I’m sure the waters down there are pretty muddy when it comes to figuring out the legalities of striking. The point is that the group of pilots at Avianca found themselves underpaid in comparison to their counterparts in nearby South American countries. They tried to rectify that by collective bargaining which eventually led to a strike. Now Avianca is firing the main pilots who were involved in this collective bargaining thereby intimidating any other Avianca pilot from ever engaging in this type of behavior and effectively keeping their wages and benefits down by intimidation.

I don’t think that’s okay and we should stand with the pilots of Colombia and likewise the pilots of the world who are for better wages and compensation since what happens in one side of the world eventually does translate over. Well paid pilots all over the world means well paid or even better paid pilots in the US. The opposite also may hold true. If eventually every pilot in the world is paid peanuts, we may fall down that slippery slope.