More Unions Talking About Strikes At NWA

[struggle4progress]

Rick Fuentes
Reporting

... "We have people making $8.34 an hour, who took a 19 percent pay cut," said Bobby DePace, the IAM president. "Figure that out. What's that? Six and change?" ...

It is not just the ramp workers using the word "strike". The flight attendants' union is also in negotiations.

"We have to have everything prepared and be ready should we not reach an agreement and we have the right to strike," said Guy Meek, the PFAA president.

ALPA, the pilots' union said it is ready to strike too ...

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_006205947.html

[mopinko]

1. jobs like that you might as well be unemployed.

i hate to say this, i know it is a terrible thing to lose your job, but a couple of these companies need to go under. won't this shake out? there are a certain number of tickets sold. if one airline goes under, another gets those dollars. they need people to fly the planes. it is not like they can outsource baggage handling.
teach those greedy bastards a lesson, i say. is my head up my ass?

[no name no slogan]

2. The mechanics shouldn't have struck in the first place, IMHO

they had a two-year-old union representing them (AMFA), which had managed to burn almost all its bridges with other unions, including the AFL-CIO. Not to mention none of the other unions at NWA supported the strike.

To make it worse, the mechanics had little if any position to bargain from: they were already the highest-paid in the industry, and there were readily-available replacements just waiting to take their jobs at 2/3 the pay.

I still support the union and am no friend of NWA's management, but sometimes you simply can't afford to strike. That's just how things are today, with union membership at an all-time low and the laws are increasingly anti-labor.