No more debate with B19. He obviously is of the delusional camp that if you repeat lies and half truths enough times they become true.
Well, they don't.
FLOPS now has a union because all other avenues have been tried and led to dead ends. Talking with, discussing, and asking management for improvements at FLOPS has obviously failed. It seems to be working relatively well at Flex, and thus far no union there. But that just isn't the case at FLOPS.
B19 says the union isn't needed. His best advice for these pilots is to just suck it up and take it since you accepted employment there. Oh, and keep talking things over with management. After all, it's worked really well so far (for management!). Don't worry, one day they MAY throw you a bone. But a union certainly isn't needed.
B19 continues to try to make it sound like unions ruin companies. He continually fails to discuss whether these companies were doing well before the unions supposedly 'killed' them or if, as is the case in pretty much every example, the company was teetering on the brink of financial ruin anyway.
How many companies do we all know about and see every day, that when times were tough, whether union or non-union, wages and benefits were slashed to the bone, and the company still went under anyway.
B19 likes to hold up United and American as prime examples of how unions can ask for too much and ruin a company. He fails to mention that the union contracts at those companies didn't cause the problems, the economy and bad management did. The economy slowed down. The average airline pax couldn't afford to fly so much. The airline's own overscheduling at hub airports created massive delays. Refusal to keep pax in the loop, or even provide basic decent service created much ill will. Cutting back on amenities and services further incited pax backlash. Competition from LCC's (some of whom still have highly paid pilots) cut into the money further. Soaring fuel costs. Costly govn't regs that had to be implemented. And so on and so forth.
But according to B19, none of these factors had anything to do with United's and American's downfall. It was the unions. Riiiiight (in my best Dr. Evil voice).
And he STILL, after numerous posts about it, hasn't commented on upper management walking away with huge sums of money and bonuses while the unions are expected to take concessions. His take: management's contracts should be honored, the unions should give it up.
From now on, when B19 holds a company up as an example of how a union destroyed it, do a little research and see what condition the company was in before the union killed it. I think you'll find he's kind of glossing over the most important parts.
No more debating with someone with his, ahem, 'background', as has been revealed on these boards.
Good luck FLOPS guys and gals! It really IS a tough fight, but few things worthwhile in life aren't gotten without some kind of fight.
