An Interesting Week. . . Blogging for transparency and transformation

It started off with a Forum post where the Strategic Planning Committee Chair suggesting that open discussion of topics may be too expensive (I assume he is talking about those line pilots are not able to have with their union now, such as building Strategic Planning ideas). He also thought that I should be more transparent. Huh? He suggests a line pilot should exercise transparency as a response to a pilot asking for union transparency?? This conversation and a private email from another MEC Administrative Officer (denouncing my ideas as too expensive and unwise) were very revealing. Our union’s decisions are supposed to be made by the MEC (our elected LEC’s when meeting together constitute the MEC). They directly represent Line Pilots. In actuality, the Master Chairman and his Administration exert more union control than they are designed to have. Since when does a Committee Chair decide whether new communication technology should be used, or is too expensive? Neither the Master Chairman nor his officers or committee chairs have any vote on the MEC. Their role is to follow the directives of the MEC whom we elect and whose job it is to set policy.

I have been emailing most of the ideas you have been reading to my LEC. I traveled to the MEC offices on Friday to meet with the ATL Council 44 Chairman who expressed wanted to have a further exploration of our emails. We had a good discussion of many low cost technological improvements available for our communications. We also discussed my contention that the MEC should be more transparent and more collaborative with pilot members. I realize he acts in concert with the rest of the MEC. Transparency, collaboration and up-to-date communication tools would have to be called for by a majority of the MEC if they were to be implemented. Clearly political pressure from Line Pilots would be helpful to move in this direction.

In a time of crisis (i.e. bankruptcy and hostile takeovers) a strong leader may be best or even essential. In less critical times it is important for our union to be lead the way we are chartered to be administered; by an MEC acting on the input of the line pilot. In my opinion the MEC needs line pilot support to make this happen. In addition the extremely low participation rate of the line pilots can be attributable to mistrust that developes when a union is not straight with the membership. Many of our pilots have disconnected from our union processes. We may never have a robust volunteer force, but we can open the MEC up to more scrutiny, greater line pilot participation and new technology tools that can smoothly facilitate involving more pilot volunteers in union business.

I just started writing a blog (called “Transform ALPA”) as a way of collecting my thoughts and ideas about ALPA. I wish more pilots would do the same and move some of the discussion of how to improve our union off the Forum. If this were to occur, some of the best thoughts would be linked to the Forum and other discussion boards. Those ideas would get more attention and support. Blogging can be a way of improving ALPA.

Here are links to my two blogs, here and here. I would really appreciate your input on them, either by email or as a comment on the blog. Which do you like better (they have the same material)? I also hope you will consider starting your own blog of thoughts and ideas on how to improve and transform our union. This effort is not about me. I hope it takes off and I can sit back and just be a small part of an effort for improvement. Lots of dialogue and effort to involve others in the discussion can be really helpful.