Ok name one.
Most of the people I'm thinking about you wouldn't know. Not every election is only for those top spots.
Yes they filed C-11 and it was a scam. They went in with $5 billion, came out with $10 billion. Yes we should have stood with the pilots and called their bluff because with $5 billion in cash AA was nowhere near liquidation, they didn't even claim they would liquidate to the court if they didn't get what they wanted. Even though the Pilots stood alone they still came out with triple the Equity while giving up less in concessions and remained among the top paid pilots in the industry. Basically the pilots came out unscathed compared to us and finally got the esop they were after. They had a pension that was far superior than anything pilots at other carriers had, something they would have lost in a PEB and got a 401K match that is nearly triple the rate we get and walked away with close to 15% of the company.
There are other actions a Union can take besides a strike.
I'm personally not going to compare myself to a pilot since I can't fly an airplane. Although from what I understand 200 pilots had left the company because of the stock price drop affecting their lump sum pension payout. 500 more were about to go and the APA was asked by the company to continue to let them fly and they would give them their payouts. The APA said no and the company filed the next day. Can't run an airline without people flying the planes. Personally that's the biggest reason I think they went into that courthouse.
And if the plane breaks in NY it has to be fixed in New York, you cant defer a hydraulic leak or a flat tire to China, even if you could you need a mechanic to defer it.
Agreed but you have competition in every airport that is being paid less than you that would like to get their little hands on that work. The importance of SCOPE can't be neglected.
That falls back to poor leadership. The fact is the company did not want it so the International did everything they could to undermine it.
Wrong again, currently DFW has 2255 out of 8496. So DFW may be the larger but they are not majority. They aren't even 30%. MIA is the same size as DFW. Our problem isn't as simple as Tulsa, Title II is also very weak as a group with only a few strongholds and we have those who don't vote at all.
I was mostly talking about who holds the most cards at that bargaining table. Before the BK during negotiations the RDU and BOS presidents were constantly being rollcalled by the hub Presidents. It got to the point where the RDU President just stopped going. And they did talk about the idea of COLA. What do you think the President of DFW would have to say about that? Sure let him bring that one back to his membership, NOT! Who sides with who in those negotiations is all that really matters.
And MIA isn't quite there yet in size to DFW but it's getting closer.
[SIZE=9pt]I agree the membership is not without fault, but is the end game assigning fault or getting better results? The majority of the responsibility lies with the leadership, that's part of the job
Agreed but the membership constantly votes in weak leaders from what I see anyway. And you and I don't see eye to eye on this one because I really believe the majority of members out there today want you to do everything for them. So how great the leader is may not even matter.
, to keep the members informed and educated so they can make the best decisions based on available information, and not simply be an echo chamber for management. Yes tell of the dangers, but also tell of the dangers of not fighting, explain that nobody ever went on strike because they didn't need the money, but if you are not willing to fight for it you will lose it, so you can take action when things are bad and you are struggling, or you can wait until you are even worse off and have even more of an excuse as to why you cant strike back.[/SIZE]
How many scabbed the NWA strike? They have a website that lists hundreds and hundreds of names. That's the reality that I see. Do you see something different at AA?
http://exnwa.com/scab_main.htm
http://exnwa.com/pdf/scab%20list.pdf