Randy isn't as stupid as you think. He's a fast talking and slick snake oil salesman who "sings like a Canary" but has never ever followed through. Most of us have figured out that he could care less of arbitration, his IAM even 'agreed' with US AIRWAYS to limit any arbitration date to sometime this fall, this after US AIRWAYS went to court and dragged things out for months. It seems obvious that there is alot of 'staging' going on.
So what's happening and why did Canale put out some goofy letter about striking?
1. Everyone knows, the IAM has little to no support for a strike. Basically the IAM collects dues because they can. But they are NOT LEGITIMATE within the culture at US AIRWAYS and precious few would strike for them. This is self evident and I'm sure Randy knows this even though he blows off rhetoric so he can fill his front page messenger mag. So you can forget about a strike.
2. Most importantly. Randy Canale is a UA person. Worked for UA for years, sits or sat on its board, and still may be employed there. This is significant. UA wants a dance partner and since we already know there won't be a successful strike, IMO, Randy may be talking in such a damaging way that he's really trying to scare passengers off of US AIRWAYS and lower the shares even more for a possible UA bid.
4. To further the thought of a pending bid by UA, IMO, the thing the IAM needs is a 'quickie agreement'. This will help secure the dues and the big fat salaries of the Union Bosses.
Remember, THe LAST THING the IAM wants is most likely arbitration. Arbitration is a 'win/win' for US East employees. It's the 'winning lotto ticket' come true.
....BUT the big fat pay raises for the US East workers would create a 'big mess' with merging US west agents, and you could almost forget about it merging with UA agents. Therefore Canale must orchestrate something ahead of time, and if that's manufacturing a pseudo strike and screaming from atop the hill that any arbitration win will take years to get, then so be it.
The Arbitration is such a positive thing of justice, remember, if he was a real leader and had the best interest of US east then he would talk of hope and surround himself with positive talk about arbitration instead of running at the mouth about some goofy strike that can't happen. Puh leeessseeee!
My spin, he's just trying to soften PHL and CLT to the idea of another one of his sellouts. I'm not a psychic but expect a T/A sometime soon. As I've said before, don't expect the IAm to go to arbitration. Again, I have no inside knowledge so take this entire post as 'FWIW'.
regards,
