This is not an issue that’s limited to UA.

I’ve become more and more convinced that pilots in general do not possess the constitution necessary to fully exploit the leverage available to them. The most powerful leverage available to pilots today is the ability to pose the credible threat of, and if necessary, actually using the self help tools made available to us under the RLA.

Unfortunately, however, the overwhelming majority of pilots I’m familiar with are uber-conservative, both politically and otherwise. Whatever the merits are or are not of those conservative values in general, when it comes to the domain of organized labor and extracting worth from our professional skills, those values seem to play the role of a pair of concrete boots.

Maybe staunchly upholding those perceived conservative values by refusing to engage all of the socialistic-ish levers of the RLA is worth lower career compensation, poorer work rules, lesser benefits, and smaller retirement accounts than we otherwise could obtain. Maybe America is a better place as a result of major airline pilots declining to fully engage in the collective labor movement.

Whatever the case, until a majority of pilots can shed the notion that “organized labor” and “unionism” are somehow associated with “socialism” and “anti-Americanism,” I expect to see continued mediocre results across the major airlines.

I hope I’m wrong. The fight at UA to recall their failed MEC and MEC leadership is an encouraging contra-indicator to my thesis. The fact that UA was able to get to the point of the Tumi TA seeing the light of day, though, points toward validity in the point I’m making (well over four years into negotiations without mediation even being filed for, for example, likely helped fuel the birth of the Tumi TA).