You want what?
One of the biggest problems with how union leadership gets elected is, in my opinion, that those who do get elected generally do so on the platform that is most aggressive. Whoever promises to fight for more than the other guy generally wins provided he or she can also appear to look aggressive too. As a result, unions are led by the vocal minority and that leadership almost never represents a voice of reason. Without a voice of reason, it’s extremely difficult to get an agreement in place.
American Airlines pilots have new union leadership. Lloyd Hill is being replaced by David Bates and I got a look at what they’re promising. Mind you, union promises are like any other political promises. No one expects all of them to come true but they are a gauge of just how much the elected has boxed himself into a corner. Terry Maxon at the Dallas Morning News has written THIS aviation blog entry. And here is a quote from the Dallas Morning News that is a quote of the Bates team:
Pay – Restoration, including retro plus annual raises plus permanent COLA raises after the amendable date. Scope – Protection and recapture of flying at both the top and bottom end of our fleet mix.
Stagnation – Mechanisms to deal with FO stagnation including a higher percentage of Captain’s pay.
Sequence Protection is the norm in the industry. Pilots should not be financially penalized because of marketing decisions, earth quakes, volcanoes, hurricanes or other planetary events.
Reserve – Our reserve system needs a complete overhaul. We need a system pilots can live with.
Vacation – Increased credit for vacation.
Sick – Enhanced sick provisions for pilots.
Pension – Pension protection for all pilots on the seniority list.
Profit Sharing – The economy is improving. APA should return to a profit sharing plan that mirrors the one management has for themselves.
NEVER . . . GOING . . . TO. . . HAPPEN.
In fact, if this is the negotiating position going into talks with AA, I foresee many more long talks taking place. I think the pilots (or some other union) really wants a strike with AA. They want a precedent for restoring that long lost pay and the pilots think they can set that precedent.
AA cannot afford to give in on issues like that. The productivity of pilots and flight crew compared to other airlines is already pretty bad. Restoring that pay means the end of AA. Management cannot meet those demands. They cannot get close to meeting those demands. To even arrive in the same state much less the same ballpark on those demands would mean the end of AA.
Even worse, AA loses in any strike action that shuts down the airline. I would guess that AA could survive, at most, 10 to 20 days of a strike and that’s it. There are no resources available to assist them with keeping the airline in the air. Not like British Airways has done (While BA seems like a “huge” airline, it’s actually a pretty small airline in terms of fleet size. BA has about 250 aircraft total. AA has considerably well over 600 aircraft.)
There are reasonable union leaders out there. Delta’s Lee Moak is one. Continental’s ALPA leader, Jay Pierce is pretty reasonable. Those men have recognized the fundamental changes in the industry and they understand that a return to status quo not only isn’t going to happen, it isn’t in a pilot’s best interests to happen.
And then we have Lloyd Hill giving way to David Bates & Team. American Airlines let all of these talks go on for too long. To have one union after another all lining up eager to be the one who “sticks” it to the airline is not a good position to be in. To have so many labor contracts in talks at the same time is not a good position to be in. AA is literally standing in a big hall staring at all the other unions who are each independently and cooperatively are determined to A) stick it to the current management team and B) win back pay levels that were unsustainable 10 years ago and remain unsustainable today. And those unions have both the power and, more importantly, the anger and fury to shut down the airline.
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