Originally Posted by
Denny Crane
Don't get me wrong, I would love it and I think the company could afford it now but they will refuse, we will become deadlocked and the NMB will park us a la AA.
How do we get around this dilemma? That is the question for anyone out in APC land. I'm all for huge raises but how do we get past the NMB?
Denny
One way would be for our national union to use its alleged national political acumen to ensure airline labor is 100% part of the Railway Labor Act, instead of our partial involvement today.
In case you're wondering what part of the RLA coverage I wish we had, it's the part that prevents labor contracts from being unilaterally gutted in a bankruptcy. While dealing with the NMB process of not allowing a strike right away is definitely a problem, it's at least a benefit knowing your contract can't be gutted in a bankruptcy. The problem for us is that this bankruptcy protection is only for the railroads. Airlines are carved out of that protection for labor.
Thus we have the worst of all worlds. Near prevention from striking, but our contracts immediately killable in bankruptcy. You would think that would be number one on ALPA's most wanted list. Instead, ALPA is silent on it.
Carl