How long have you been feeling that way?
So this is an interrogation, you ask and I answer.Dont think so.
The fact is that airline workers and most other rank and file workers where a multitude of workers perform similar tasks have to combine in order to maximize their compensation, one of the tactics they must use is the threat or use of the strike. While individual workers are more easily replaced a whole workforce is much more difficult. Some would cite that NWA has replaced their mechanics but thats not entirely true and it certainly was not done without costs, in fact NWAs strike with AMFA has and continues to hurt the company and the company has only been able to operate because other unionized workers, such as the IAM were willing to do struck work.
Over the years many Unions, especially in the airline industry, lost their original direction, one of the reasons for this is because the government has put in place rules that keep corrupt unions and corrupt leaders in place. Another is the AFL-CIO. Its very difficult for members to change unions and accountability is nonexistant in many unions. That does not mean that unionism is bad, it means that the structure that has perverted unions is bad. Workers need representation, and the workers should be given the option to choose their representation on a regular basis. One of the flaws in labor law is that when it comes to chosing a union if someone doesnt vote it gets counted as a no vote, well thats obscene, non votes should be looked at as what it is, a non-vote, not for or against anything. All elections are basically an option to either choose the status quo or change. A nonvote is not an expressed endorsement of either. Under these rules a politician would stay in office forever unless the majority of those eligible to vote voted for someone else. Labor representation elections should be the same way as political representation.
If a politician makes all sorts of promises and doesnt deliver he usually gets voted out, despite the fact that the majority of the electorate does not bother to vote, but with a union thats not the case. In order for a union to get a vote going they only need a 35% call for an election, however if the membership is unhappy with the performance of the union they need a 50%+1 call for another election. While unions have the resources to pay people to solicit for the 35% needed to get in, a disenchanted rank and file have to meet the much higher mark through their own efforts and expense because in order to get a new union they often have to form an entirely new organization.
So we have a situation where we have corrupt or inept leaders that are to varying degrees difficult to remove and a legal structure that in effect protects the status quo.
Unions argue against accountability by citing the fact that if they willingly grant it the cards are stacked against them-which is true because of the fact that non votes count as votes to go non-union and in this country voter turnout is usually poor. Unions also complain about the fact that non-votes are counted against at this time, but not when there is an attempt for a new representational vote .
Members often feel that even a bad union is better than no union so they accept poor representation and corrput leadership rather than being thrown to the whims of untrustworthy corporate leaders.
So what are we to do? Simply accept it? Leave, run away? What makes you think that you wont find the same problems elsewhere? The fact is if we stay we must resist. Why not do it right where we already invested many years of our lives? We must push for accountability, push for reform and force change, and eventually it will come to the point where we have to face off. It should have happened three years ago but our so called leaders where all in bed with the executives.
What happened in this industry should not have happened. The fact is that the corporate leaders of this country cashed in on the blood of the 9-11 victims. They used fear, disinformation and laws and rules that they wrote in order to tranfer huge sums of money from us to them.
The fact is that our unions also let us down. Their business plans came ahead of ideology.
We hear the airlines cite the billions they lost since 2001. Well we heard a similar tale in the early 90s. In the early 90s the airlines claimed that they lost more money in one year than the industry made in its prior 70 year existance. Now how is that possible? How could the industry have survived if that was true? Because it really wasnt true, sure they lost money, just like they have over the last few years but how much of those losses were real and how much were fabricated? And who really lost money? This time around we know who did. Over at UAL the employees owned the company, in fact they bought it, not only did they lose a big chunk of their compensation but they lost ownership as well, even though shares in UAL now sell at $35/sh.
Over at UAL they used the false crises of the early 90s to get the employees to give concessions for shares in the company, 10 years later the same people who sold them the shares at top dollar took it all back for next to nothing.
During the mid 90s many of the airlines were complaining to their employees about the tax liability that their record profits were generating, why was that? Could it be that many of the write offs were used in the early 90s to inflate losses? Things such as accelerated depreciation and other accounting gimmicks that corporations lobbied to have put in the tax code?
In 2002 AA claimed to lose $3.5 billion, yet $988 million was from "Goodwill losses" alone. They also wrote off the entire potential liablity for accumulated AAdvantage miles and they prepaid leases.
NWA was slow to get into the act, still claiming profits when everyone else was or claimed to be courting BK. When NWA saw what everyone else was walking away with all of a sudden their fortunes changed, did passenger loads all of a sudden change that much? Did Cargo drop off? Sure fuel went up but it went up for just about everyone, especially the BK carriers who could not hedge. NWA had to get in on the frenzy, so all of a sudden they were as broke as everyone else.
The fact is people we have been had. The airplanes must fly. High load factors ditate that, when we failed to shut it down, largely due to our failed unions, we lost everything that was gained over a 50 year period. Yea we still have jobs, but they have our money. If we had shut it all down we would have had both.
Unions preach unity yet they dont practice it,they allow one industry to be fractured into a totally incoherant representational structure, the move by the NWA FAs towards unity within the AFA is a step in the right direction.
