SOunds like we need a grassroots movement to get rid of the RLA..

John McCain would agree with you. He wants to simply eliminate the right of airline employees to ever strike!!!!

Well, if the RLA is gone... we can strike just like AlItalia,, or Air France... or Lufthansa... and there wouldn't be a damned thing McClown would be able to do about it aside from issuing a PEB.. but then if our National Leadership showed any intestinal fortitude, he would tell McClown to shove it, and we walk out... But I am just speaking mostly from emotion here :) I'm sick of being treated like a VITAL component of the national economy, yet also being treated like indentured servants.

There is a very good chance that we will need to strike illegally at some point in our careers...Especially if McClown gets into power....Yes then we will need to get a change away from the RLA and in the ideal go for a more maritime like structure.....As far as illegal strike action goes we must remember that the laws in this country are written by lobbyists for the rich people and or corporations so that they stay rich and we will be prevented from having any legal actions that will succeed.....In other words anything that we can do that will work to advantage us (like an SOS) is illegal. That means that if we stay within the law (in this case the RLA) we are doomed to lose by default.... The past 30 years we have a classic situation of abiding by the law of the land and consistantly losing, sometimes a little and calling it a victory and sometimes severely and calling it the loss it was. The consistant thing was loss. Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, it is time we got over this risk averse posture of always abiding by the letter of the law. Besides there is little left to do to us that the industry hasn't already done, except maybe shave our heads.

My point exactly... as long as our hands are tied by the RLA, we are doomed...

Untie them, strike anyway! There isn't much to do to punish us that hasn't already been done!

I'm sure the PATCO guys said the same thing before Reagan BOHICA'd them.

A minor difference existed, they were government employees, the other thing at least in regards to an SOS is that you come back to work after one day....And then do it again after a month or two...... A lot harder to BOHICA a group doing that.....

Or the ATA and Govt could decide to make an example out of one pilot group and have a lock out. Subsidies and loans would be floated to keep the target airline alive until enough scabs could be trained. Make no mistake, there are enough pilots out there who would cross a picket line. If you are going to dance with the Devil, you better be thinking like him and be two steps ahead.

Or you can be so in love with defeat that you do your opponent's work for him and never attempt anything, and lose again by default. We have lost for thiry years, largely because we have been too risk averse to take any real action. Our posture has been reactive and action almost always beats reaction, it is time to stop talking about what we can't do and start talking about how to do something that will work. Come up with a better idea, and odds are that there is a law against it already. Plan on breaking it, corporate America does it all the time!