Originally Posted by Lewbronski

Also, to add to my above post, here's an important legal opinion to read: Presidential Authority to Extend Deadline for Submission of an Emergency Board Report Under the Railway Labor Act.

Back in the early 90's, the first President Bush wanted to know if he could extend or create a second Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) in a labor dispute that was under way. So he asked ok be of his deputy attorney generals to give him a legal interpretation on the issue.

The bottom line: the President CANNOT unilaterally extend a PEB or create a second PEB. Note that there is a specific subsection of the RLA (9A) that does allow the above for commuter railroads only. It doesn't apply to airline or other railroad disputes.

This is important because I have heard time and again here at SWA that leveraging the RLA is pointless because the President will "just shut us down," and remove our ability to strike. I have personally heard this claim from SWAPA reps and an exec. It's another point of critical ignorance and/or purposeful misinformation that has caused our pilot group to not exploit the most powerful leverage available to us.

The above myth likely arose from the 1997 American Airlines pilot strike when President Clinton established a PEB a few minutes into thrir strike. Pilots and management ended up settling their dispute approximately a month into their PEB, so they never went back on strike.

To be clear, the President can only delay a strike via a PEB by sixty days. That is all he or she gets. Had the American pilots not settled their dispute by the end of the PEB, Clinton couldn't have stopped them from going back on strike.

In my opinion, that sixty days of additional delay created by a PEB can work in our favor because it gives the book-away phenomena that much more time to apply pressure on management.