Contract talks, Facebook, "concerted action" and anonymity

derg

derg

Apparently a "terse" writer
Staff member
If you're in contract talks, please understand the provisions of the Railway Labor Act especially when it comes to "concerted action" or participation in any campaigns which will affect status quo.

Even if you're "anonymous", you're not anonymous and a multi-billion dollar company is going to have the resources to figure out who you are in the time that spans a television commercial break.

Private and secret "Facebook Groups" are neither private or secret. The federal government can't bang on your door for exercising your constitutionally-protected free speech, but your employer can certainly fire you and the only union protection you have is making sure you have "due process" which doesn't automatically infer that they're going to actually fight for you if you'e willfully broken the corporate social media policy or have raised the ire of the NLRB by talking about conducting wildcat strikes, sick-outs or no overtime campaigns.

My union and 49 members of our pilot group were sued for a loosely organized "no overtime" campaign because we, as a whole, failed to fly a historic amount of overtime and the evidentiary material was collected and printed well in advance of the first process server arriving at the first defendants door.

If you're on probation, you don't have protections. if you're not on probation, you have "some" protections but only in terms of having your union being able to be sure you get due process.

Talk about what you want, but once it gets posted on a forum, private and secret Facebook groups or even company bulletin boards, you're opening yourself up to a world of hell because no one on the internet is anonymous.

If your union is giving out information that it's ok to post about no-overtime campaigns, or calling in sick when you're not sick, they're giving you bad advice.

Re: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/06/business/delta-sues-pilots-over-overtime.html?_r=0
 
Our shop just had a probie get canned for exactly this. Called out someone who picked up open time by name, despite the unions insistence that we not do that.
 
BobDDuck said:
One correction... The NLRB doesn't have oversight of the RLA. The NMB handles that.

Same results though.
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You are correct, sorry about that! :)

We had a couple guys almost walk down that road this contract season and luckily it was quickly squashed by people who remember the "midnight knock on the door from the process server".

They collect data for months before firing the 'first shot'.
 
Derg said:
My union and 49 members of our pilot group were sued for a loosely organized "no overtime" campaign because we, as a whole, failed to fly a historic amount of overtime and the evidentiary material was collected and printed well in advance of the first process server arriving at the first defendants door.
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Did the company show up at their door like Jay and Silent Bob did to the people posting things about them online, at the end of the movie? :)

Would post the clip, but it's NSFW.....
 
MikeD said:
Did the company show up at their door like Jay and Silent Bob did to the people posting things about them online, at the end of the movie? :)

Would post the clip, but it's NSFW.....
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Pretty much! Middle of the night… YOU GOT SERVED!

Then people started erasing things but it was already weeks, months too late.
 
Derg said:
Pretty much! Middle of the night… YOU GOT SERVED!

Then people started erasing things but it was already weeks, months too late.
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Like posts here on JC.

No matter how many times people PM or report a post of theirs wanting it deleted......its been long ago cached in cyberspace.......
 
amorris311 said:
You forgot being Mic'd up talking about sexual abuse.
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True, but that wasn't social media/emails. We're talking here of nonexistant security (regardless of privacy level) regarding those and anonymity being a fallacy. Regardless of who one is. Whether its you, me, 49 random Delta guys, or anyone. Sucks, but true, sadly.
 
Nothing is ever deleted from the interwebz. It is, quite literally, forever.

The Flightinfo message board from 2000:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000815103024/http://www.flightinfo.com/wwwboard/wwwboard.shtml

Going to run a website with anonymity? Hah! Good luck with that. Some websites have anonymous "owners" that are a number in a proxy drop box (AKA privacy guard). It takes marginally more effort to figure out who is running it, but rest assured, when the agents show up with a warrant, whoever is doing the hosting will squeal like a pig.

Everybody in the tech biz talks to everybody else in the tech biz. A couple of phone calls to the right people, and they ask a few people, and you've got your answer before the microwave dings on your Hungryman dinner. Consumer-level internet/email/hosting anonymity is a chimera.

"Going dark" is an art form and is beyond the capability of just about everyone reading this message.

And now, a pubic service message: "You make my life much harder when there are screenshots".

And now you know....and knowing is half the battle.

Richman
 
This is an excellent topic. I have been in Union leadership and personally know of two folks who were "taken hostage" and one was for a web-board posting. The company simply terminates the employee, knowing that they will ultimately get their jobs back, but it may take 18 months or greater. That sends a chilling message to the rest of the pilot group.


There are only three major carriers and with that it is unlikely that any major carrier will be allowed to go on strike. The RLA is a piece of republican legislation, passed in 1926, under President Calvin Coolidge. The principle reason for the RLA was to stop strikes and work disruptions on the railroads, which were at that time considered essential to the economy. It recognized collective bargaining but limited the right to strike to a very narrow set of conditions.


The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law on US labor law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, passed in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration and mediation for strikes as a means of resolving labor disputes. Its provisions were originally enforced under the Board of Mediation, but were later enforced under a National Mediation Board.


45 U.S.C. 151a says it all in the purpose of the Act.

The purposes of the chapter are: (1) To avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier engaged therein; (2) to forbid any limitation upon freedom of association among employees or any denial, as a condition of employment or otherwise, of the right of employees to join a labor organization; (3) to provide for the complete independence of carriers and of employees in the matter of self-organization to carry out the purposes of this chapter; (4) to provide for the prompt and orderly settlement of all disputes concerning rates of pay, rules, or working conditions; (5) to provide for the prompt and orderly settlement of all disputes growing out of grievances or out of the interpretation or application of agreements covering rates of pay, rules, or working conditions.

(May 20, 1926, ch. 347, § 2, 44 Stat. 577; June 21, 1934, ch. 691, § 2, 48 Stat. 1186.)

45 USC 152 says:

First. Duty of carriers and employees to settle disputes

It shall be the duty of all carriers, their officers, agents, and employees to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules, and working conditions, and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of such agreements or otherwise, in order to avoid any interruption to commerce or to the operation of any carrier growing out of any dispute between the carrier and the employees thereof.

That first sentence in the “Duty’s” section means that the NMB can hold the parties to the table to “exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements”. While that process is ongoing there is a condition of “status quo” where the union may not resort to self-help and the carrier may not alter pay or working conditions. When it is in their interests, the carriers vigorously defend the status quo and “firing a few” troublemakers is a cheap and easy way to get the message out.
 
On the other hand, if you're Delta and you "require" pilots to fly overtime in order to meet your schedule, it's not really voluntary, is it?

I understand that organizing a revolt is not the issue here, it's HOW the revolt was organized. If the revolt was a result of conversation at a private home during a Tupperware party, there would have been no law suit.
 
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