Originally Posted by
Southerner
The only thing that I disagree with there is the concept that by organizing you get market rate. Unions (by definition) create a false marketplace. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, because our rates would be far less if it weren't for unions creating the false marketplace. In this case you aren't getting "market rate." You're demanding a rate above market, and denying the company the ability to go to the wider market to shop around.
The RLA does provide us some protections too. If we weren't covered under it, we wouldn't be able to organize in "right to work" states, and also agency shop would be illegal in many states. Guaranteed, it would be more difficult to organize, and the company could bust a union more easily. That being said, there's room for improvement in the RLA.
Before you guys flame me, this is purely an academic discussion about what he says about market rate, and in no way is it a commentary on our current situation at this company.
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I appreciate the academic discussion!
I'm not actually pro-union except in the case of ALPA. This is because government intervention has given us no other logical choice. Like I said in my original post, without the RLA, we could truly exercise our individual ability to be a market force of our own (like all other professionals). Unfortunately the RLA says that we HAVE to be unionized in order to have an influence. Like most other government regulations, many are put in place to give power to corporations or to create a barrier to entry for competitors. In our case, the RLA gives inordinate amounts of power to airlines. Consider this.. in NJ you can't refuel your own car because of (unnecessary) government regulation.
Since we are stuck with the RLA, I do agree, and believe that we must redo the RLA to give us more say-so at the table. The current system only benefits the employer from a strategic standpoint. We only get limited tactical control. Airline contracts are not complex and they are well known quantities. The airline could settle this literally overnight and saying anything otherwise is simply a false choice. Countries and governments are set up in 1/1000th the time span of the average airline contract. The management elites give us all these false arguments such as "it's our first contact". Consider this too.... going to the moon is exponentially more complex with infinitely more unknowns, than an airline contract. JB *could* just 100% carbon copy Delta's or even United's contract and execute it overnight. They *choose* not to. It's not complex. Going to the moon is complex and requires study, nothing about airline contracts is complex or unknown. The only reason that JB drags this on is because we have not made it prohibitively expensive for them not to. It's OUR fault that we don't see ourselves as professionals enough. It's our fault that we let JB drag this on for years. How many attempts did it take to get ALPA? How many people believed in naive and uninformed viewpoints until 3A? Personally, I think we need to focus on being treated like professionals far above and beyond a simple contract with BlueJet.