Originally Posted by
SkyHigh
Unions artificially have held wages high. The era of union strength and control is now history. Free market forces are pressuring wages down to a competitive level. The best that a union can hope do at this point is to organize the retreat.
Skyhigh
Sky, there is no free market for pilot jobs.
Yes there are forces of supply and demand. Puppy mills and age 65 legislation have increased the supply of pilots. The cratering economy has decreased the demand for pilots.
But pilots DO NOT offer their labor to an open market. Regulations(holding out, air carrier certification), and extensive barriers to entry(capital) in the market mean that pilots can only offer their services to a very small group of potential employers - well under 100 US "Airlines" of all stripes are listed here on APC, and probably 25 of those employ 75% of all professional pilots.
So in terms of being the purchaser of labor, airlines operate as an
Oligopoly, and in fact given the homogeneous nature of pilots - after training we are the legal equivalent of one another - its no stretch to see Airlines operating as a
purchasing cartel.
Historically Unions have been a counter-force against the cartel's tendency towards collusion in fixing wages. With the erosion of union strength from deregulation onwards, we have seen them become less and less effective. Unions may be a dike holding back the sea of low wages, but they are no more an artificial force than the oligopoly of employers 'artificially' lowering wages below their 'natural' level.