deano said:
  Fine. Again in simple terms.
  Fear will rule the day especially with the old timers, dissention will be high and is shown in your words in that post, too much discord, too much negatives to make a positive outcome. What they are shooting for is to have labor make way for a fire sale and with some posters attitudes it will happen.
[post="237202"][/post]
You may be right. Fear may rule the day. You can blame the old timers, but the blame really lies elsewhere. The blame lies in the fact that your union has provided no leadership, no alternatives, no options, no plans, no future and no hope.
Working people formed unions in times of crisis to protect them from what we in this industry are going through. They did not form unions when times were good and companies gave raises, they formed when companies wanted concessions.
Working people learned that through collective action they had power.
In few other industries is the potential for labor as great as the labor intensive specific skilled aviation industry. The need for criminal free backrounds and the ability to secure a 10 year background check simply adds to labors leverage.
Labor has failed to make the most of this potential power, and the fault can be placed squarely on the divisive fractured structure of the labor movement in this industry.
During the deregulated era Labors structure in the airlines was acceptable, a mish mash of industrial unions that were organized like company unions mixed in with a few craft unions also organized along company lines was able to deliver acceptable performance.
However the deregulated Era presented new challenges that the unions never rose up to.
Where does the company have the advantage?
Seniority.
Workers have shown that they will give up everything in order to preserve seniority. The way we have it structured our most cherished benifit is the company's strongest weapon against us.
Our seniority is tied to the company, not the union.
If workers had portable seniority they would not be as willing to sacrifice everything else to preserve their relationship with one particular company. Seniority makes the union members relationship with the company more important than his relationship with the union.
In order for portable senioritty to be effective that union would need to have a monopoly on the entire industry, or at least the entire craft.
No longer would there be any progressions. This is the rate you pay for x workers. The lack of progressions makes it advantageous to hire experienced workers instead of inexperienced ones and keeps the system viable.
Well any way the point is that we need a major restructuring of the Labor movement in this industry. It will not happen from within as the leaders of the IAM, TWU and IBT lack the courage or the incentive to embark upon what would undoubtably be a tumultuous arduos task.
Resistance would not come from the members but from the leaders of the varous unions who are willing to sacrifice the well being of all their members to preserve their positions.
Lack of good leadership has led to the downfall of civilzations, in our case it led to the downfall of a career. Dont let the spinmasters that have assumed the postions that leaders should be filling tell you anything different, its not the members fault, its the leaders fault. When they say "Get involved", asking for specifics is not an anti-union act. When they blame you ask them what you need them for? Call their bluff and if they actually do ask you to do something specific, do it, then see what their next excuse will be.
The fact is there will be no change from within, we have only one option out there if we ever want to see this industry once again provide careers. We need to form industry-wide unions where members enjoy the same freedom of movement as assetts. Where we can speak as one and not let any company or court pick us apart one at a time. A union that will lead, a union that is specific to our industry. We need Airline industry unions. The IAM, TWU and IBT should be sent back to their respective industries, they have done enough damage to ours.
