Your dues. Your voice. What changes first. Members First 2750 | Scripted audio briefing Created by John Corcoran and Mark as a scripted conversation using AI-generated voices. This is not a recording of a live interview. Audio-derived transcript. Punctuation and obvious transcription errors have been corrected; the source audio remains available for comparison. Financial figures and interpretations below are statements in the script, not independently verified findings. 0:00 — Why the Local matters MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Most of us learn this job in a cockpit, not a union hall. Why should anybody care how the Local is set up? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Because you're already paying for it. Dues come out either way. If the membership never really gets a say in what we go after, we're just customers. That's not a union. 0:17 — What member-led means MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Everybody running says they’re member-led. What do you actually mean? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Three different jobs and they get mixed up. Members decide the direction. Officers do the work of the office. And the membership has to stay organized enough to hold it together. Mix those up and you either get a rubber stamp or an office that can't move. Keep them separate and we can actually fight. 0:38 — The board’s job MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION What’s the executive board supposed to do? One sentence. JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Make sure the place works. Staff the departments, keep the books straight, put the money on representation. Getting elected is not a reason to get off the airplane. 0:52 — Office and line flying MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Say more about that—getting off the airplane. JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER We were hired to fly. The pay comes from time away from home. Too many people have treated a board seat like permission to stop doing that and still get paid like they are. The office is a trust. It's not a way off the line. 1:08 — Experience, not allegiance MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION People are going to say you’re going after anyone who served. JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER I'm not. I'm talking about how the office got used. The bylaws give the board real work. They don't give anybody a paid exit from the job the rest of us still have. We'll keep the people who know what they're doing whether they were with us or not. The test is the duty. It's not a grudge. 1:27 — The officer-pay figure MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION You said you’d put the 2025 LM-2 in front of people. What number? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER One. Officers were paid about $1.8 million out of dues. That's the number I want pilots to see. 1:39 — The staffing proposal MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION And what would you do with it? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Bring officer pay down by $1.2 million and cut flight pay loss and union business pay to pilots by hiring salaried people for the jobs that don't need a pilot. Same dues dollar, more actual work. You also get a staff that's still there after the next election instead of rebuilding the office every three years. 1:58 — What representation needs MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION So you’re saying representation costs too much? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER No. That's what the dues are for. The problem is what we pay for an hour. Pull a pilot off the line and you're paying airline wages. That's the most expensive hour this local can buy. Some of those hours should stay. Bargaining. A grievance that needs a pilot's eye. A safety problem only a line pilot is going to catch. We'll still use crew members for that. The rest of it records the phones the books the day to day that can be done by people we hired to do that job. We should stop buying office work at a captain's pay. 2:32 — What changes first MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION If you win, what actually changes first? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Officer pay comes down by that $1.2 million. On the record, the way the bylaws already say to set it. Flight pay loss and union business come down as hired staff take the work that doesn't need a pilot. Pilot judgment stays where it belongs. The board's job is to build that staff and leave it standing after the next election. Not to empty the line so we can sit in the office. 2:55 — How dues are assessed MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Dues. What are we paying on right now? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Everything. Profit sharing. Vacation payouts. Pay above guarantee. All of it. So two guys in the same seat can pay very different dues depending on how much extra they flew. 3:09 — A vote on the dues basis MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Can you stop that? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER You can. Limit the dues to the minimum guarantee. The Constitution already treats that as the floor for airline pilots. 1.56% of monthly guarantee. Article 10. Our bylaws went past that. Section 18 puts 1.56% on all earned income. Changing it takes a secret ballot mail vote to the membership. The board doesn't get to just pick a new number. 3:33 — The order of changes MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Is that the first thing you do? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER No. Not until we've shown we can spend the dues better. Officer pay down by 1.2 million. Flight pay loss and union business cut because hired staff are doing work pilots are getting paid to do now. People should see that before we ask them to shrink what the dues sit on. Then we put the question to them. Keep dues on all earnings or limit it to the guarantee. If they vote for the limit we do it. If they don't it stays the way it is. 4:01 — Before the contract vote MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION On bargaining, we already vote the contract. Why isn’t that enough? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER That's a vote on the last page. It's not a vote on what we sent the negotiators to get. The bylaws already say the president has to ask for written bargaining demands when we open a contract. That should turn into a real list. What we want, what's first and a record of how we decided. Then the negotiators negotiate. They don't need a ballot on every sentence. They do need to be able to tell you what they were sent for. 4:30 — When bargaining goals change MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION What if that has to change in the middle of talks? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Then say so and get it authorized. Don't quietly swap in a different set of goals. A survey can help collect what people want. A survey is not the mandate. Some things stay quiet. Tactics, fallbacks, legal advice. It's confidential is not a reason to keep members out of deciding where we're going. 4:52 — A usable grievance system MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION A pilot thinks the company broke the contract. What should happen? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER He shouldn't need to know somebody to find the door. Somebody takes the call. The file has a name on it. You get a straight answer on whether it has merit. And if the handling itself is the problem, there's a way to say so. Staff can run that every day. A crew member steps in when the case needs a pilot. We'll push the good cases hard. I'm not going to promise every complaint gets filed or every case goes to arbitration or that we win them all. Nobody can promise that. I can promise you can find the system. 5:23 — The limits on decisions MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Can the membership just decide whatever it wants? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER No. The Constitution, the bylaws, the contract, and the law all draw lines. Officers and the board have work that's actually assigned to them. Where the membership does have the say, a real decision is not a suggestion. Me disagreeing with it is not a veto. 5:40 — Representation for everyone MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION What if somebody who didn’t vote for you brings something you don’t like? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Same door. If they did it right and it's inside what the membership can decide, we carry it out. Even if I would have written it differently. If the process only works for our friends, then we were never serious about it. 5:55 — Readiness for office MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION They’re going to call you amateurs. You haven’t been sitting on those committees. JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Yeah, I expect that. Flying this operation isn't amateur work. Reading your own bylaws isn't either. Neither is asking that written demands turn into a real list or building a grievance system a line pilot can actually use. Being new doesn't qualify you. Being ready to change how members and officers deal with each other does. 6:17 — What members can do MARK — SCRIPTED QUESTION Last thing. What do you want a pilot to do after they hear this? JOHN — SCRIPTED ANSWER Don't just vote. Read what we've written. Look at the LM-2. Stack it up against what you've actually seen since this local was chartered. If it holds up, talk about it. At your base, on your fleet, with the guy who hasn't had time to care how this place is set up until it started costing him money. The bylaws already say what this local is supposed to be. We're running to make it work that way.