Re: Right
Publisher,
No the passengers certainly weren't SCABs, and, don't forget, I don't think EAL's non-contract employees (like your wife) were either. The non-contract people would have been fired immediately with no legal recourse had they honored the line; I understand that, and did not expect them to honor the picket line. However, many of them participated actively in the strike effort at the support level (manning telephones, producing printed material, supplying information from inside, etc.). For the most part, the non-contract people wanted to get rid of Lorenzo as badly as the unionized employees did.
I know that philosophically you and I are far, far apart on the SCAB issue and I have tried and tried to think of some corollary that would have some significance, some meaning to you to help explain my (the labor) point of view.
I think I understand your point of view (remember I was on the management side of the desk for a third of my career). For that matter, I even agree with your point of view when you are discussing things at the micro level--individuals dealing with individuals, and so on. But it doesn't work at the macro level--an individual employee trying to deal with a large corporate entity.
The only way that interaction can work and give the individual employee any chance whatsoever is when the individual employees band together as a group to level the playing field. And that can only work when the individuals support their own group effort
Most of the Eastern-employee SCABs either voted to honor the picket line, or didn't bother to vote. Most of them eagerly accepted the benefits and pay that ALPA had negotiated for them over the years. Most of them gladly accepted the legal assistance they received from ALPA when they had FAA or company problems.
When they became part of the organized group (and they didn't have to) they agreed to comply with a majority vote. They sure abided by the majority vote when it came time to accept a pay raise!
You see the employee-SCABs as free thinking individuals who wouldn't be told what to do. I see them as dishonorable, unethical, selfserving traitors. There were a few who resigned from ALPA and made it clear that they would not honor the picket line; I don't agree with them, but I respect their honesty. Most of them, however, continued to accept each and every benefit of being a union member until it started to hurt their pocketbook.
Then, suddenly, when they started thinking about money in their pockets or the promotions that they could suddenly get, they had a philosophical revelation that inspired them to be individualists, and free thinkers and across the picket line they went. It didn't matter what they had promised to do, or who they had given their word to, they were gone.
The off-the-street SCABs were just opportunists who saw a chance to acquire instantly and easily those things that others had fought for years to win.
I know you don't agree with me, and, frankly, I don't care and don't expect you to; but if you are ever in a position to need loyality and honesty from someone, I hope that person doesn't have the morals of a SCAB.
One of these days, I'll get really wound up and tell you how I really feel.
