Kev3188 said:
If you're honestly trying to equate At Will employment with a legally binding collective bargaining agreement, then we have nothing else to discuss, and should agree to spare this board's bandwidth.
Yea I hear you but unions need to be more dynamic with their scope clauses. This industry is dynamic and unions have not adjusted to it yet.
Take UA for example; prior to BK the IAM had tethers into buildings, leases, and infrastructure.
IIRC, the IAM, built up guarantees of minimum employees at every station and hub (ALPA & AFA had the same).
Take Indy as one example, the company put everyone on ANP (Absent No Pay) and shut down Indy in a week. Of course the company violated numerous scope clauses but they did it anyway. Eventually, the IAM got those guys N’Gals back pay and the ability to bid the system but the scope clause for a vested interest in Indy was lost.
Now CLE is on the chopping block, if the unions where more dynamic, their contracts would at least mitigate the impact as they knew this was coming.
Problem is that the company has to be dynamic to be competitive. They have to be nimble to change as the market changes. If they can’t, they will fail.
I don’t know how many times that UA management pointed the fingers at WN as the gold standard while not acknowledging the facts that they were the best paid, most unionized in the business. But their contracts were ‘nimble’, that’s what UA management failed to grasp or at least portray.
JMHO, unions need to concentrate on pay and benefits. Trade ‘infrastructure scope’ for seniority rules, layoff bonuses/buy outs, and moving expenses.
Unions need to act like Unions as well. The AFA represents both sCO & sUA but sCO are willing to let people go to the street on the sUA side. Same with the IBT, sCO is hiring off the street and sUA is laying off.
WTF!
I don’t have a dog in this fight anymore but I do have the perspective to see what ‘some’ of the unions problems are.
‘An injury to One is an Injury to All’
When Unions can work together and accept this concept, they will be a formidable foe.
As they are backstabbing each other for dues payers, not so much ‘solidarity’.
Just my 2 Cents…
B) xUT