You know the first book I ever read on unions dealt with European unions and how they do business . Here in the states there’s a lot of talk about solidarity and fighting the company , but over there the workers understand that the better their company does the better they will do and the more secure their jobs will be . They fight the company when they MUST and cooperate with it when they can .
Right now the united states economy continues to worsen , as it worsens unions such as our own , or any other in the airline industry lose bargaining power … we were lucky to make the gains we did when we did , even though they came at a high cost …. If we were still in talks today , those of you who had high expectations would be significantly let down .Our union has lost most of it’s power , right now all that our union can do for us is to make sure that we are treated fairly , and that’s enough in my opinion to justify unions …It’s high time our union recognize like they do in Europe that in order for us to succeed our company also needs to succeed . (every union at us airways needs to recognize that )
While we may have new leadership , that new leadership won’t be able to do much more than what our old leadership did for us . If those of you on here blamed the past leadership for the fact that our union took concessions in BK , then you were wrong to do so , had you not taken concessions , none of the other unions would have taken them and your US airways would simply be a footnote in history .
We may be facing the same scenario once again , althou I myself would much prefer that all of the unions prepare to face what maybe coming jointly , in my mind this means an inter union council where all the leaders of us airways unions gather and discuss amongst themselves what we could or would like to give up as a group .(they do that in europe ) That’s wishful thinking on my part however …
What is NOT wishful thinking is that we should at least begin to prepare for the likely possibility of concessions in the 4th quarter or the start of the new year . I see absolutely no reason we should lie or misguide our own membership into the belief that there can be no further cuts going forward . Do I want cuts ? not really but I do acknowledge that it’s a possibility , and there’s a part of me that grudgingly accepts that cuts maybe necessary to keep our company going .
It’s dawned on me that while concessions maybe inevitable , what need not be is giving them away for nothing … this is where our 19 cities come in … Yes normally our company would NEVER under any circumstance trade anything for the cost savings that they will achieve through the loss of these cities , but times are far from normal .. I believe that having cash on hand (COH) is now so important to this company that they would be willing to negotiate limited concessions in return for our 19 cities .
I’m more than willing to give up all of my holidays today if we can get our 19 cities back … in a perfect world perhaps our unions leaders would sit down with the company and write a new agreement , of course putting a clause in it that in the event the company returns to BK we automatically get our holidays back …
Ah well , sorry to push all of your buttons , I just cannot understand how so many of you can’t accept the “possibility†that there could be more concessions going forward in the economic climate our industry is now in .
