Originally Posted by DaveNelson

You're right. It's not so neat and clear cut, such as the neat little package that "untied" presented that defines the UAL pilot groups. As cut and dried as some of you may see it presented on a "scab list" or by way of employee numbers, it's much more nuanced. A few additional thoughts:

1. There are groups that this author misses. One of them are the ex-Transstar (MuseAir) pilots. in the late 1980s, Continental bought six or seven Transtar MD-80s when that company, acquired as a subsidiary by Southwest but never profitable, shut down. It was a clean acquisition of aircraft from an out-of-business company with no LPP protections. However, CAL hired some of the Transtar pilots as new hires and put them on the bottom of the list. Some of those guys carried resentment for a long time that they weren't offered seniority integration, although those who remain are rather senior captains now. There was little or no call from CAL pilots, regardless of their strike history, to come to their aid.

2. The last three "scab" pilot classes at CAL did not cross a physical picket line, nor did they fly "struck work." In July of 1985, faced with a extraordinarily large pilot bid that CAL issued which included numerous vacancies, and unable to support the remaining strikers through a large assessment that ALPA pilots lost interested in providing, the union approached the company about a back-to-work agreement. The union, which has recently lost its certification to represent CAL's pilots, worried that the strikers it still represented would be frozen out of jobs for years to come.

The company agreed, but only on the condition that ALPA pull its picket line. Pickets disappeared in August. The pilots hired in these last three classes did not fly their first revenue trip until well after the Order and Award, the back-to-work agreement, had been signed in late October. ALPA proposed that the company fire these pilots, ostensibly because their training would hinder the return of the returning strikers. The company refused, the strikers began training later that year, and after all the Option 1 returnees were trained, CAL resumed hiring off of the street, in 1987.

3. Old Continental and Texas Air seniority numbers tell nothing about that person's actions during the 1983-85 strike--and I would argue in some cases, less about their character nor the events that molded it. Many struck immediately and never crossed the picket line. Some, like the pilots flying at Air Mike, were told by ALPA to stay at work while their cohorts struck, and then told to go on strike later. Some of those Air Mike folks stayed working; others left the cockpit. Some Old CAL and TI pilots never missed a day of work.

Many Old CAL and TI "scabs" had a year or more of strike time before the made the decision, motivated by family and financial reasons, to return to work. During the first year of the strike, ALPA assessed its membership handsomely and provided strike benefits that were quite generous. Then, one day, ALPA reduced that benefit drastically, leaving its long-term strikers in quite a bind.

I mention this because the CAL strike lasted for two years, and during this time those on strike suffered precipitously. There were divorces, cases of stress-induced mental illness, and even suicides in the ranks. Other striking pilots were fired for various "picket-line activities," some justifiably (such as the two strikers who were caught with bomb-making materials in their car and a map to a senior SCAB pilot's house). Others lost their jobs because they lost their temper on the picket line and said or did something that should have been forgiven.

Although I'm sure I'll draw no sympathy from this crowd for the subjects of this paragraph, there were pilots on the other side who suffered also. One working pilot was on a trip when his teenage daughter answered a call from somebody who asked for her by name and then said her dad had been killed when his Continental jet crashed. She required extensive counseling afterward. Another full-term striker with whom I flew bragged, quite unashamedly, that he and another striker had thrown a moose head through the plate-glass picture window of another Old Cal pilot who had chosen to go back to work. Picket line-crossing pilots were also alleged to have committed statutory crimes against striking pilots.

I say this to draw a comparison with that "heroic" 27-day strike veterans at United, which at least one source, Flying the Line, Vol. 2, says ALPA called off early because it was afraid its ranks would crumble. I'm sure there was quite a bit of stress during that time for the participants, but I'd imagine nothing in comparison to what the CAL guys went through.

When the full-term CAL strikers came back to work, unlike their one-month cohorts at UAL, the CAL guys decided not to wear battle stars. Some wore a little pin called "The Brotherhood," but those quickly disappeared. The returning strikers were not always treated with kindness. The Option 1 guys had to spend several months riding as flight engineers or jerking gear as copilots before being allowed to bid the captain seats their seniority justified. Nevertheless, many full-term strikers eventually teamed up with those who had crossed picket lines, and those hired after the strike was over, to form and certify the union, IACP, that later merged into ALPA. The founder of the IACP, and its first president, Rene Minjares, was an Old Cal pilot who crossed the picket line. The second president, Bob Wilson, was a full-term striker.

Please keep that in mind when you peruse the new combined SLI, looking for heroes to worship and villains to ostracize. The best history isn't often told in terms of black and white, but instead in shades of gray.