Dear Lizzard Drinking:
I bear no personal animosity to you.
I had hoped for arguments along industrial lines on these pages, regarding the way that KAL management had treated the pilots and their union, but matters never being so cut and dried, I recognize that one can become embroiled along issues which the unions call whipsawing, the pitting of one employee group against another. We would at all cost want to stay away from this trap.
As to the important issue of improving safety, like all professional trade unions, it was and is the stated objective of KAL Flight Crew Union, from its inception to contribute to KAL's operational safety through our involvement at the appropriate level in management.
Now then, allow me to reply to your comments:
You said,
"I did not see any statement from the union refuting the claim that their participation was illegal."
If indeed we are not refuting the CLAIM of illegal strike, by the Prosecutor in this case, why then the on-going trial, the third session scheduled for 27 August? The last Korean Supreme Court precedent of June 26 ruled on the legality of Hyundai Motors Services Union going against the Korean National Labor Relations Commission's administrative directive after the cool-off period had expired back in 1998, to uphold the union, and is considered a landmark case in Korea. It is the judiciary which must decide the constitutionality of interpretation on the labor statutes by the tripartite quasi-judicial organization of the executive branch, and the burden is entirely on the Prosecutor to prove these criminal charges as an illegal strike.
You said,
"The Korean pilots do... resent the employment of foreign pilots, and have been doing their best to have them dismissed."
I would simply thank Grange Guzzler in echoing his sentiments above, that it is more "a resentment of the perceived disparity between the conditions of the two groups, rather than a resentment of the pilots themselves." Let's not go there.
You said,
"The strike was settled... after the company agreed to reduce the number of foreign pilots by around 30%."
The agreement reads, freeze hiring by the end of 2001, to gradually reduce by 25 to 30% by the end of 2007. That comes out to 5% per year. Sounds more like natural attrition. And if management saw fit to concede this point, may I ask your motive in judging the outcome by the most directly related parties, if indeed you are not affiliated with KAL? Why the sour grapes?
Then you said,
"There was no pay rise, even though one had been offered. Does this not speak for itself?"
Were you there at the table, as I was, as a negotiator? The last response from management after we had foregone the remaining $24 million in stipends from the original $40 million opener, at 2AM on the morning of the strike, after we had extended the strike for 6 hours in hopes of getting a pulse out of management, was no one returning to the table to respond, until 5:30AM, when we walked out. The story you heard about management coming back with a counteroffer would dismantle their court strategy of claiming inability to proceed with negotiations for lack of agreement to limit the agenda to strictly pay issues.
Regarding safety issues, you said,
"I can see much merit in what the company is trying to do, and, frankly, not much at all in what the pilots are doing."
I have not praised KAL's efforts for safety improvements, nor have I discredited them here in this regard. But you have certainly attacked our union's intentions and efforts as being meritless. I think that you are not qualified to speak to others of our intentions.
Going back to your first letter, you said,
"In response to pressures from the Korean Govt and US/Canada/UK CAAs, the company has taken much of the control away from the Korean pilots and tasked foreigners to run or advise on the running of Operations and training..."
Today's decision by the FAA to downgrade Korea for KCAB's lack of oversight authority of KAL and Asiana would partially dispute your perspective on the issues. While they ran all these nice programs, they should have also engaged the representative union on property at face value. That has been our outcry since the beginning. As you would know very well, the first step in the implementation of any Safety Program is to identify the major stakeholders, and to involve their participation from the start. We have been ostracized from the start because of our affiliation with the KCTU.
And the last point, you said,
"Control of the airline is the real aim of the pilots. When they had it, there were more accidents and incidents, but that was an acceptable price to pay, in their opinion. Losing that control was the real bone of contention, and the locals will do anything they can to get that control back. Anything."
It has to do with our identity as a labor union, and I think you are completely confused about who we are, maybe because you only see life as expats or locals. (Now, I will admit that since starting union work, I tend to see delineation along management/labor, but not ethnicity.) When did the pilots ever have control of the airline?? The old cronies you are thinking of, were simply extensions of management, and I don't even consider them as one of the pilots. None of them have joined our union, by their own decision. Now I do agree with you a 100% that they really screwed up flight operations, complete with their xenophobic attitudes about expats. I wish I could say that these middle level managers are all gone, but they are still very much entrenched, trying to exercise what little despotic control over the vast majority of unionized pilots. Still, I think it is unfair to say "their opinion" is that accidents were an acceptable price to pay for maintaining control.