Keep in mind that it would work both ways. If there was no RLA and your contract happened to expire (rather than becoming amendable like under the RLA) during very rough economic times with a big pilot surplus there would be no status quo and the company could do anything including a lockout. Furlough from the top of the list instead of the bottom (or just randomly)....sure. Cut pay by 50% and start everyone at year one....sure. Eliminate paid sick time and/or paid vacation, sure. Without an agreement in place you would go back to being an employee at will. You could go on strike but in a weak economy there would be plenty of people willing to take your job or the company would just fold and you, along with your seniority and years of service, would be gone.
As somebody said previously, the RLA in and of itself is not the problem, it's the way the NMB (because of the shifting political landscape and slow economy) implements the act today. Endless mediation and putting talks "on ice" is a post 9-11 thing, it didn't work that way in the 1990's and before.
I may be wrong but it's my opinion that the after consolidation the big carriers are so big that it's going to be very tough for any group to ever get released. If they do and a strike results it will be halted by a PEB immediately. No president is going to take the heat for allowing a major airline strike that they have the power to stop ever again. Unions have lost a lot of clout in the last three decades and the general public doesn't see unions as the friend of the common man anymore. Union is becoming a dirty word in America. I don't agree with that but that's the way it is, unions have lost the PR battle.
