Decent description of an MEC . . . it's the group of elected union representatives for the airline as a whole. Then, there are LECs (Local Executive Councils) at each pilot base.
Just one note on the above number of Continental Airlines furloughs . . . the vast majority of those people are now flying Embraers for ExpressJet Airlines (dba Continental Express), courtesy of our "Flow-Through Agreement". This has created a disproportionate number of furloughs and downgrades here at Express. I believe we have about 430 on the street from Express, out of 2100 pre-9/11. CAL had roughly 4,800 pilots pre-9/11. I think it works out to about 3% of CAL pilots are actually furloughed, whereas it's about 20% from Express. Pretty screwy for a growing, profitable airline. Thus goes the story of union politics and major airline outsourcing of capacity. Though it's certainly nothing compared to being furloughed, being downgraded from Captain to FO sucks pretty bad, too. I suppose the number of furloughs roughly matches the number of those of us who are downgraded.