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Originally Posted by But seriously
I think pilots have a lot of leverage right now against management because we are one of the biggest bottlenecks for their ability to generate shareholder returns. I don’t think the political arena is the best place for pilots to have the battle though.
When people hear “railway workers Union” they envision some blue collar dude swinging a mallet in 90 degree heat who deserves a raise. That’s not going to be the same perception for pilots.
I think if we try to take our case to the public we will look like fools. The company will say they are just trying to keep airfare low and repay the money the taxpayers so generously loaned them.
We have plenty of business leverage, but I’m not so sure we have the same political leverage.
You guys have leverage under the RLA. The dynamic is similar to, but different than, the recent railroad dispute. A primary way in which it is different is that, unlike the railroad dispute, which had a strike occurred would have shut down essentially all freight rail service in the US with no alternative providers for customers of railroads, a major airline strike in the US would leave at least three of the "Big Four" airlines, JetBlue, and the ULCC's as alternatives for airline customers to choose from.
Passenger airline traffic in the US would not grind to a halt in a major airline pilot strike. The rail strike, had it happened, however, would have shut down almost all freight rail service in the US.
This difference in dynamic between the two scenarios leads to what current Acting Director, Office of Mediation Services at the National Mediation Board (NMB), John Livingood describes as the "book-away" phenomena. This phenomena occurs before a strike and:
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has the potential to occur when passengers find out that their flights may be cancelled, or disrupted, because the NMB released the parties from mediation in accordance with RLA Section 5 (Section 155) and triggered the potential for a work stoppage. Airline passengers with today's technology and access to reservation systems have the potential, en masse, to immediately reschedule their flights to try to avoid possible disruptions to their travel plans, thereby causing a potentially substantial loss of revenue/business that precedes the PEB, its report, or the potential for any work stoppage.
The book-away phenomena wasn't really a thing in the railroad dispute because there weren't really any alternative rail freight providers. Therefore, rail companies continued raking in revenue all the way up until a few days before the potential strike last week when they were forced to begin cancelling trains in order to secure their fleets in the run-up to the strike.
Contrast that with the description of the book-away phenomena above. Think about it: if you had to make plans for a wedding or vacation or graduation or business meeting or whatever in City X and you heard United pilots might be on strike during the dates of your travel, would you book your tickets on United? Or would you "book-away" from United on another carrier whose pilots weren't anticipated to possibly be on strike during those dates?
When you're booking your tickets for travel, do you care that much whether the pilots at whatever airline you're considering buying tickets on are blue collar or white collar if there's a decent chance they might have walked off the job on the dates you want to travel? No. People will still book away from the possibly soon-to-be-struck airline whether or not they sympathize with the plight of its pilots' work conditions.
You can call the book-away phenomena "pre-strike leverage." Management will begin taking a hit to their bottom line well before a strike occurs. The book-away phenomena will happen regardless of whether Congress ultimately intervenes to stop a strike or not.
Management doesn't want to deal with that. That is leverage.
AND - all of the above says nothing of the possible leverage that the change in political composition of the NMB late last year probably handed to labor. The NMB transitioned from two GOP members and one Democratic member to one GOP member and two Democratic members.
The rail unions entered mediation in January of this year. They were released in June. They spent less than six months in mediation. That is a dramatically and unprecedentedly short stay in mediation.
This current NMB was willing to release >100,000 rail workers in 12 railroad unions controlling 40% of America's freight capacity after less than six months. Think about that. Why would they not be willing to do the same with United Airlines pilots who could shut down an airline of 87,000 employees handling 13% of our nation's domestic airline passenger traffic?
The vote to release them from mediation was the two Democrats in favor against the one GOP member opposed. You can imagine how that vote might have ended up if the composition of the NMB had remained unchanged from last year.
If you know anything about mediation, how long it typically takes, and what the courts say about the average length of mediation in RLA cases, you understand how what happened in the rail dispute just might represent a sea change for the better for labor under the RLA.