Thanks for the reply. I probably shouldn't have created this thread but I'm glad some good came out of it. Im coming upon ATP mins and was just curious as to why striking industry wide wasn't an option.
Since - well -God I'm really not old enough to come off as a historian. Here goes. The last couple strikes, in order,
Spirit - 2010 - After 3 or so years of honest negotiations the NMB released the pilot group for their cooling off period. At the end of which the pilots did their thing and the company came back to the table because they could find a total of 2 pilots in the country who would be a big old scab for Spirit. (note it's a democrat in office, supposedly that's the only way)
Amerijet -2009
World Airways -2006 (evil Bush)
Polar air - 2005(evil Bush)
NWA - 2005(evil Bush)
Mesaba - 2003 (or '04, can't remember) - After the company moved all their funds from NWA to a separate checking account for the holding company, NWA stopped paying the bills for the lift Mesaba provided under the MAIR banner. MAIR actually was the group which started AirTran, ValueJet bought the AirTran name and certificate to clean up their name. The NMB ruled that MAIR was not bargaining in good faith and gave Mesaba pilots the authorization to strike. NWA and MAIR agreed to cancel the flights for a week after the strike date which essentially said that they had no desire to negotiate during the strike. Our MEC decided that if that was the case, they'd continue negotiating and MAIR could simply pay the pilots to do nothing, and that meant their full lines. So the pilots were actually locked in, instead of being locked out. This cause MAIR and NWA a lot of heartache and we got our contract without a shot fired. Hilarious in retrospect. (Bush in office, who appointed two members of the NMB, so yes it is possible to strike with a republican in office). (evil Bush)
Comair '01 (evil Bush)
So that's something like 13 years of history? 2 of them are regionals. There's a list of regionals who have failed to clear the hurdles to get strike authorization. The one I'm most familiar with was a train wreck whose LEC (one of) sabotaged the TA, so the NMB parked them (though there are other nonsense excuses and conspiracy theories tossed around about why). Before that they got self help, because slamming a final offer down on the table doesn't go real far with the NMB, nor any adults. Before that they tossed the whole negotiating committee, but they did that again later so the timeline gets fuzzy for me. I don't get the feeling this was setting any records, regionals are generally considered a cluster. Look at Big Sky, their union boss stole tens of thousands of dollars and agreed to all sorts of company interpretations in exchange for buyoffs and I don't think they ever got that jackalope in jail.
Other regionals, Compass and Horizon, do some sort of baseball arbitration style thing. Air Whiskey guys have some sort of averaging thing that goes on. At a regional it's rare to have any real talent at the MEC level unless it's a career regional, and it takes a lot of patience, not posturing, and intelligence, not ignorance, and the ability to relay facts, not feelings, in a meaningful way. It takes years 2-5 from the time of the expiration (what we call the Amendable date) of the contract to get a new one if you do everything right. Most guys, until 2008, were gone after their 4th year because major's would hire back then. That's starting again though. We've already lost all kinds of talent at what I call the MEC level, where guys actually earn their full buy-outs. Unfortunately many guys get into the union because they can get some days off and screw around at home or on the golf course, and charge their good times back to the union. Few of them know a hard days work as a professional and it hurts the whole pilot group.
So there you go. Mediocrity, the RLA, economic factors helping our best and brightest move on, all works against a stepping stone regional. Our lifers at Endeavor are heading for the door thanks to the 12 year cap and the 20% paycut on top of that. Going from the 110's or 120's down to 80-90's is painful when you are in your 50's. Many still get their days off, and that's why they are really here, so they'll stay.
Regionals can be good. Eagle/ASA are a couple. Whiskey used to be amazing, so did Comair. But eventually the "nerf stick" hits us all and you have to take your lumps. It's the regionals. In my own defense I thought I'd be a 3rd year FO at a mainline company by this time (2006 thinking when I started).
