Question for Bob since he is the only leader with balls. If there was to be an unapproved action to take a stand who would take charge, I've said all along to my co-workers the only way to fix things is to break the law. Hell I would love to spend the night in jail for our cause but im a nobody who would follow me. Its time for our leaders to grow a set, I think they would be very surprised how much support they have I will fight like hell for a strong leader. Just my thoughts
I feel that the courts have left us no options other than to go illegal. Either we are to be treated like workers under the RLA and included in 1167 or we are to be treated like workers under the NLRA and be allowed to strike if they impose new terms. Its intolerable to impose all the restictions of a law without the corresponding protections. Its like throwing a boxer into the ring with his hands tied behind his back and his shoes laced together, its not a fair match.
When Continental went BK and abrogated the contracts the Unions went on strike. No "oh you cant use self help, even though the company did, until you exhaust the Section 6 process" (which back then averaged around 3 months instead of three years), no BS about how the contract "never existed". It was clear, Continental unilaterally changed wages and working conditions and under the RLA you can strike when that happens. The courts had already decided that Sect 1167 only applied to Railroads under the RLA, I have no information on the reasoning.
What happened to really screw us up was an appellate court decided that they were going to cherry pick parts of the two laws in a way that screwed over workers. They would treat Airline workers the same as workers under the NLRA as far as allowing a company to abrogate the contract, but unlike workers under the NLRA they could no longer defend themselves and Strike despite the fact that Continental had already set the precedence (the difference was that Continental wanted the workers to strike, so the courts allowed it). They ruled that under C-11 airline contract termination is not really an abrogation as it is under the NLRA, in other words like a divorce, an agreement that once existed but no longer exists, but for airline workers termination in C-11was instead much more extreme it was an annulment, a declaration that the agreement never legally existed, because it was fraudulent or enterred into illegally, and because it never existed that Airline Labor Unions that have their contracts abrogated in C-11 are left with all the restrictions that the RLA impose as if they had never negotiated a contract before but none of the protections. Not only is the slate wiped clean, the slate never existed. Clearly this was, for lack of a better way of saying it, "a f****d up ruling". Combine this with the fact that there is no means test for filing for C-11 for legal persons who are corporations, unlike legal persons who are people, and it give Airlines a huge advantage over unions. In reality it nullifies any reason to really engage in collevtive bargaining, string out the Mediation process for as long as you can, all the while the company enjoys the benefoits of status quo, in the AA case 4 years, then when it looks like you are running out of time, such as the NMB saying they really cant justifying delaying a release much longer you file BK. In reality there is nothing stopping a profitable company from doing the same thing, and they can be pretty blatent about it, Aa filed with $4 billion and hostess recently filed, much like Continental did in 1983 with the sole intent to use BK as a means to void labor agreements (but at least the Hostess workers can strike).
We are already at the bottom of the industry and the company is demanding another 20% more from us and even if they made a billion in profits theres nothing stopping them from filing c-11 and petitioning the courts from imposing new terms on us while we are prohibited from striking, add into that mix a NMB where the Chief Mediator comes from an organization thats sole purpose is to help airlines "control" labor costs(Aircon) and its pretty clear that as long as Airline workers stay legal they will have zero input into setting wages and working conditions with the exception of just giving up and leaving the industry. Unions have to be willing to assert their right to strike, the Airlines cant be permitted to have it both ways, freedom to abrogate contracts as if we were under the NLRA and the restrictions as far as self help per the RLA based upon the falacy of an annulment.
The courts did what they did because they knew they would get away with it. Lets face it Judges have no allegience to working people. Airlines are just as critical to commerce as RailRoads, they dont mess with the Railroads because they know that if they tried to do something like this it would blow up in their face, the Railroad workers would shut it down and even go to jail if they had to-thats how the RLA was put in place.
Everything we are going through has happened before, in the Railroads. The same things, regulation, Government subsidies, deregulation, overcapacity, bankruptcies, liquidations and reorganizations. The Railroad owners had just as many friends in the goverment and in the courthouses as the airlines do, the difference is Rail workers time and time again ignored them both and shut things down, they went illegal until the government had enough and had the Unions and the Railroads get together and craft the RLA. Putting rail workers in jail did not improve commerce, as distateful as it may have been to them they had to deal on a level playing field with the Unions because even with the law on their side they could not stop the interuptions. So yes the purpose was to leave commerce uninterupted but if commerce was not interupted the RLA never would have come into existance, Rail workers would not enjoy the protections they have to this day if they had not proven that they would be willing to break the law and interupt commerce if the application of the law was done unfairly.. If we want similar protections we have to interupt commerce in defense of our rights. Their greed and desire to oppress created this condition, not us. If we want to be treated equitably under the law as either workers under the NLRA or workers under the RLA we will not get there by complying with the law because those who crafted their interpretation clearly were not interested in equality or fairness, they were interested in getting the airline what it wanted.
