A pilot may only see four or five contracts during their entire career. This reality puts an additional emphasis on every round of negotiations—and a premium on the amount of preparation, expertise, and coordination behind each one. The work that goes into securing a strong collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in the United States, or a collective agreement (CA) in Canada, goes far deeper than most ALPA members ever see.
As the director of the union’s Representation Department, I oversee the professional negotiators and benefits experts who work alongside pilot volunteers to help each group achieve its goals at the table. One of the eight key areas of ALPA’s strategic plan is pilot representation, and our mission—to advance, enhance, and protect ALPA members’ professional careers and benefits—shapes everything we do.
While pay rates and accompanying provisions are often the first thing pilots look at in their CBA/CA, the agreement covers so much more. And each pilot group’s contract priorities may be different. When retirement and insurance are a priority for a group, the pilots receive significant assistance from ALPA experts in that area. If scheduling is a central objective for another group, we focus our diverse scheduling expertise there.
Because of ALPA’s size and scope, the Association is able to employ specialized experts in many areas who individual master executive councils (MECs) may only need periodically. By sharing these resources across pilot groups, ALPA ensures that each MEC has access to top-level expertise when needed.
Our bargaining successes don’t happen in isolation. Being the world’s largest pilot union gives us the ability to share techniques, information, and experience across pilot groups, coordinate our efforts, and build on each other’s progress. This allows us to pattern bargain effectively, using gains achieved for one group to help establish the standard for the next so that each success strengthens the position of pilots across the Association.
This practice is emphasized repeatedly outside of negotiations as well. In concert with national committees such as the Collective Bargaining Committee, the Retirement and Insurance Committee, and the President’s Grievance Committee, the Representation Department hosts annual seminars (like the recent Grievance Training), conferences, and industry bargaining roundtables. These gatherings allow pilot volunteers to discuss issues they’re facing and receive input from other pilot groups that have successfully dealt with the same concern. It also gives each group the opportunity to share positive outcomes and highlight how others can advance their own objectives.
The job isn’t done once your group has reached an agreement. Implementing a contract can be just as important as negotiating and ratifying one. In 2024, Capt. Jason Ambrosi, ALPA president, established the President’s Grievance Committee to provide an Association-level platform to coordinate the institutional knowledge, experience, and best practices related to dispute resolution. So, in addition to our pilot groups sharing knowledge about negotiating contracts, they’re also exchanging information about protecting and enforcing an agreement.
ALPA also established a contract implementation grant to assist with this process, providing Association funds to each MEC upon ratification of a CBA/CA or a significant agreement. This allows pilot groups that may have depleted their budgets during negotiations and ratification to provide the necessary support to ensure their contract is implemented as intended.
The Representation Department doesn’t work alone. In addition to the professional negotiating and benefits staff, every pilot group receives support from staff experts in multiple areas (such as economic and financial analysis, communications, strategic member development and resources, engineering and air safety, legal, and others) to ensure your Negotiating Committee, pilot leaders, and group as a whole are well prepared during contract discussions to achieve the best possible result available.
Part 3 of the “ALPA Wins” series explores some of the many ways ALPA pilot groups have added value—in addition to securing pay rate increases—to their agreements over the years. Coming together as one ALPA, each pilot group can achieve so much more than if they work individually. We are, indeed, stronger together.
