Another rEAL disaster looming?
Heard a discussion among several very committed Atlas pilots in ANC last week re: the upcoming strike - specifically, whether or not the Atlas / AACS pilots based at STN would fly during the strike.
The gist of it was that the Atlas 'mainline' pilots regard their AACS cousins as potential 'scabs'; and that those who crossed the line and flew would be hounded forever more...
As an interested and well-intentioned outsider, I introduced myself and asked the following question:
- Did not the STN-based pilots each have an individual employment contracts not with Atlas but with the wholly-owned subsidiary company? and
- With no union representation at the STN base and no provisions in their individual contracts to withhold their services in support of their 'mainline' cousins, would not the STN pilots who did support the strike likely forfeit their jobs with no hope of going back to work? and
- Would the 'mainline' pilots protect those AACS pilots who stayed out in sympathy by refraining from a 'back to work' agreement ending the strike until the AACS jobs were restored (as the UAL pilots did for the '570' pre-hires in the mid-eighties)?
To my surprise, no one at the table could offer an informed response.
I further asked if their was sufficient excess capacity at Polar to generate a revenue stream that would see the company through an extended strike, to which the group responded "the Polar guys won't screw us".
I then went on to ask "what if Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings [the parent corporation to Polar, Atlas, and AACS] sells, and they (sympathetic Polar pilots), are assigned 'extra section' flights under their own call sign - in other words, not 'struck work')"?
Would not Polar pilots who withhold their services from their own company in sympathy to the Atlas pilots
(a) be conducting an illegal job action since they have not been released by the National Mediation Board to pursue self help? and
(b) expose ALPA to potential legal action and penalty in the same fashion as the AA pilots after their illegal 'sickout' some years ago? and
(c) expose Polar pilots individually to potential discipline or termination in similar fashion to AACS pilots who withheld their services?
Clearly I had 'crossed a line' (pun intended) with such questions, for the response that came back was "Whose side are you on?"
Regretting having become involved in the conversation in the first place, I expressed my sympathy for their plight and my support for their cause and before wishing them well and saying goodbye.
As I left the encounter, I could not help but feel
- the suspicion that the implications of a full-on strike (as opposed to a slowdown or sporadic interruption of services) may not have yet been communicated among their group; and
- the fear that these brave men and women might 'fight the good fight' only to go down the same road as the Eastern pilots 13 years ago...
"...we won the battle but lost the war..."
Someone please say it won't be so.