Unions, Airlines and Economics

[enigma]

anjinoo7

Please answer two simple questions

1. Which current major airline has the largest percentage of its workers unionized/

2. Which major airline is currently profitable?

And a comment. Henry Ford quadrupled his employees wages early in his company's life because he realized that workers who earned slave wages would never be able to afford his product.

Go ahead and regurgitate economic theory all you want, but please try and mix in a little reality.

enigma

BTW, I'm a: right to work, free market, conservative. I also believe that managment gets the work force it deserves and it doesn't matter whether those workers are union or not. If management so chooses, having a unionized workforce is NOT a detriment to their company's economic standing.

 

[chawbein]

How many of those engineers have the threat hanging over their head that if they don't accept the company's offer, they will be fired, and they'll have to enter the work force at another company at the bottom of the corporate ladder earning entry-level wages again? How many of those executives go from upper-echelon wages after 25 years with Company A to bottom-rung wages at Company B to begin the ladder climb again?

Did you learn this stuff at school?!?! Did you pay for it?

The only reason that this occurrs is because of union labor and the seniority system. Only in industries with union labor is it impossible to make a lateral job move. All non-union workers face being terminated for whatever reason, but most aren't. That is an emotional arguement, not based on fact or logic.

It is true that labor unions artificially raise wages, because of their ability to take action against the company.

The problem has been stated before, there are no discernable ways to quantify performance where everyone has the same skills and the same job. Pilot wages SHOULD be relatively flat for that very reason. Instead they are inflated at very high "seniority" levels, and deflated at very low "seniority" levels.

 

[smellthejeta]

I don't really have strong feelings on this issue one way or the other but I disagree with this statement by TonyC.
I don't believe this is true. There are MANY non-union jobs where the employer takes care of his employees without a union. A union is a very political "agent" and with that comes good and bad. In a non-union job you have the ability to walk in to your bosses office and ask for a raise or to negotiate something before you accept the job. In a union job, you must go through the union and whatever contract is currently in use, that is what you get, no negotiating.

Well, if you have something the employer wants, he'll compensate you appropriately. An engineer right out of school and an egnineer who's been in for ten years are completely different engineers. An engineer with a PHD and an engineer without one are two different engineers.

Quick, tell me why the captain is the captain and the fo is the fo? 'Cause the captain got hired before the FO. The economics of an airline are different, because eveything is predicated on the fact that there is *NO* differentiation in skill set amongst pilots.

Don't believe me? Try swiching senior engineers in the middle of a project. It sucks. Try switching captains in the middle of a trip. It happens all the time without skipping a beat.

A boss can't fire you just because he feels like firing someone today. Even non-union workers have a legal recourse if something like that happens.

Uh, no. Have you ever heard of a right to work state? As long as the company hasn't discriminated against you because you are part of a protected class, you or the company can terminate your employment for any or no reason with no advanced notice. Period.

 

[RW/FW Ex-Army W]

Tony,

I have heard a lot of bull in my years, but you are one artist. Stalin could have used a front man like you. Worker's Paradise - Comrades Unite!!

So you don't think the term "cartel" applies to unions? How 'bout RICCO? Yeah, unions are the great protectors of the working man. And I hear talk of JBLU guys drinking Kool-Aid.

 

[smellthejeta]

The only reason that this occurrs is because of union labor and the seniority system. Only in industries with union labor is it impossible to make a lateral job move. All non-union workers face being terminated for whatever reason, but most aren't. That is an emotional arguement, not based on fact or logic.

You're kidding yourself if you think management doesn't like the seniority system. Growth means they can get experienced newhires and pay them diddly squat. It means they can jerk their employees around quite a bit, because the pilots really won't quit to be junior man at another airline. Airlines would *hate it* if they had the more traditional system that was not based on seniority.

Look at what happened when Midway went Tango Uniform. ACA, Comair, etc got a bunch of experienced CRJ pilots and got to pay them new hire wages. Now that ACA just kicked 500 pilots to the curb, SkyWest (NON UNION) and Comair are picking up a bunch of CRJ pilots and paying them $23,000 per year when some of them have four years of experience. Do you think management wants to pay them more? I don't.

Another question I want to know the answer to is that if management hates the seniority system so much, why do non-union front line labor groups at the airline still use them? I think it's because management actually likes it. The difference is that you can't make the unions the scapegoat for something management actually likes.

 

[TonyC]

And I hear talk of JBLU guys drinking Kool-Aid.

Same recipe Fred Smith used, different color.

 

[Sctt@NJA]

I remember the first time I saw the union mentality in action and it disgusted me. I was working as a security guard part time while flight instructing. Big snow storm and an old security guy shoveled a little path along part of his route. The the union shovel crew showed up and chewed him out for taking food from their families mouths. It was the stupidest ugliest thing I had ever seen. At that time I though unions were nothing but bad.

Later I got a job flying for a non-union charter company. We all worked hard to make the company a success. There were times that management would change policies that we might not like. We could argue and sometimes get our way. But that was a small company where each employee represented a substantial fraction of the talent available to the company. A competant captain was not easily replaced there.

Now I work for a big company. If there were no union there would be no recourse to arbitrary policy changes by management. No individual pilot would have any leverage. Any one person is just a drop in the bucket and would not be missed. This is where a union is helpfull. It is just a way of getting some leverage back into the hands of the employees. Not all the leverage. Just some... as much as an indivual would have at a small company.

 

[chawbein]

You are correct! The seniority system is loved by "management", because it keeps workers from making a lateral move to a different company, they don't have to pay for experience unless that experience is gained only at their company. I made that point in my previous post.

There is no logical reason that a pilot who has worked for an airline for 12 years should make 20% more than a pilot who does the exact same job and has worked for 6 years. The same goes for a 12 year vs a 1 year, but that pay is doubled. I digress....

 

[enigma]

There is no logical reason that a pilot who has worked for anairlinefor 12 years should make 20% more than a pilot who does theexact samejob and has worked for 6 years. The same goes for a 12 yearvs a 1year, but that pay is doubled. I digress....

There is a logical reason for a 12 year pilot to make more than asixyear pilot. It is this: the company chose to reward an employeeforhis/her loyalty.

There is a very good reason for doubling pay for the left seat. Theleftseat has all of the responsibility. Period. I value my FO's, Iattemptto treat them as equals; but end the end I am the pilotacceptingresponsibility for the safe and legaltransportation of aircraft,passengers, and crew. If you pay the rightseat equal pay, you must givethem equal responsibility. If that was aviable plan, I think that maybethe military would have adopted it longago. I wasn't military, but I doread Tom Clancy, and I don't believe that an aircraft carrier is commanded by Co-Captains.

enigma

 

[enigma]

A couple of quick notes. TonyC, ya da man bro!

To all of you pilot union detractors. Pilots/transportation workers unions are not the same as other labor unions. They do operate under different laws and don't have the power to strike at the drop of a hat. NWA ALPA has the reputation of being a rattlesnake during the shed; "can't see, and will strike at anything". When was the last time NWA pilots walked? The last major airline pilot strike was when?, almost twenty years ago? Comair doesn't count, but even if it did I think that you'll find that their pilots flew for two years past the time that their contract was ammendable before they finally were allowed to strike. Even Bill Clinton, a supposedly pro-labor democrat President, didn't allow the AA pilots to walk.

Another point, to you who want the free market to be completely in charge. Would you buy a ticket on a totally unregulated airline? I doubt it. Whether you like unions or not, reasonable people recognize that our industry needs safety regulation and when regulation comes in, the free market goes out.

The next point in this ramble. What would pilot wages and work rules be like in a totally unregulated environment? I'll bet that wages would be low, and work rules would be non-existant. Would you all be as motivated to work in the business if all jobs were as crappy as a non-demand 135 job? Again, I doubt it.

To me, those who don't like unionized pilots think that the unions are holding you back. They are NOT. ALPA has it's flaws, but it's main sin is that it has fought for and won wage increases that have made this alucrative career. If it weren't for ALPA, APA, SWAPA, etc, professional pilots would be working for next to nothing and you boy's would be over on a Doctors website, arguing about unfairness in the medical profession.

enigma