Where are the balloons and kites on this sales display?  

Think Teamsters or IAM if you want your money to go directly to the HQ, which has direct control over the expenditures of a multi-industry Local. OPEIU Aviation Locals, both in the US and Canada, are strictly aviation-oriented.

Teamsters and IAM are aviation locals as well!   Teamsters are experts in transportation, unlike OPEIU.  They know the Railway Labor Act better than OPEIU, you can bet your dues money on that!   They have a dedicated aviation division and dedicated aviation mechanics colliation.   OPEIU are skatterbrained colliations of, well, office people and podiatrists.   Your dues money goes to the International, who than feeds its NYC local 153, where it's big wigs reside.

• Local 102 covers training pilots at Ft Rucker (now Ft. Novosel)


• A government contract that does not follow the Railroad Labor Act.  Founder of the now defunct PHPA overlord council.  It went belly up after they were found to be skimming money from the locals to hold parties in NOLO.   Local has been struggling for most of its existance!

• Local 108 has multiple contracts, but they are all aviation.


• This local has become the dumping ground for aviators OPEIU organized and forgotten.   It's like a gymnasium in a sense; sign them up and forget they exist, as long as those monthly checks keep showing up.  Local 108 has a BOD who don't even know about the folks who feed their kitty.  And, if you end up under them, forget democracy, you are relegated to a "committee" status and not even mentioned in their by-laws or OLMS filings!

• Local 109 covers AMC Line Pilots only.


• Currently on their 4th (just signed) mediocre contract, and who attempted to organize and include several other class and craft groups in the past, until they were met with local resistance.  It's leader often writes missives dripping with contempt for the company and makes one feel embarrased to be a forced participant to it all.

Anyone considering organizing should understand the facts:

• OPEIU had the first helicopter pilot union in the US. Local 107 *
  


• Also the first helicopter pilot union to be voted out by its members!   (Decertified it the proper term).   Why??  Well, because they were OPEIU and pitiful!

• OPEIU had the first helicopter mechanic union in the US. Local 407 *
  


• Ditto!

• Under the Railway Labor Act, organizing aviation workers is a "wall-to-wall" effort. That means every pilot, nurse, mechanic, or any other worker designated by the Federal Government as an aviation worker is considered part of the "Craft or Class" regardless of work location or state. Airline pilots, mechanics, flight crew, etc, are much more centrally located than helicopter pilots or mechanics scattered across multiple bases, usually with only three or four people on shift at one time.


• And, as such, each class and craft ought to be their OWN local, but that's now how OPEIU think.  They put you into a local of folks far away and removed from your class and craft.  They do this because it helps OPEIU manage the discontent!