Originally Posted by JobHopper

OK, I will.

Yes, the B scale went away and we did get a pay raise. Everyone remembers that. What nobody seems to remember is that those were part of the Pre-Strike contract.

The big sticking point in that 1998 contract was NEWCO. The company wanted to "be able to create" a subsidiary to outsource flying (sound familiar?) and we didn't want to let them. The strike ultimately ended after a few weeks on a Wednesday with the NEWCO provision approved. The following Monday morning NWA announced the creation of Compass.

As a B-scale, still-on-probation DC-9 FO, I followed all of this with great interest. I technically wasn't even guaranteed a job after it was over, though the union did promise to bring everyone back. The only material difference between the pre- and post-strike contracts was a small pay raise above the pre-strike figure. I don't remember the exact number for me (it was around $1), but I do remember calculating it would take 3 years for that raise to recoup the salary I lost during the strike.

There is a lot of ego and testosterone tied to that strike even today. "We showed them who was boss!" Unfortunately, I have to disagree. All of the material gains in that contract were there pre-strike. And there were quite a few of those; the Negotiating Committee did a far better job than we recently saw here.

The strike made sense to me going into it; it left me scratching my head after it was over. We got a 3-years-to-recovery pay raise and the company got outsourcing when all was said and done. The strike itself accomplished very little, in my humble opinion.