I for one don't think that a strike by the TWU members will happen. Too many individuals and families with little or no savings, just barely getting by paycheck to paycheck. No unemployment benefits to offset lost income while on strike. Credit cards maxed out to pay bills that the paychecks won't. So when it's time to vote for a strike, many will say openly that they will vote yes for a strike, but their pen will mark the NO box on a strike ballot. Just my two cents.
If people only struck when they could afford to strike there would not only be no strikes but there would be no reason to strike.
What you have to look at is this. If you are barely getting by now and the company is standing firm on its "cost neutral" position then things are only going to get worse.
What you have to remember is that inflation automatically gives you a paycut every year so a "cost neutral" contract means that your real pay will be cut through inflation. Not only that but the real paycut you see is higher than the CPI. The CPI is very flawed. When companies attach things like "surcharges" and "fees" after giving you the price quote those figures arent included in the basket of goods the BLS uses to compute the CPI. Sometimes they can be very high. For instance I use Natural Gas to heat my home. The surcharges are pretty much equal to what I pay per therm, but the increased surcharges are not included as an increase in the price of Natural Gas so the economic impact of those surcharges, which are very real, are nonexistant as far as the CPI.
Credit card fees, baggage fees, energy surcharges, the list gets very creative but on more and more of your purchases you see some sort of fee or surcharge added and more than likely they are not added to the CPI but they do add to the cost of what you purchased. Some even charge a surcharge for selling you the product you just bought! Businesses even do it to each other. When AA talks to a bank about renegotating a loan, bang, a fee just for talking.
The company can then brag that they renegotiated terms on outstanding debt and lowered it by two points but leave out the fact that it cost the $2million dollars in fees to do so, effectively lowering any real benifit of renegotiating the loan. But, they get to tell the employees what a great job they are doing with the finances and now we have to do our part.
AA has jumped onto the "surcharge and fees" badwagon, and used it to not only screw the consumer but mislead us as well. They claim that ticket prices are declining ,"thats why we cant pay you more". However we can see that they took in more revenue while flying fewer passengers, sounds like PFM to me! We charged less, flew less, but generated more revenue! Sure the ticket price may have went down but the amount of money that they got out of those people went up, in they end they paid more to get where they are going. The lower ticket price doesnt mean they paid less for what they used to get, now they tack on fees and surcharges for things that used to be part of the ticket price. They even charge you for getting a ticket!Because its different for every passenger, who checked bags, who printed out a ticket, who made reservations by phone, who bought a meal on board etc its ignored but they add up to very big numbers.
The point is that your costs as a consumer will continue to increase even if you are being told that prices are going down. If you think its bad now its only going to get worse unless you are prepared to fight and make it better. If you are just getting by now eventually you will not be. You will be in even worse shape to fight then, if thats your excuse now. The choice is yours, fight now or accept that things will continue to get worse.
