will be. Email us the questions you would like to ask the candidates.  The best questions will form the questionnaire.

Let us be very clear about something.  ALPAWatch is not here to pick candidates, even if it could. It is here to help the membership elect strong leaders that will do the best job possible representing the interests of all NWA Pilots in a fair and equitable manner, and do so with dedication, honesty and integrity.

There is a lot to do. We can always use some help (see below). If you would like to help, let us know via email. alpawatch@comcast.com.

Original Post (3/26/07)

This is a Hot Topic because the Flight Attendants could settle on a contract at any time. If that occurs, any opportunity this issue might provide the pilot group to improve the Flight Attendant's contract, and thus our own, will be lost.

On March 21st an Across the Table was released. The topic was the "Me-Too Clause" and what that means to the pilots with respect to the Flight Attendant's negotiations. On the face of it, this seems like it could be a tremendous opportunity for the pilot group. Since that Across the Table is seriously lacking is details, ALPAWatch is seeking additional information on this subject before it takes further action. More...