NTSB - Colgan 3407 Follow-Up

Whatever happened to strikes?

:confused:
Im just going to go out on a limb here, so correct me if i am wrong,I am not a pilot yet. But if the pilots went on strike espically right now. The regionals would have no problem finding replacements for them. Is it just me that thinks that?
 
Read up on the Railway Labor Act. That's what happened to strikes.....

I skimmed an article about it. Basically from what I gathered is this...It's so hard to put together a strike and get through all the red tape, that most unions don't bother with it?? Or am I wrong? If not, that really changes how I look at unions. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just guessing/speculating.

Basically they are there to get the best deal for their pilots. They have the power to do this because managment knows if they try and screw the pilots/unions there will be a strike.....BUT managment knows there will be no strike cause of the RLA, so managment knows the union doesn't have the power they pretend to. So then managment screws said pilot/union, cause the union is powerless.

:confused:
 
Im just going to go out on a limb here, so correct me if i am wrong,I am not a pilot yet. But if the pilots went on strike espically right now. The regionals would have no problem finding replacements for them. Is it just me that thinks that?

Yes, but can you imagine how much it would cost to train a large mass of new pilots. I would guess in the millions if it was a large enough airline. Plus training takes a couple weeks, what are they suppost to do, not operate flights for a couple weeks? I'm not sure if that's the way it would work, but that's my guess.
 
Yes, but can you imagine how much it would cost to train a large mass of new pilots. I would guess in the millions if it was a large enough airline. Plus training takes a couple weeks, what are they suppost to do, not operate flights for a couple weeks? I'm not sure if that's the way it would work, but that's my guess.
You do have a point there. In my mind it would be alot cheaper if the airline would just buck up and pay their pilots a few more pretty pennys every hour. It would probably be sooooo much easier on everyone.
 
You do have a point there. In my mind it would be alot cheaper if the airline would just buck up and pay their pilots a few more pretty pennys every hour. It would probably be sooooo much easier on everyone.

That's what I thought. Isn't that the whole point of a strike...lol But I guess airlines can't really strike anymore.:confused:
 
I skimmed an article about it. Basically from what I gathered is this...It's so hard to put together a strike and get through all the red tape, that most unions don't bother with it?? Or am I wrong? If not, that really changes how I look at unions. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just guessing/speculating.

Red tape is an understatement. Contracts under the RLA don't expire, they're "ammendable." When you hit your ammendable date, you can't just walk off the job like the USW or the UAW. Both sides have to keep operating under what's called "status quo" and continue to "bargain in good faith" to reach a new contract. In order to strike, the national mediation board has to declare an impasse in negotiations. We've been trying to get an impasse declared for nearly two years now. ASA was fighting for even longer, I believe, during their negotiations. Even then, all an impasse does is start the clock on a "30 day cooling off period." At the end of the 30 days, THEN either side is able to participate in "self help." This can be either a strike by the labor side, a lock out by management, OR management can even impose their terms of what they want in a new contract. But wait! If it could interrupt or severely impact commerce in the country, the president can appoint an Emergency Board that can keep both parties at the table and keeping either side from engaging in self help. Comair was the last airline allowed to strike back in 2001. The unofficial word from the White House under the Bush admin was "not again." The NMB is made up of three people, two from one political party and one from the other. So, you can see, any vote for an impasse would fall squarely on the side of "stay at the negotiating table." The reason all of the unions were so happy Obama won was b/c he got to appoint a new NMB member, thus swinging the balance the other direction......potentially. Hasn't happened yet, but we've got more than one airline out there that could test the waters soon.
 
Red tape is an understatement. Contracts under the RLA don't expire, they're "ammendable." When you hit your ammendable date, you can't just walk off the job like the USW or the UAW. Both sides have to keep operating under what's called "status quo" and continue to "bargain in good faith" to reach a new contract. In order to strike, the national mediation board has to declare an impasse in negotiations. We've been trying to get an impasse declared for nearly two years now. ASA was fighting for even longer, I believe, during their negotiations. Even then, all an impasse does is start the clock on a "30 day cooling off period." At the end of the 30 days, THEN either side is able to participate in "self help." This can be either a strike by the labor side, a lock out by management, OR management can even impose their terms of what they want in a new contract. But wait! If it could interrupt or severely impact commerce in the country, the president can appoint an Emergency Board that can keep both parties at the table and keeping either side from engaging in self help. Comair was the last airline allowed to strike back in 2001. The unofficial word from the White House under the Bush admin was "not again." The NMB is made up of three people, two from one political party and one from the other. So, you can see, any vote for an impasse would fall squarely on the side of "stay at the negotiating table." The reason all of the unions were so happy Obama won was b/c he got to appoint a new NMB member, thus swinging the balance the other direction......potentially. Hasn't happened yet, but we've got more than one airline out there that could test the waters soon.

:yeahthat:

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view) 9E just might end up playing the part of the Guinea pig.

kell, any word on this past weekend (PM will work).
 
Red tape is an understatement. Contracts under the RLA don't expire, they're "ammendable." When you hit your ammendable date, you can't just walk off the job like the USW or the UAW. Both sides have to keep operating under what's called "status quo" and continue to "bargain in good faith" to reach a new contract. In order to strike, the national mediation board has to declare an impasse in negotiations. We've been trying to get an impasse declared for nearly two years now. ASA was fighting for even longer, I believe, during their negotiations. Even then, all an impasse does is start the clock on a "30 day cooling off period." At the end of the 30 days, THEN either side is able to participate in "self help." This can be either a strike by the labor side, a lock out by management, OR management can even impose their terms of what they want in a new contract. But wait! If it could interrupt or severely impact commerce in the country, the president can appoint an Emergency Board that can keep both parties at the table and keeping either side from engaging in self help. Comair was the last airline allowed to strike back in 2001. The unofficial word from the White House under the Bush admin was "not again." The NMB is made up of three people, two from one political party and one from the other. So, you can see, any vote for an impasse would fall squarely on the side of "stay at the negotiating table." The reason all of the unions were so happy Obama won was b/c he got to appoint a new NMB member, thus swinging the balance the other direction......potentially. Hasn't happened yet, but we've got more than one airline out there that could test the waters soon.

GOOD GOD!!! Kinda makes a person wonder if unions even work. How can it work if the main bargaining tool (strike) is virtually non-existant!!!
 
:yeahthat:

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view) 9E just might end up playing the part of the Guinea pig.

kell, any word on this past weekend (PM will work).

No word. I'm betting we'll see something either from the negotiating committee or SE within the next few days. Trans States is right up there with us, I think. They're in the process of holding a strike vote, I believe. Seems like there was at least one more that's been in negotiations for a while.
 
GOOD GOD!!! Kinda makes a person wonder if unions even work. How can it work if the main bargaining tool (strike) is virtually non-existant!!!

I wouldn't really call a strike the "main bargaining" tool. It's more of a nuclear option that no one really wants to use. To be sure, the RLA is INSANELY management slanted.
 
Re: Pilots' low pay, long commutes probed in air crash

Nobody put a gun to her head and made her take that job. Why not hold out for something at least on the same side of the country?

She could have been hoping for, or promised the Saab and IAH during the interview and pulled the Q out of IAH. It happens.

Who do you fly for again?
 
I wouldn't really call a strike the "main bargaining" tool. It's more of a nuclear option that no one really wants to use.

It's not!? Without getting really technical, what other power does a union have? I thought the main power of a union was "don't screw us over or we'll strike" What good is it if the government just passes laws to get around the working man and his union. And I'm being totally serious. I'm mad as hell! I didn't know they were abusing their power as early as 1926:sarcasm:
 
It's not!? Without getting really technical, what other power does a union have? I thought the main power of a union was "don't screw us over or we'll strike" What good is it if the government just passes laws to get around the working man and his union. And I'm being totally serious. I'm mad as hell! I didn't know they were abusing their power as early as 1926:sarcasm:

The amount of power depends on how strong of a union you have. The difference between "flying safe", and flying efficiently is incredible. But you've gotta have the balls to say, "Fly safe, fly the contract."
 
The amount of power depends on how strong of a union you have. The difference between "flying safe", and flying efficiently is incredible. But you've gotta have the balls to say, "Fly safe, fly the contract."

Here's a real world example of what John's talking about:

CRJ-900 from ATL-HPN. Company says they need us to park the airplane at the FBO. Contract says it's the pilot's OPTION to taxi the airplane to a remote location. You get paid .2 no matter if it takes 2 or 20 minutes. Now, we're in contract negotiations right now, so ideally everyone would be declining this. Now the plane is stuck at the gate at an airport where the airport authority doesn't want it parked there. Uh oh. What's the company gonna do? How is it gonna get to the FBO?

I almost got a flight canceled for about the same thing. Had a deferred APU towed off the gate the night before. Now, that's probably not a good idea (and I told the night crew that) since you don't have brakes in case the tow bar shear pin snaps. But they did it anyway. Fast forward to the morning crew with a clue, and they won't tow it back in. Good for them. They want me to do a huffer start, taxi it to the gate and then shut it back down. I say "Sorry, guys. We're not required to do that." Station manager started yelling at me and insulting me on the phone. Well, now I'm DEFINITELY not doing it. They eventually called contract MX out to get it to the gate, but the flight wound up leaving over an hour late.

In a time of good faith and for a company that treats me like a human being (and wouldn't throw me under the bus if something happened during said taxi), I might actually go the extra mile and help out.
 
but fail a couple of checkrides in the military, and you're not going to be commanding an airplane with 50+ people on board.
I know several that have and now do actually. We had quite a few guys on the 141 that had failed a few checks in the UPT, hence why they were on the 141 I am guessing. Know of several current day military dudes who have failed some checks as well.
 
Another "fly the contract" sort of deal...

My last day of reserve (day 5 of 5) I was scheduled to fly from Montgomery to Charlotte and then deadhead back to Dayton and be done for 2 days. They reassigned me so that instead of deadheading back to DAY I was supposed to sit for 2 hours in Charlotte, deadhead to Nashville on a Mesa 900 and then sit in Nashville for 3 hours to fly to Philly and THEN fly back to Dayton. My duty day went from 7 hours to 13:55. FAA regs say 16 hours is our max duty day. Our contract says 14 hours is max allowable scheduled and we can be pushed to 15 due to delays.

Well, 13:55 with the Philly weather being 200 overcast probably wasn't going to work out but they insisted. So off to Nashville I went where my 3 hour sit turned into 4 1/2 hours. By the time we got to Philly I had 16 minutes to get off one plane, walk over to another, set up everything up and push back in order to get off the gate in time to stay under the 15 hours. I of course decided that wouldn't happen and called the company to let them know. They told me that it shouldn't be a problem because I was legal for 16 hours and there was no reason to worry about the 15 hour limit. I had to explain the difference between contractual limits and FAA limits, at which point the scheduler hung up on me.

So, long story short, I got stuck in a hotel in Philly overnight so I could deadhead home the next morning. Because I was already at our minimum days off for the month I got my day back later in the month AND because I had to work on a day of I got 6 hours of over guarantee pay. On top of that the company had to cancel the flight and strand 45 passengers in Philly for the night.

Sure, I feel bad about those passengers not making it home, but hey, I'm just flying my contract.
 
A very tragic and sad event that has impacted us all. The public will certainly place blame and the media will continue to sensationalize anything that will increase ratings or sell newspapers. As far as I am concerned this accident is in the history books - it cannot be undone. We as aviation professionals must rise above idle speculation and unfounded criticism. CA Renslow and FO Shaw didn't want to die that night any more than any one of us wants to die on our next flight. There were obvious problems and issues that caused this crash and those facts will be established in time. Our focus should now be on how to prevent another tragedy like this from happening again. We should all be participating in public education venues that disclose substandard working conditions, regulations that compromise safety and inadequate training that should take place but doesn't. Management would have everyone believe the industry is fine and they have the media exposure to spread that propaganda. It rests on our shoulders to make our industry better and safer. That's where we need to be focusing our efforts today, tomorrow, next week, next month and beyond.
 
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