Originally Posted by
iadfo
Actually its not a fantasy world, this has happened in the real world in the past. I had an opportunity to witness it. You see, being an LCA is something you volunteer to do. Each individual who is an LCA is one because they want to, and not because they have to. If that individual decides they don't want to be an LCA, they still get to come to work and be an airline pilot. During the summer of 2000 a large number of LCA's at UA made an individual personal decision that they no longer wanted to be LCA's. And someone was not right behind them to fill their shoes, because nobody really wanted to do anything special for the company, since the company didnt want to do anything for us. Nothing illegal about changing your mind. Only organized job actions are illegal. But you are right, in this case someone else will just step up and do it. CAL pilots don't have the same culture when it comes to not helping the company out. Someone is always willing to help here. It aint wrong, just different.
Sure, perhaps if each individual pilot decided on their own as a LCA they no longer wanted the job, they could quit their LCA duties, but the union organizing such a thing would be illegal. I think you agree here.
If what you say happened back in 2000 is true, that's news to me. However since then, your union has received an injunction which has in essence cut themselves off at the knees. We're playing the game with both hands tied behind our backs.
Has UAL guys stopped picking up open time? No.
I know for sure that hasn't happened at CAL (It's considered a "right" here at CAL) and will never happen here without a huge change in culture. We basically need a clause in our contract like UPS that allows a union to ban open time during a furlough. We don't have that now. Have you talked to your reps to make sure that's in the new contract?