Originally Posted by
mpet
You're implying that pilot contracts are 'good' because they were negotiated under the RLA ahahahahahaha. Oh brother.
No, I'm implying that the RLA isn't an impediment to good contracts.
Answer me this: How many customers does mainline have? How many customers does your regional have? How do you think that influences regional airline contracts?
Originally Posted by
FirstClass
Why is everyone so concerned with RLA? Don't involve your union and just ignore it. Do what you want. Write up the airplanes in the outstation. No over time. Trade down to minimum hours.
I mean you have all the tools you could ever need. Tell your company to find their nearest ointment and apply it generously.
Fair points, but you'd really need organization and union pressure to get a significant portion of guys at a given airline to do this, whether from their ignorance, apathy, or lone-wolf mentality.
Except that courts have held that any change from status quo qualifies as an illegal job action.
Originally Posted by
deltajuliet
Regionals are where we need to get rid of the RLA most, but since you bring up historical contracts, before 9/11 senior United guys could make nearly half a million, adjusted for inflation. Today, even after their shiny new Extension, they still lag nearly $200,000 behind that. Maybe with threat of a strike those pilots could've retained their pensions and gotten the Holy Grail of Restoration years ago.
What you've laid out is the result of airline bankruptcies, not the RLA. Companies are still subject to market forces, and in the post 9/11 environment an over supply of pilots and treacherous business environment (how many airlines closed down or have disappeared since then?) doesn't do much to prop up pilot salaries.
So yeah, you want to propose an airline strike in an environment where a lot of guys are already on the street? Pretty sure management will take that deal all day long and twice on Sundays.
Honestly, what realistic outcome of updated RLA legislation could be worse than what we have? Non-rhetorical question.
Here's one for you: under the RLA the NMB has held that representation must be system-wide for each craft or category of employee. What if management got rid of that little tidbit. How would you like separate contracts and seniority list for each base or type within a single carrier? If you think there's a whipsaw now......
I get that most of you stopped learning about the RLA the moment someone told you that you can't strike without a release from the NMB, and while that is an impediment to self help you've got to put that in context of the entire deal. For example while we can strike without release, the company can't arbitrarily change working conditions nor lock us out and hire replacements. I will grant you that in the current pilot shortage environment the latter is unlikely, but have we always been in a shortage? Will we always have a shortage?
There is much to be said for the devil we know, vs the devil we don't, the latter being influenced by the lobbying arm of F&H.