You talk about solidarity and US Airways. Going back to J4J, where was the solidarity? When every carrier, including Piedmont, took backroom deals that undercut the ideals that the unions sold to the pilot group in order to be more appealing to airways. The only group that stood up for those ideals were Allegheny, and we know how that ended up. Lets look at the recent deal with America West. AW bought airways, but the airways pilot group which was larger, voted in their own union just to get their own way. How can you expect to have solidarity when the pilots of the same parent company doesn't have any?

Now to staffing. Airways came to Piedmont and told them that they needed to cut costs. That entailed furloughs. Now, we look good enough to airways to keep around. But if we were to start canceling flights do to staffing, we no longer look as essential to airways. They would probably shut us down.

Now, some comments on other posts.

rocketman3746: At least you see that OT has no effect on furloughs. CM is not the best guy for the job. He is a nice guy and I like him, but he has little to no experience in handling the MEC. The guy that lost to CM is way more qualified, and the only reason that CM won was because he had 3 votes for himself. I disagree with your statement about a strike. If a strike were to happen, people would not want to have the label of scab, even if they didn't believe in what the union was fighting for. But just because it isn't participation for the right reason, it is still participation.

runwayrat: I'm sure the only way that guarantee was broken was because of flying around at 50%...

LostInPA: Nope, no gold stars or thousands of hours more. I am not superior to anybody else. But you should know the state of the business before you leave another job.

yancharlie: Thanks for your contribution.

Piedmonster: The staffing levels are determined by how much flying there is. That's why if you were to request a drop and they deny it, its because of coverage. They allow for all the flying, plus a number of people calling off sick. So I'm not quite sure of your point there. True this is a small industry, but I don't ask for anything from people that are hellbent on getting even or think that they deserve something. In other words, empty threats don't faze me. I'm not telling you my initials or base, but if I hear you complaining in the crew rooms or food courts, I'll be sure to join in.