Originally Posted by
hummingbear
Disagree. There was nothing real about the TUMI vote. The contract had been DOA for months & the company was already offering to make big improvements to it once it was rejected. There was no logical reason to vote yes by that time which made the no vote essentially meaningless.
A strike vote is only “symbolic” to the extent you understand the nuances of the authorization process, which I’m not sure everyone here does. In either case, the possibility of a strike- however unlikely- is pretty meaningful & I don't think we’ll get the same consensus in this that we got from TUMI. That’s just my hunch, though, & I hope I’m wrong.
I agree that the Tumi vote was dead in the water, but it was real and failure to shoot it down would resulted in the TA immediately becoming our next contract. A strike vote is a necessary procedural step in the RLA game, but it is nowhere near an immediate threat. It provides a few days of bad press for the company, but all a strike vote means is that we will strike years down the road if we ever get released into self help. The odds of us getting to that point are slim to none. Kirby won’t be able to hold out that long considering that the competition far exceeds what we offer. He’ll have to at least match AA and DL long before the RLA plays out.