On the contrary, the UAL half of the New United tried exactly those tactics in 2008, in an attempt to force Tilton & Pals to reopen a concessionary contract two years before the exchange of Section 6 openers. Guess what happened? An injunction by a federal district court, followed by an even more damaging appeal order by the Sixth Circuit. I remind you that we're still under that restraining order. Damages awarded for violating an order of the federal judiciary could cripple the union's attempt to continue even basic functions such as pilot representation at system boards and day-to-day contract enforcement.

The most recent AA situation you cited happened within the auspices of a bankruptcy proceeding, when ostensibly American wanted to present a ratified pilot contract to creditors as part of a bankruptcy emergence plan. Please take a look at what the American pilots achieved by their work-to-rules campaign. Their bankruptcy "contract" lags both the Delta book and the proposed UAL TA by large margins, as one would expect in a reorganization proceeding. The fact of the matter is that AA's pilots got the shaft, but by staging their little work-to-rules campaign, it made the medicine go down easier. Now that illegal labor action can go down in the annals of pilot lore as another time when "we showed 'em!"

United is not (yet) in bankruptcy. It's in Section 6 negotiations. Any kind of shenanigans along the lines of what you propose are a violation of the legally mandated status quo. Before, we were discussing a legal strike. Now you seem to be pushing a very dangerous, law-breaking, scenario while ALPA is still in the horns of an injunction. This is one path, if we go down it, where there seems to be little prospect of either material or moral victory.

haha ha 000820B ho ho ho

I'm not "pushing" anything. Just pointing out what happened over there. I realize the implications of an illegal job action.

Not sure if many of your guys are aware of this, and I know this is not really an important part of your above post, but just to set the record straight we had 76 seaters taken from us years ago in BK with a gun to our head via 1113. We actually improved our Scope with our current contract but that was pretty easy considering our Scope sucked, but we did hold the line at 76 seats.

Our Scope is complicated and there was a formula for them to increase the number of 76 seat jets with mainline growth. Under our old contract they could have only added more 76 seaters if they parked 70 seaters. Well now they are adding more 76 seaters and parking 50 seaters vice 70 seaters. This issue has been very contentious with many of our guys. Frankly this does not bother me and I was furloughed due to weak Scope - the important number is mainline is growing from 55% to 65% of domestic flying - a solid improvement in my opinion.

Good Luck UCAL! :)

Scoop

I do not agree with your sentiment or tone and take considerable offense. To argue that one generation is better than another because the "depth" of their choices is greater is to slander your own child.

It is interesting that you can speak about the future with such certainty, I wish I had that crystal ball a long time ago I wouldn't be here now. If what you say is true, no more job actions, no ability to strike and no McCain style arbitration, then just what is it that labor can do to incentivize management to bargain with us? I can't think of anything, I guess you may as well save your union dues, it's everyone for themselves in that scenario, capitalist are not benevolent.

I would not use the AMFA strike as an example of anything. There will always be unions with poor leadership and great expectations. The IFFA strike at TWA, CAL "83" and the IAM at Eastern are classic examples of how not to fight a labor war.

I am sure you know that under the act a Presidential PEB is only temporary, 30 could be 60 days and it expires. Congress can then step in and force a settlement, probably some sort of arbitration. If they don't, you are legally free to strike just like a NLRA union . No doubt the courts would be involve as they were in the "85" UAL strike.

An airline PEB that I remember well was at Wein over the third man, there were others, AMR. I can't remember any that were not settled during the PEB period and subsequently there was a strike. I do recall the IAM strike in "66" where about two thirds of the airlines went on strike together. The world did not end, but it did result in legislation to prevent multiple airline strikes at the same time. In that case, the business men got to go where they needed to go, but the kids didn't make it to grandmas, no big deal. The war and economy was just fine.

Since we don't see this the same way, I would only add, and what others here have already pointed out, is that you don't know until you try. No point giving up early as we did in the 2003 bk contract. Just the exercise of threatening a strike and having congress force a settlement would be a seminal event in this country. There are a lot of steps in the process before that would happen, courts, politics etc. The only caveat in this strategy is that you better be ready to walk, you may be given the chance. Obviously, I believe the strike or credible threat is still a viable and powerful weapon.

There are a few axioms of a successful strike that most people who have run them will agree.

1) Have a major issue that unifies the striking group, B scale, outsourcing, union destruction or a unifying figure such as Frank Lorenzo, Henry Frick, Ferris etc. Just striking for more money is usually a loser.

2) Be clear that the group is educated and unified. The generals hate it when they lead the charge and when they look behind them, no one is there.

3) Have leadership that is smart, believe in what they are doing and clearly understand the limits.

Except for the last one, these element do not exist in the present circumstances, but I am ready for 2016.

Rick is that you!

Yes, it is a shame that times have changed. It's a shame that we don't have a labor situation tantamount to the 1950s and 60s, when one of three working men belonged to a union and most non-union shops tried to match the union scale, if they could, to keep the union out. In those days, the CEOs of major corporations earned approximately ten times more than their highest salaried worker; at one time in the 1970s I believe, the head of Delta Airlines earned slightly more than five times what his highest captain earned. But we've brought a lot of that on ourselves. It was a better time when a man named Romney ran a car company that manufactured tangible products and negotiated fair contracts with his laborers, rather than this era when his son made his fortune manipulating financial instruments and came within a whisker of the White House.

It's a shame that workers embraced Nixon's Southern Strategy, went along with the Reagan Revolution, and elected state legislators who enacted right-to-work (for less) laws, along with generous tax breaks for industries who were anxious to hire below the union scale. It's regretful that today's private-sector employees disparage teachers, cops, and firemen who have successful public-sector unions. Instead of being jealous of this last remaining vestige of successful unionism, they should try to emulate it. But, instead, they insist that if they have to take a haircut in their paycheck, so should those government employees.

You talk a lot about bygone days, of PEBs that were held on behest of nonexistent companies such as Wein. You talk of the Lorenzo, Ferris, and I think you forgot to mention Nyrop. Yes, there were some successful strikes against those bastards back then, and some that didn't work out so well. It helps if your strike lasts only 29 days, such as United's in 1985. It was not so nice if it lasted two years, such as Continental's. For better or for worse, times have changed. With airline consolidation, whether you like it or not, those days are over at American, United, and Delta.

Yes, I'm aware that a PEB has a term of only 60 days. Don't bet, even if the company and the union are intent on kamikaze tactics, that Congress will allow a strike to take place, though. Do you really think the mayors of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and the Congress critters who represent those districts, will let a strike impact air travel--and all of the jobs in those cities--just because a bunch of airline pilots want better pay and protection from having their jobs farmed out to commuter carriers? If you do, you're deluding yourself.

Airline pilots aren't terribly sympathetic characters when they're out on a picket line. The average Joe thinks we make twice or three times what we earn, have 20 days off a month, and a mistress in layover cities. Those big-city mayors and Congressmen, who tend to be Democrats, see little political advantage in allowing an airline strike to impact the economy of their cities--on behest of a labor group that tends to vote about 80% Republican. If you were Rahm Emanuel, who would you favor? The working-class mechanic or ticket agent who lives in your town, whose paycheck might stop if the pilots shut down United, or a bunch of GOP-voting pilots who live in the suburbs? Think about it.

You seem to long for the good old days. So do I. I liked the time when a Teamster, if he encountered a picket line on a delivery to the airport, would turn his truck around and take the load back to the warehouse. I liked the idea when American workers bought American cars from union assembly lines in Ohio and Michigan, not from non-union factories in Tennessee or Texas, or from abroad. I like the time when, if a large retailer such as Wal-Mart tried to keep a union on the property, the working class folks in town wouldn't shop there. Nowadays, Joe Unionized Pilot is unashamed to shop there.

I liked the time when pilots, mechanics, and flight attendants honored each other's picket line. Are you aware that in the current CAL contract, our vaunted 50-seat turbojet scope clause--regarded the second best in the industry after Southwest--has an anti-labor provision that prevents CAL ALPA from declaring a sympathy strike with another employee group? Look it up. (Fortunately, the United book, whose language this TA has adopted, doesn't have that clause.) But I'm not hopeful of that kind of labor solidarity ever returning, to our property or anyone else's. Not with the attitudes expressed by some of the copilots I fly with, who look down their nose and sneer at Linda Puchala because she was a flight attendant.

If you'll dig back into our historical archives, you'll realize that kind of camaraderie with other labor groups went the way of the dodo bird when United's pilots, fearing a break in their ranks, called off their 1985 strike and negotiated a back-to-work agreement that left their flight attendants--who had honored the pilots' lines--without a back-to-work agreement of their own. If you go back a little farther, you'll remember that some four years before the CAL pilots went on strike in 1983, they refused to honor the picket lines of their flight attendants. They were aghast that the FA union wanted the lead flight attendant to make as much as the second officer. How uppity of them!

This was just about the time when most pilots, being the white, middle-class, tax-averse, law-and-order Republicans that they were, decided to break ranks with other labor groups. This was just about the time when they fell head over heels in love with Mr. Reagan, and cheered when he fired those snippety air traffic controllers. How dare they engage in an illegal strike, those spoiled government workers!

And you're upset because what goes around comes around?

On another thread you wrote you were hired in "85", was that before October?

http://i380.photobucket.com/albums/o...er/Bethune.png

Pat Friend, AFA Chair-person during the 1985 festivities, speaking to a closed session of the UAL-MEC, asked us to return to work as support amongst her flight attendants for honoring our picket line was crumbling fast and she recognized that the very existence of the UAL-AFA was in danger. I remember her emotional plea very well as there were a number of us that didn't have dry eyes as she spoke.

Unlike what you wrote, there was a significant amount of camaraderie between the two employee groups during the strike.