Obama wasn't in office then. He's the wild card. If a strike seems like it might harm commerce and cost tax payers money, he'll let it happen. It's just about the only reason I'm happy he's in office right now.
I tend to agree that there would likely be a PEB, which isnt a bad thing, after all its not a strike we seek but better contracts.
I think if we look at the historical trend of airline workers compensation we can justify that we've suffered enough and our demands are not unreasonable. A PEB would delay the threat of ex-TWA scabs, and provide a public arena where we can show how between wages and benifits we're pretty much working at half pay. Compare that to the wages of the people who are sitting on the panel itself, Congressmen, average wages across the country or even minimum wage and I believe that ours have seen the most significant decline, and we've delivered increased productivity which more than justifies our wage demands. I recall reading how in the 90s real wages across the country went up by 10%, ours declined by more than 10%.
In 1933 a PEB held "weak concerns are not exempted...from the market price. If they cannot pay standard wages, they go into Bankruptcy"*.The Bankruptcy Act of 1933 also prohibited bankrupt railroads from changing wages or working conditions except in accordance with the RLA and the 1932 Chicago Agreement.*
A PEB in 1938 issued a report against the employers demands for wage reductions, it said that workers should not be "indirectly taxed to keep the roads running" and that when it comes to dealing with downturns in the economy the financial burden of dealing with it "must be taken up by the ownership and not by the wage structure".*
In other words the courts did not assume that it was the burden of labor to ensure the liquidity of a company. Somehow labor allowed that to change in 2002-03 as crooks on the bench reinterpreted legislation and made their own laws. I have to wonder, how many of those Judges have since left the bench and reaped their rewards from corporate America? Labor dropped the ball in 2002-3. We should have shut the system down and defended our rights. They did what they did because they knew that labor didnt have the balls to defend their rights out in the streets. They allowed corporate America to exploit and cash in on the deaths of Sep11 2001 because they didnt want to look unpatriotic. Labor forgot that even in WWII Capitalists sought to exploit patriotic ferver and Unions still told them NO.They were still willing to shut down production before they would allow capitalists to cash in at workers expense.
The recomendations of an Obama PEB may be favorable to labor so I would not be against it. And if they werent we could still strike. The thing is that workers must realize that the delay would give AA more time to recruit scabs. They have to realize that if the FAs go out first that we all must support them, and I mean support them in more than a moral capacity because as Ben Franklin said "We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."
*from "Understanding the Railway Labor Act" Wilner.2009 ISBN 978-0911382-59-4
