Relax. Rez is so used to the nimrods around here that don't do anything other than bit-- and whine that he probably just assumed that you were yet another one of them. Thanks for your service on an ALPA committee.
As for your idea, I agree that it would be wonderful to fix the RLA, but you have to think of this from the perspective of political strategy. What is the current environment in Washington? Who is in the White House? Are there any bad elements in Congress that could cause this to backfire on us? These are important things to consider when you start thinking about modifying or completely replacing the entire system that governs our bargaining ability. Things to consider:
1. With such slim Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, passing any sort of legislation that would be in favor of labor would be just about impossible. The more likely outcome would be a huge compromise bill that could inadvertently make things much worse. If we wait until the next session of Congress, we could end up with much bigger majorities that would make things much more favorable to our cause.
2. The President that is currently in the White House will never sign any legislation that puts more power into the hands of the labor movement. We could waste countless money and resources to get a bill pushed through Congress, only to have the President veto it. And with such slim majorities in the Congress, a veto override is an impossibility.
3. About five or six years ago, there actually was a bill being discussed on the Hill about modifying the RLA. The bill was called McCain-Lott. The basic idea of the bill was "baseball-style arbitration." In other words, the two parties would negotiate for a set period of time, and if they couldn't come to an agreement, both sides would submit their "last, best offer" to an arbitrator who would just pick one of the offers. The arbitrator's pick would be binding. This obviously would have been devastating to labor. The right to strike (our only leverage) would have been officially outlawed. Thanks to ALPA's hard work, we managed to kill this godforsaken bill. But Senator McCain is still in the Senate, and he's still holding on to this idea. If we start pushing for changes to the RLA, you can bet that he'll dredge up this monstrosity. With such slim Democratic majorities, he just might be able to push such a thing through. Better to wait until the pro-labor forces are larger on the Hill.
P.S. Any pilot who's thinking about voting for John McCain needs to have his head examined. This man is the most anti-pilot politician you could ever imagine.
