Real professional. And the only ones affected are the passengers who bought tickets in good faith.
This cancellation and sick-out crap only causes collateral damage, which the union has no problem doing. Their target should be management.....or really, themselves, since they got themselves in this mess. But taking it out on the pax, is akin to me disagreeing with US foreign policy while deployed overseas, and thinking I can just go randomly kill civilians in protest of it.
I hardly think that's fair. As a non-interested third-party who flies AA for business now and again, I fully support any and all actions by the pilots that are consistent with safety. The RLA is crap, and while I'm no huge fan of unions (I feel that the need for unions still exists, but between labor law and union longevity the unions have generally become corrupt and/or vastly overcomplicated the system), I feel that pilots withholding the "favors" they grant the airline on a daily basis (such as working slightly sick, et al) is absolutely within the dictates of professionalism.
Frankly, airline management across the board seems hell-bent on screwing their pilots on every front. (I could shorten that by saying that "management across the board seems hell-bent on screwing labor") Passengers who are buying tickets on an airline aren't innocent third parties -- they make their choice on a competitive market and pick what benefits them. A friend of mine was talking to me earlier today about buying tickets on AA, even though he knows about the ongoing labor issues. Why? They were $200 cheaper than the alternative.
As far as the airline goes, management broke it, and they alone are responsible. If their employees ARE engaging in a sick-out, it's management's fault for not doing the right thing to keep them happy, and the responsibility falls squarely on their shoulders. (Legal complications aside)
A job is not a gift from a company to an employee -- it is simply a mutually beneficial business arrangement between one entity and another. The company needs the services of the employees, and the employees offer their services for a price to the company. And before people chime in about how the company IS the employees (And therefore by damaging the company, you damage the employees), let me remind the reader that the company doesn't see it that way at all. The company sees itself as a board of directors and a management team, and everyone else is a peon. Loyalty, professionalism, and "doing whatever it takes" for the company are only putting money into the pockets of the executives and slightly increasing shareholder value; the company has no loyalty to you, will lay you off in a heartbeat, will generally not return your professionalism in kind.
-Fox