Lets say you are in the position of the mesaba pilots right. Would you as a pilot, while being asked to work for 11K a year, do things that may hurt the company/management in order to change things at that company, since the option to strike was removed by a judge. I guess my question is more directed towards taking longer to do things so the flight is late, or writing up a discrepency at an outbase instead of just flying with the position light burned out. Just curious

 

Doing things that would "hurt" the company is illegal. Would/could get in serious trouble if found out or caught. But writing discrepancies up (who wants to fly with an open writeup?), flying slower due to turbulence (pax comfort is important), etc is part of business.

In all cases, just fly the contract. No more, no less!

 

Just because the judges say no strike, doesn't mean you can't... Oh, and I think flying the contract to a T can actually be pretty slow operations. ie taxi speeds. etc.

 

Any little thing you see during preflight, write it up. "I think that screw is 1/4 turn loose, better write it up". "That tire might be low." "Is that bug splatter or a bird strike?"...etc. Or, if there is a cloud you better deviate, you don't want to upset any passengers. Oh, and be sure to slow down to Vra or less just incase you find any turbulance.

That would really slow operations down.

 

There is no such thing as indentured servitude in this country. You cannot be forced to work under conditions that you did not agree to; there are no ethics involved in this, and the only remaining professionalism issue is safety...comfort, timeliness, effeciency and all those other niceties are out the window.

 

All of the above is true, however, if things change significantly (IE the number of writeups or sick calls exponentially increases), particularly company wide, then the courts can find the union in violation of labor law (slowdowns/stoppages) and impose significant fines. The key word is status quo. What was before the contract imposition, should continue with minor variances.

It's true that there is no indentured servitude, however unless all the pilot QUIT flat out, they are bound by various contractual and legal issues.

 

Slowdowns have been used during contract negotiations to try and persuade management hurry and accept the new terms.
As far as Mesaba, personnally I think the pilots need to organized themselves and sickout. This new judgement on behave of the company only goes to show that our goverment is controled even more my big corporations.
In this day in age, I'm not so worried about transportation service failures to any one community.

 

We are in uncharted territory here...no contract, but no labor activities allowed? That's not really labor law, that's just one judge who is probably going to get his @ss handed to him on appeals.

Personally I would just walk away for good at an outstation that was convenient for me, but not everyone has that option.

Understandably the union can't do anything to organize any sort of "activities" but in this case I don't think organizing or coordinating will be required...the situation is self-evident and things will probably just happen...

 

Agreed. The Mesaba judge essentially deferred judgement on the issue (and limited his "liability") based on the previous similar ruling made in the NWA FA's court proceedings. Either way, I think it sucks for the labor groups.

There is some speculation though that the ruling (and subsequent "contract" imposition) will open the door for Mesaba to bring on additional aircraft (CRJs) in short order, which would also likely result in a bidding fiasco with PCL and possibly Compass.

I doubt that we'll see a whole lot of bailing out on the part of the pilots until things become a bit more clear about the future. There will certainly be plenty of gripes and a lot less motivation to get the job done, but I don't expect to see a mass exodus (at least not right now). If the ruling ends up standing on a final appeal, then things might get a bit more interesting.

That said, I don't think that there's anybody at Mesaba that isn't actively looking for something better...

 

Just do everything by the book.