The point in citing the rail workers situation is primarily to demonstrate:

1. That the NMB was willing to release from mediation a block of workers 35 times larger and far more consequential to the flow of interstate commerce than the Alaska pilot group in an election year.
2. That the NMB was willing to release the rail workers from mediation in less than six months. For perspective, 2010's Dunlop II Report to the NMB stated that the average mediation case between fiscal years 2004 and 2008 had been in mediation for 758 calendar days.
3. That the change in political composition of the NMB late last year was likely the driving force behind the quick release of the rail workers from mediation.
4. That, following their release from mediation, and especially in the last week of the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), pressure on rail company executives increased dramatically, resulting in the rail unions achieving a significantly better contract than what rail company management had been offering during mediation. As former NMB chairman Joshua Javits stated, "the employment of self-help—or its credible threat—is the most direct way to achieve a CBA." This is exactly what the rail unions proved once again.

The current composition of the NMB is unlikely to persist for long after January 2025 if a GOP candidate wins the presidency because, as the NMB 2021 Performance and Accountability Report explains, "Although appointed for three-year terms, members [of the NMB] may serve until replaced." Therefore, Alaska's next negotiating cycle is likely to not benefit from the existing NMB environment as it's a fair bet that a GOP president would shift the balance of power on the NMB back to a Republican majority.

For now, though, the present constitution of the NMB, especially when combined with what the president of the AFL-CIO described earlier this month as "the most pro-union administration in history," provides perhaps the best political landscape pilots have ever had or ever will have to rake back what has been stripped away over the last several decades. This golden moment for labor is already set to begin fading if the Democrats lose control of the House in November as they are predicted to.

The rail workers' recent dispute provided all of us with a master class in how to leverage both 1) the power of the RLA available to labor and 2) this particular political moment to maximum effect. We could all learn much if we wanted to from what the rail workers just accomplished.

Pilot unions also have advantages that the rail workers didn't have.

The fact that pilot supply in the US is at least constrained to some degree at the major airline level and possibly in a state of shortage boosts our leverage.

And the fact that pilot unions are not negotiating as a massive block of unions like the rail workers did opens up to pilot unions the pre-strike power of the "book-away phenomena" that wasn't available to the rail unions. If the rail workers had gone on strike, all rail freight in the US would have been halted. Rail freight customers had no option to book away from one freight provider to another as the PEB deadline neared. If Alaska Airlines pilots got released from mediation, it would be a trivially simple matter of a few clicks for Alaska's customers to book away from Alaska to another of the many other airlines in the US. I realize that the book-away phenomena wouldn't apply to many of the destinations in the state of Alaska that Alaska Airlines operates out of but service to those destinations appears to comprise less than five percent of Alaska's total flights.

Alaska's pilots sort of flexed the leverage they have under the RLA and under the current political environment, but viewed in light of the rail unions' dispute, you guys left a big stack of your chips on the table. There may not be another opportunity available in the next several decades to capitalize so effectively on the moment as exists right now.

To answer your more specific question about where the rail unions were when they were released from mediation back in June, I suggest reading these articles from the Railway Age site:

• NMB Starts Clock Toward Rail Shutdown
• Unions Seek Release
• Pressure on NMB to Keep Sides Bargaining