Dan Mosher:
Today, September 11th is a day that pilots always pause to remember the terrible events that took place 22 years ago. Among the casualties that day were eight of our fellow aviators whose aircraft were hijacked and used as weapons against defenseless civilians. We will never forget.
Mike Panebianco:
Today's SWAPA Number is 12. That's the number of BOD seats that are up for election next month, which include one for each domicile plus the vice president executive seat. Today's podcast will take a different tack from our normal format where our hosts will serve as guests in a roundtable discussion on the importance of SWAPA board representation changes we've enacted for this election cycle and how you can get involved and make a difference that impacts the lives of every pilot. On the Southwest Seniority List.
Dan Mosher:
I'm SWAPA Elections Committee Chair Dan Mosher.
Mike Panebianco:
And I'm SWAPA Communications Committee Chair Mike Panebianco. Dan, as we said, this is a little bit of a different episode where we are the round table, we are the guests and the host, so we're going to kick things back and forth. Let's start off, let's talk a little bit about your background. Tell the membership what you've done here at SWAPA and what you're currently doing. You introduced yourself as the elections committee chair and this is really about elections, so how did you get to the election seat? And we'll go from there.
Dan Mosher:
I started out in SWAPA about four and a half years ago as the Vice chair for the Orlando domicile, and unfortunately I only got to spend about four months in that role as I wasn't able to hold Captain in the Orlando base. So I upgraded to Houston and just shortly after that, after I'd upgraded, I was pulled in to do some contract admin work, mostly did some behind the scenes stuff, grievances, writing the contract admin tip of the week. Did that for about two years, then came to the communications committee and most of my time there has been spent working on the reporting point and helping everybody in the building to craft their comms, edit their comms, and put out those types of product.
I've been the elections chair for two years now and that's not a position that's normally busy until this time of year when we come upon the fall of general election, but this year we of course had the strike authorization vote, so that was a pretty involved process where we came up with a new way of casting your vote via text message, which we will talk about today. So definitely this time of year though, it's when elections chair gets busy for obvious reasons.
Mike Panebianco:
Yeah. It's a big time of year for our association.
Dan Mosher:
All right, so Mike, you've appeared as a host and guest to discuss a variety of topics over the years. What have you been working on lately?
Mike Panebianco:
Well, right now, it's a busy time in comm. Obviously we've got a lot, I don't know how many million words we put out a year, but it's a lot. And as you know, as one of the head editors on our staff and committee is constantly full throttle between the editorial side and the creative side. You see all the stuff that SWAPA puts out. What we're doing on the committee side is bringing on another full-time committee pilot to our team. The big thrust right now obviously, is elections and the contract. And those two things go hand in hand and really that's the 100% attention of comm right now is to make sure that we get this contract done. We support our strike committee, and the negotiating committee, and everything else that we do in this building and really just drive the best product out the door. And part of that is getting all your election stuff out to our membership and making sure that they have a venue to voice their positions and run their campaigns, which is a great cue for the very first question that I have for you, Dan, what this year has changed versus the voting processes we've had in the past?
Dan Mosher:
If you go back to last year's fall general election, we had about a 50% voter turnout, which in itself was a pretty low number and obviously, we'd like to see much better than that. It was however, about an 80% increase year over year, but when it came to hold the strike authorization vote this year, we realized that we couldn't afford to have such a low voter turnout. So working in conjunction with our vote vendor BallotPoint, they introduced text voting and we spent quite a bit of time prior to the strike authorization vote, just beta testing that and having several mock votes just to make sure that, that worked, that it was a user-friendly product and that it was something that we could then take forward after the success of the strike authorization vote and use again now for the fall general election.
Mike Panebianco:
Yeah, that was probably the easiest vote I've ever cast in my time at SWAPA.
Dan Mosher:
Yeah, exactly. And obviously, if a vote is easier to cast, it literally takes about 30 seconds, then you're going to have a higher participation rate. Of course, we're still going to have the usual methods of email and phone voting for this election, and we're definitely hoping to increase our voter turnout, certainly much higher than the 50% that we saw during last year's fall general election. For instance, for the SAV, we had a 98% turnout. Now of course, strike authorization vote and the fall general election are two completely different things. But we're really hoping that the ease of the vote, the simplicity of it, and the fact that this year for the first time, if you have not yet voted in the fall general election after the first 48 hours or so, you will get automated text messages asking you to cast your vote and giving you a link to the ballot. So it's going to be much easier this year.
Mike Panebianco:
I want to follow up with another question, Dan. A lot of our membership is new and may or may not have voted in a general election yet, and there are other things that come along with that. Tell me and tell the membership, what seats currently have dominations open? Who can vote? And who can run?
Dan Mosher:
As far as who can vote, it's active members in good standing, which is defined in the SWAPA constitution Article 3, Section 1A and who can run is specified also in the SWAPA constitution Article 4 officers Section 2 eligibility. So currently in this election cycle, Mike, we've got the executive position of vice president, which is up for election. That seat is being vacated by the current vice president Mike Santoro. His term limit is up. For the domiciles, every single domicile will have a position up for vote. Some of them are running for re-election, but many of them are going to be vacant because the reps are terming out. In addition, other items to be voted on will include the proposed 2024 budget, the 2024 profit sharing election, and any other items as directed by the SWAPA board of directors.
Mike Panebianco:
So Dan, you mentioned that phrase terming out, for a lot of our pilots that haven't been here for an election, haven't been here for very long or more than a couple years. What does terming out mean for them?
Dan Mosher:
So Mike, per the SWAPA constitution, a rep can run for a two-year term and they can do two consecutive two-year terms. So if the reps are at the end of their two consecutive two-year terms for a total of four years, then they are terming out and they have to vacate the seat.
Mike Panebianco:
So nominations have been open since Monday the 4th, and they close next Monday, the 18th at noon. Should we have more seats with nominations by this point?
Dan Mosher:
Yes, Mike, you're absolutely right. We should have more nominations at this point. In real time here, I can log on to the SWAPA website. I could go under the, your union tab, click down to elections and voting and I can see the candidates for the fall general election right now. So currently we have three candidates for vice president, one candidate in Baltimore, one in Denver, one in Houston, one in Las Vegas, one in Midway and one in Phoenix. You see that we've got those domiciles where we just have a single person running for the seat. And what we would really like to see in a healthy election cycle is to have at least two candidates running for every open position. Mike, what do you think about having multiple viewpoints running from candidates in the elections?
Mike Panebianco:
The importance of having multiple pilots running for each seat I think is that you get more than one blush. I mean, we're not all the same seniority, we're not all the same backgrounds, we're not all the same levels of concern over areas of the contract. This year is going to be huge on benefits and sick leave. It's going to be huge on where we end up in pay. It's going to be huge on scheduling, and some people play hard, some people don't. Those interests are all going to be in play with each nominee for election and they're going to have a vote. Now, they may be voting on the AIP to make it a TA and send it out to the membership. They also may be the ones who end up standing watch on the implementation schedule and eight of them will not be the ones who brought the deal to the table. If that deal comes in '23, 8, members of the board are going to be responsible for the implementation of that contract that they weren't a part of producing. So that is a big deal. I think multiple viewpoints on a candidate for every election are excellent. I think it's good for the membership. It allows the membership to look at their domicile reps, and it's not just the contract, it's who's going to represent me if I end up in a meeting with the chief pilot's office?
Dan Mosher:
And I'll add to that too as well, Mike, that if there is no debate between multiple candidates, then it is kind of difficult to flush out a candidate's position.
Mike Panebianco:
What do you think, Dan, of just having a well-crafted platform in two emails, does that tell us everything we need to know about a candidate?
Dan Mosher:
I mean, if they have a well-crafted platform and then the two follow-up emails are well-written, it can mask the candidate's weaknesses when it comes to grasping all that it's going to take to be an effective rep.
Mike Panebianco:
What do you mean by weaknesses? What does that look like?
Dan Mosher:
Well, you don't have to have experience when you come into the position, but you do have to have a knowledge of, for instance, contract issues. You have to be somebody who can be an effective rep in the chief pilot's office. You don't have to have a perfect rapport with them, but you have to be somebody who's a pilot advocate. And especially nowadays with ChatGPT, anybody can put a few subjects into a computer and they can get something spit out that looks really nice, and polished, and shiny. But it's a lot harder to appear to be coherent and effective if you actually have to debate somebody on the issues.
Mike Panebianco:
It's really important for the members to know who they're electing. And when you say weaknesses, I think it's more knowing the nuances of how that person communicates, handles conflict, and engages because it's not just the boardroom, it's the chief pilot's office, it's in the lounge, and in the jet way. It's a big thing to cast your vote and knowing who you're voting for is a big deal.
Dan Mosher:
Mike, both of us have been reps before. So tell me a little bit about what is the job of a rep like?
Mike Panebianco:
So I always talk about this as a two hat job and I heard that when I first showed up. They're like, "You wear two hats as a SWAPA rep. One, you're a board member where you're doing governance type work, you're a fiduciary of the organization, you are voting on the budget, you're directing the execs on what you want to see SWAPA doing going forward. They talk about the strategic direction of our organization. And then the second hat is the rep hat where you're in the domicile, you're working with the chief pilots, getting people paid correctly, taking care of discipline issues." And that can be a career. That can mean the difference between someone keeping their job and losing their job or facing severe discipline and not facing severe discipline. Our reps, especially some of the ones that are turning out have done some amazing work.
Dan Mosher:
So that sounds like some incredibly important stuff Mike, from the outside looking in, thinking of maybe a candidate who hasn't put their name in for nomination yet, it looks like a bit of a daunting position to fill, especially with some of those board members who have done some really amazing work that are terming out here. Does a candidate have to have any SWAPA experience before being nominated for a board position?
Mike Panebianco:
I don't think so. And I alluded to this earlier, but we did over the last few years. We built a pretty robust training program for people when they come in, if they have no experience, we need your first day on the job, you need to be effective. And I know when I got elected in late 2014 for the 2015 board, we walked in and we had a PowerPoint and some audio, but it was really bare minimum training on what our jobs were supposed to be. We didn't get much. It was more like learn with your forehead and hope not to make big mistakes and that is unacceptable. One of the mantras of our training program now is, "Their worst day can't be your first day." And so we run scenario-based training with our reps. We walk them through an entire discipline case from origin to resolution.
We talk to them about parliamentary rules for the board when you're in the boardroom and discussion comes out, I mean is a whole room full of type A's that are deciding the best way to move this organization. There's a lot that goes on in there, a lot of debate. There's rules for that. There's policy manual, there's a constitution. There are all sorts of things that have to be taught, have to be learned, and you have to be proficient. Just like we don't send a new First Officer out without a Captain, we're not going to send a rep out without training. You have to care. You have to care about more than yourself. You have to care about your pilots and you have to care about the future of our profession. And if you can do that, you have the ability. You just have to have the ability to work with other people because it's not all about you. That's the first thing you learn as a new board member. You'll have a hot button item and you'll realize very quickly that there are also 25 other hot button items around the room. And you have to learn to play what I call board ball. You have to be a part of a team. You don't always get what you want and the membership isn't always going to agree with you.
Dan Mosher:
I think that's important to realize, Mike, that just getting back to the thought of maybe somebody running on a single issue, you might have that one single issue that you're really passionate about, but it literally is going to be one of 25, if not more issues that people really want to work on. And I think it's also important to point out for those who might be thinking of throwing their name in for a nomination, is that you're going to have somebody who's already been in the seat for at least a year in your domicile, and that's going to be the domicile chair. You're also going to have every single member of staff in the SWAPA building that is committed to helping you and helping the pilots. So while you may think that you don't have much experience, you have so much that is at your disposal and you'll be trained on how to effectively use all that and help pilots that are in need.
Mike Panebianco:
I would say that's the biggest thing. You have to have the passion to help other people. Number one, you have to care about other people sometimes more than yourself because you'll find that our pilots go through some pretty amazing things. And I'll tell you that a couple of the reps that are terming out, sat watch on pilots who passed away, their family members who passed away, we have had terminations that have been hard fought to recover jobs for our pilots, discipline that we have hard fought to make sure was fair and got the right day in court. Those reps gave, and you can do it too. We will help you. This building is full of resources. We have three attorneys, we have three experienced executives or two experienced executives and an executive elect. You have half the board that has been here and they've been through all these things.
You have Dan, you, me, contract admin, staff contract admin, everybody in this building between Brent and Tony up in benefits hims, the professional standards people, safety. You have resources here. You can do this job. And I hope that if you have the thought in your mind and a little bit of an inkling in your heart that you will do this, because in 2014, I was sitting on a tractor and I got a phone call from a guy who said, "Hey, Baltimore needs a rep, why don't you do it?" And I said to myself, "I have zero experience in union. I'm not a guy who does more than opine a little bit online about some union based stuff. And I'm not a big fan." I wasn't a big fan of SWAPA and stepping into that changed my life. My kids, you can say you have kids, you have too much going on. I had kids. I raised my kids through middle school and high school working here at SWAPA. They survived. They learned a lot too. They learned a lot about working with other people, frustration, upset, things not going your way.
It is a big experience and I don't know any of these reps that are terming out. I don't know any reps that sat for any length of time that we're not changed by doing this job and changed for the better. You get to do some pretty amazing things. You help people in ways that you can't put a value on that. So I hope that if somebody's thinking about it, if it's in the back of your mind, I hope you think about running, step up and jump in the fight. It is worth it.
Dan, I'm going to ask you now that we've gotten everybody thinking about this and hopefully some of our pilots have taken the step forward, how does a pilot get nominated? What do they need to do to get nominated? To send it in, when do they have to have it in by? Let's make sure we give them a clear call to action here at the end of this podcast.
Dan Mosher:
So Mike, a paper form has been sent to everybody's address on file. And if you didn't receive that in the US mail, then you can go on the SWAPA website, go under your union, select elections and voting, and right there on the top 2023 fall general elections, you can select the packet and on that has a nomination form. And so get a pilot to fill out the part of the form that nominates you, and then you accept the nomination with your signature, and printing your name and employee number. And then you send that in to elections at swapa.org.
Mike Panebianco:
When does that have to be in, again?
Dan Mosher:
So that has to be in one week from today, the 18th of September at noon central time.
Mike Panebianco:
And when someone sends in their nomination, how long does it take for that to appear on the website in the elections tab?
Dan Mosher:
We generally try to get it up on the website right away. If it's after hours, then we'll get it up the next morning. You can go on the website and you can see everybody who's currently been nominated.
Mike Panebianco:
After the nominations period closes. What happens next? What can they expect after that?
Dan Mosher:
Once nominations close, Mike, the candidates will have an online or phone meeting with myself where I'll just go over the election rules and then they will have one week to submit their platform, a written platform, which will be put into a candidate's forum booklet, which will be digitally created and available on the SWAPA website for everybody to take a look at who's running, their positions, and after that, we will have balloting open on October 5th and close on October 19th.
Mike Panebianco:
So Dan, if I have questions on that call, you're going to tell me how long can my platform letter be? When the deadlines are? All the information's going to be on that call if I'm a candidate?
Dan Mosher:
That's correct.
Mike Panebianco:
And if I'm not able to make that call, will you call me and give me the information that I missed?
Dan Mosher:
Yeah. Every candidate, whether they're able to make the call or not, we're going to make sure that they're fully briefed on the rules of the election and make sure that all their questions are answered before the voting begins.
Mike Panebianco:
Dan, do you have any final thoughts or words of wisdom?
Dan Mosher:
Yeah, Mike, I just want to reiterate just the absolute importance of having people who are not nominated at this point to really seriously consider it. Just going off of my own personal experience, I was very hesitant to run for Orlando Domicile Rep years ago. I was in the position that I think a lot of our pilots are right now, somebody who've reached out to me and asked me about what the job entails. I will tell you that while you might be hesitant, you will find all the resources that you need. We will help you in any way that we can, and you absolutely will not regret the decision once you have been nominated and you put your name in as a pilot advocate for your base and for the membership as a whole.
Mike, I just want to thank you for your insights and discussion about the fall general election. It's fundamental to the success of SWAPA and the future. And our hope is that any pilot advocate who is on the fence about running, takes a bit of inspiration from us and decides to add their name to the list of nominees.
Mike Panebianco:
That'll bring a close to our special edition of the SWAPA number, Elections Edition. Thanks to Captain, Dan Mosher, our Elections Chair for joining us. And thank you for considering running for your fellow pilots this fall in the election.
Dan Mosher:
As always, we want to hear from you. If you have any comments about today's podcast or have a topic that you'd like to hear featured on a future episode, drop us a line at [email protected].
Mike Panebianco:
Today's SWAPA bonus number is 8. That's how many board members will be term limited and leaving the board this year. Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orlando, Chicago, and Oakland are all vacant seats for this election. And again, we want to encourage our best and brightest pilots to step up and run because whether you're voting on the next contract or standing watch on the implementation of that contract, your fellow pilots are counting on you.