That was pretty fucking stupid. Do you own stock in this airline? I'd sell immediately. I've heard of laws that don't allow strikes. Which law doesn't permit strikebreakers?
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How unions devastate the airline industry
- Thread starter Loren Pechtel
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That was pretty fucking stupid. Do you own stock in this airline? I'd sell immediately. I've heard of laws that don't allow strikes. Which law doesn't permit strikebreakers?
I certainly wouldn't own airline stock!
As for the laws--it's the FAA. An airline can't fly without a good portion of it's usual pilots.
I understand a plane can't fly without a qualified pilot on board, but that is not the same thing as "the law doesn't permit strikebreakers."
Is there a Federal law which prohibits an airline from operating it's aircraft with qualified pilots when the union is on strike? It can't be a part of the union contract because most strikes are called when the contract expires.
Yes, there is a federal law, as the article in the OP says.
The purpose is that pilots in the same corporate culture will work together better than a hodgepodge but the effect is to preclude strikebreaking of the pilots union.
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
The lower pay for pilots in small commuter airlines most be the reason that tickets on commuter airlines are so cheap compared to tickets on the major airlines and why the government has to subsidize the major airlines and they don't subsidize the commuters.
Of course, the exact opposite is true, tickets on commuter airlines are more expensive in spite of the subsidies that the commuters get from the government. [/board required spoiler alert for the sarcasm impaired]
I don't see your point here.
Commuter airline flights generally serve low traffic airports, it's not surprising the tickets cost more.
What I'm saying is that we have the top guys making a mint while the guys at the bottom have living/working conditions that pose a safety hazard.
Petrel
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I don't believe any union requires that entry-level jobs be underpaid, nor that the most junior people be overworked. I don't even believe any union mandates that the bulk of the staff be underpaid, overworked juniors. All they say is that if you survive 25 years in that crazy job and still have all your marbles, you get paid as much as the junior sales manager. $180,000 is hardly 'a mint' - as, say, compared the CEO (zero danger; no absences from family, no night work) at $1,800,000. The $300,000 figure is a rare exception for pilots.... though quite common for surgeons, who only have to be responsible for one person at a time.
travc
Junior Member
Ah... Airlines and unions. Perennial anti-labor topic for many decades, despite the fact that the industry went from having very strong unions (and regulation) to having relatively weak unions or non-union (and basically only having safety related regulations).
I grew up (in the 80s) with my dad working for an airline, an airline which went from being unionized to being mostly non-unionized. I heard bitching about both union rule stupidity and management running roughshod over the workers stupidity. The airline was close to bankruptcy a few times, but only actually went bankrupt long *after* it had gotten rid of almost all its unions. The bankruptcy was due to many factors, of course, but obvious stupidity by management was way up there on the list of problems... employee pay and work rules were a minor factor, though they were hammered in reorganization as always.
Most of the big-name airlines are unionized (Jet Blue is non-union, and Delta is non-union with the exception of pilots), but many of the regional carriers are non-union. Furthermore, the big-name airlines have sub-contracted more and more of their operations to regional carriers, and, in fact, basically use regional carriers as a de-facto 'entry level' for pilots, maintenance crews, ect. From everything I've heard, being a young pilot pretty much sucks working-conditions and pay wise these days.
-- This is the root of the difference between those senior pilots with great pay and job security and junior pilots being shafted, not union seniority rules (except to the extent that the older pilots often have effective union protection and the younger pilots generally don't.)
BTW: The shift towards out-sourcing / sub-contracting to regional carriers is a huge deal, and has happened really quickly. It is the most important factor by far for in almost anything going on with the airline industry (or with workers in the industry), but the major airlines want to keep quiet about it since branding is so damn important... people seem happy enough ignoring the 'operated by' stuff printed in small text on their itinerary, but aren't generally happy if they actually think about flying a no-name airline.
PS: Again, Frontline did a couple of very good (IMO) episodes on the airline industry a few years ago... They are still well worth watching:
Flying Cheap
Flying Cheaper/
I grew up (in the 80s) with my dad working for an airline, an airline which went from being unionized to being mostly non-unionized. I heard bitching about both union rule stupidity and management running roughshod over the workers stupidity. The airline was close to bankruptcy a few times, but only actually went bankrupt long *after* it had gotten rid of almost all its unions. The bankruptcy was due to many factors, of course, but obvious stupidity by management was way up there on the list of problems... employee pay and work rules were a minor factor, though they were hammered in reorganization as always.
Most of the big-name airlines are unionized (Jet Blue is non-union, and Delta is non-union with the exception of pilots), but many of the regional carriers are non-union. Furthermore, the big-name airlines have sub-contracted more and more of their operations to regional carriers, and, in fact, basically use regional carriers as a de-facto 'entry level' for pilots, maintenance crews, ect. From everything I've heard, being a young pilot pretty much sucks working-conditions and pay wise these days.
-- This is the root of the difference between those senior pilots with great pay and job security and junior pilots being shafted, not union seniority rules (except to the extent that the older pilots often have effective union protection and the younger pilots generally don't.)
BTW: The shift towards out-sourcing / sub-contracting to regional carriers is a huge deal, and has happened really quickly. It is the most important factor by far for in almost anything going on with the airline industry (or with workers in the industry), but the major airlines want to keep quiet about it since branding is so damn important... people seem happy enough ignoring the 'operated by' stuff printed in small text on their itinerary, but aren't generally happy if they actually think about flying a no-name airline.
PS: Again, Frontline did a couple of very good (IMO) episodes on the airline industry a few years ago... They are still well worth watching:
Flying Cheap
Flying Cheaper/
arkirk
Veteran Member
For the last 25 years, it has been flying without ME as one of its passengers. The FAA is most heavily influenced by the Airlines. During the days following 911, when no planes were in the air. Our skies cleared up. The airline industry is an air polluter and while our society quietly accepts its pollution and corruption, I could care less who profits most in this totally corrupt industry.
I live near an airport where nearby homes are sound insulated partially at taxpayers' expense. I do think that an industry that pays its junior pilots between sixteen and twenty thousand dollars a year must give them some time off to go get food stamps. If the union is co-responsible for this low pay, then it too is corrupted. Perhaps flying around the world and air commuting is not a practical thing...especially in environmental terms.
One flight across the U.S. in an airliner fully loaded consumes as much fossil fuel per passenger as driving one's car for one full year. It is obvious to me the airlines care little about the environment, its passengers, and its junior pilots. Unions in business entities that are environmentally unsound tend to accept some of the environmental corruption of the companies in support of their livelihoods. It looks like this industry has been flying above the radar for a long time and the chickens are coming home to roost.
fromderinside
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My view is that when workers decide they would rather forfeit (most of it) pay rather than work under conditions airlines impose that the proper response for the airline is to respect their sentiments and negotiate a new contract rather than expend money trying to destroy the union. After all the primary cost for airlines are (in order) advertising, administration, fuel, station expenses, passenger services, maintenance, then flight crew, other, depreciation, airport charges, enroute facility charges. Employees are significant parts of passenger services, maintenance, and flight crew. So personnel, if we include all categories as completely personnel expense, are less than 30% of operating costs.
Bottom line is airline companies have other ways to decrease costs. I mean, geez airline administration overhead percentages (12.2% from:
"Operating expenses of the airline industry" http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/airlinecosts.html
are greater than that of education (Oklahoma, 8.4% from "Oklahoma's public schools have a relatively low administration rate operating costs" http://okpolicy.org/oklahomas-public-schools-have-relatively-low-administration-costs )
 By the by. It was almost impossible to get a good accounting of public education cost proportions. Seems most data reflects some sort of a political agenda or another, like the one we're having now with airlines. |
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pegasus8
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The airlines need to continue Ronnie's work and fire all those older pilots just like he did with those communist PATCO agitators!
Thanks for the information. Now some of us can fully understand why airlines charge for peanuts and other stuff. It is the dam unions and the senior pilots raking in the dough. This article is very concise with that "air" of being fair and balance and unafraid to report the truth and so on and so forth.
Just think for a second people. Those darn senior pilots are holding America's airlines hostage by demanding 95% and up to 115% of an airline's profits. How anyone can claim a corporation's profits to the tune of 115% is beyond this layman's intelligence but it sounds good and clearly shows the evils of union representation in the pilot's cabin.
Seniority based pay is nothing but a veil for socialism and union thuggery or something like that. Well I read something like that in the editorial section of the WSJ the other day so it must be true. We all know deep down in our hearts that seniority and amassing hours in a pilot's seat should not have anything to do with who gets to sit in the pilot's seat. And from what I hear is that most of the flying in today's cockpit is done by automatic pilot something and this or that stuff.
So the unions need to get out of negotiating contracts for people who have spent most of their lives flying. It just does not make any sense and uncle Milton Friedman said something about free markets and stuff. Oh and while we are dismantling the pilots unions we should look carefully at shaving the labor laws, the totally out of control FAA and anyone else who dare blocks the sunlight of freedom, reg TM. for the shadow of the Invisible Hand of life, liberty and the god given right for corporate profits!
"A competent pilot union negotiator will present the airline with a plan to transfer essentially all expected future profits into the paychecks of pilots. It does not make sense to accept less because the pilots always have the power to strike and shut the airline down. The only real point of discussion would concern the best estimate of what the airline's profits are likely to be during the term of the contract." philip.greenspun.com
See makes sense to me!
Thank you and god bless America
Peace
Pegasus
Thanks for the information. Now some of us can fully understand why airlines charge for peanuts and other stuff. It is the dam unions and the senior pilots raking in the dough. This article is very concise with that "air" of being fair and balance and unafraid to report the truth and so on and so forth.
Just think for a second people. Those darn senior pilots are holding America's airlines hostage by demanding 95% and up to 115% of an airline's profits. How anyone can claim a corporation's profits to the tune of 115% is beyond this layman's intelligence but it sounds good and clearly shows the evils of union representation in the pilot's cabin.
Seniority based pay is nothing but a veil for socialism and union thuggery or something like that. Well I read something like that in the editorial section of the WSJ the other day so it must be true. We all know deep down in our hearts that seniority and amassing hours in a pilot's seat should not have anything to do with who gets to sit in the pilot's seat. And from what I hear is that most of the flying in today's cockpit is done by automatic pilot something and this or that stuff.
So the unions need to get out of negotiating contracts for people who have spent most of their lives flying. It just does not make any sense and uncle Milton Friedman said something about free markets and stuff. Oh and while we are dismantling the pilots unions we should look carefully at shaving the labor laws, the totally out of control FAA and anyone else who dare blocks the sunlight of freedom, reg TM. for the shadow of the Invisible Hand of life, liberty and the god given right for corporate profits!
"A competent pilot union negotiator will present the airline with a plan to transfer essentially all expected future profits into the paychecks of pilots. It does not make sense to accept less because the pilots always have the power to strike and shut the airline down. The only real point of discussion would concern the best estimate of what the airline's profits are likely to be during the term of the contract." philip.greenspun.com
See makes sense to me!
Thank you and god bless America
Peace
Pegasus
You can refuse to believe it but that doesn't make it so.
And I didn't say it was the majority, I said the commuter pilots were underpaid and overworked to the point that it's a safety problem.
bilby
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As safety hazard?
Do you think they would be safer driving a bus?
If unionisation of the airline industry is responsible for the current airline safety record, then I suggest it is time to unionise as much industry as possible. The airline industry is amongst the safest industries there is.
fromderinside
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So you're saying a scheduler is a pilot? You need to do that if you are saying it's pilots who are making junior personnel of commuter airlines work such long hours. Its more likely, if you need a thing to bust, that FAA oversight is remiss letting small airlines operate without sufficient supervision. It seems to me that if there is too little oversight at small hubs, the places where most commuters operate its because FAA is underfunded. Have you any idea of how hard airlines resist updating and qualification evals for their pilots. Its unbelievable. they think that because the government demands them the government should pay for their people to participate in them.
That was the case when I was a McDonnell Douglas assigned crash investigator doing the bidding of the FAA for incidents in places like Pasco WN, Binghamton NY, and Tallahassee FL. from 1987 to 2002. The ones who have the power are the airlines. Whining about cost of everything from altimeters, TCAS II, these folks have no interest in safety at all. They only wanted what was in place at the beginning of the jet age. Once when were discussing flight displays at an annual meeting for updating standards on flight displays (for instance http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_25-11A.pdf)were entertained by some Korea vet, now a vice president, working for American holding forth on how all he needed was the feel of the AC. This was just before one of his companies pilots decided to use their air brakes (flaps) while approaching at 270 knots while coming in to to Dallas-Fort Worth with a DC-10. He had no idea of his airspeed which was indicated right in front of him. He had the feel all right. The flaps were ripped right off the plane.
bilby
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I don't know where you got your figures for fossil fuel consumption from; but I hope you washed your hands afterwards.
A Boeing 747-400 gets about 91 passenger miles per US gallon. That is comparable to a car with three people on board, driving the same distance. If you drive alone, or with one passenger, from New York to LA, you burn more fuel per person than you would have if you took the plane - unless you drive an electric car recharged only using nuclear, hydro, solar, or wind power.
Of course, the 747 is quite an old design now; more modern airliners can do even better, and some light aircraft can easily get 100 passenger miles per gallon.
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
It is a fantasy that strikes devastate the economy. Strikes are very rare, they have always been rare and they are almost disappearing. They can't even be called a nuisance. Since 1990 on average the US has lost 0.016% of total workdays per year to strikes. This is about 20 minutes per worker per year. Compare this to the average number of sick days that workers in the US take, 4.9 days per worker per year.
From 1948 to 1990 the number of workdays lost in the US never exceeded ½% of the annual workdays, about 1 day per worker per year, and averaged less than 0.1%, less than two hours per worker per year.
No, the problem that we have with unions has nothing to do with strikes. The problem is that unions increase wages and decrease profits. Since the nation's economy is now being run to increase profits and to decrease wages to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer unions no longer fit in with our national purpose.
From 1948 to 1990 the number of workdays lost in the US never exceeded ½% of the annual workdays, about 1 day per worker per year, and averaged less than 0.1%, less than two hours per worker per year.
No, the problem that we have with unions has nothing to do with strikes. The problem is that unions increase wages and decrease profits. Since the nation's economy is now being run to increase profits and to decrease wages to make the rich richer and everyone else poorer unions no longer fit in with our national purpose.
Where do you conclude that unionization is responsible for the current safety record???
The people calling the shots aren't the ones flying those commuter airlines with overworked, underslept pilots at the controls.
And they would be safer as bus drivers because bus drivers don't have long commutes to get to work. The FAA rules are acceptable if you wake up in the city of your first takeoff and go to sleep in the city of your last landing. They don't count the effects of deadheading, though.
They are operating within the rules. The rules don't consider the effects of deadheading, they don't consider the effects of poor environments that disturb one's sleep.
lpetrich
Contributor
‘Pilot shortage’ tied to low wages, GAO report finds - City & Region - The Buffalo News
Furthermore, their lack of objection to claims of "labor shortage" suggests that they agree with such claims and that they agree with wanting governments to bail out such businesses. They never get outraged, they never indignantly denounce the leaders of such businesses as having a huge sense of entitlement, and they never say that those leaders must abide by the rules of the marketplace.
That's the real world: business leaders whining about "labor shortages" rather than make the sacrifices necessary to attract employees. I say "real world", because it is different from the sort of capitalist utopia that capitalism apologists like to posit when they want to win arguments.
Furthermore, their lack of objection to claims of "labor shortage" suggests that they agree with such claims and that they agree with wanting governments to bail out such businesses. They never get outraged, they never indignantly denounce the leaders of such businesses as having a huge sense of entitlement, and they never say that those leaders must abide by the rules of the marketplace.
bilby
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YOU brought it up; you can't suggest that unionisation is responsible for a lack of safety unless you are prepared to accept that unionisation is currently affecting safety - which, if true, is good evidence that airline style unionisation is better than pretty much every other industry from a safety POV.
Of course, if you wish to withdraw your claim that unionisation is affecting safety, that's fine.
If they would be safer as bus drivers, how do you explain the fact that planes are far safer than buses? Your prejudices simply do not cancel out reality, no matter how dearly you hold them.
Airline safety has not been compromised - not by unions, not by anything. The FAA, the airlines, the engineers, the manufacturers and most importantly, the pilots, have ensured that air travel is incredibly safe. The unions are a part of that. You don't have to like it; but you can't get away with pretending that it isn't true.