AL guys/girls...I just watched a report on CNN...walking with signs saying 'reporting for work' will not do it for you alone. The CNN report in general and the interview with one of the other Union 'Leaders' from AL was pointed in isolating the pilots as 'not in step' and as the root cause.
I can see 89 all over again...I wasn't involved in that dispute but ,like this one, sat back at long distance and watched as opportunities were squandered.
If you don't get an accurate message out to the media voicing your concerns and the real reason for this dispute then you are dead and just don't realise it yet.
Management immorallity must be exposed to a very public airing..if you play by gentlemens rules you will be shatt on from a great height. If you aren't prepared to learn the lessons of Oz 89, current CX and numerous other disputes over the last 20 years then why bother in the first place?
You need a suitable spokesman, in uniform, calmly repeating the essential information over and over on every TV and radio station you can get his face/voice. No emotion just the facts of the situation...and some short pertinant questions for management to answer in the public domain. Newspaper adds...whatever.
If it's true that,
1/. You're the most cost effective crews in Europe,
2/. That rostering practices are being dangerously flaunted,
3/. That pilots are being suspended without pay for working within agreed guidelines,
4/. That management are on a cynical, greedy, money grabbing Union bust
5/. And that independant professional analysis proves the airline is not in the dire financial situation that management claim due 911.
then you have grounds for complaint in any morally competent society.
Get that message out constantly by whatever means comes to hand and you may stand a chance of gaining public support and embarrassing management back to the negotiating table with some semblance of 'good will'.
Don't and you will be percieved as sitting in the corner playing with your willies(rather like HKAoA at the moment)...undeserving of the support you wish for from aviation professionals world wide and the public in general.
Best of luck.
Chuck.