I doubt if anyone could level the accusation of being "Pro American" in my direction, however, it is good to see that the Unions there portray "secondary action" as "calling a spade a spade" rather than some subversive attempt to dismantle capitalism.
Then again, it could be good old-fashioned protectionism.
Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA)2013-12-17 22:30:00
ALPA to U.S. Government: Reject Norwegian Air’s Evasive Scheme
The Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA) today called for the U.S.
Department of Transportation (DOT) to immediately reject Norwegian Air
International’s (NAI) foreign air carrier permit application because the
company appears to be attempting to evade its national laws and
regulations to compete unfairly against U.S. airlines and their
employees. The call came in an answer that ALPA filed in response to
NAI’s application.
“Norwegian Air International was clearly designed to attempt to dodge
laws and regulations, starting a race to the bottom on labor and working
conditions,” said Capt. Lee Moak, ALPA’s president. “If successful, the
company would gain a serious and unfair economic advantage over U.S.
airlines in the competition for the business of international passengers
flying to and from the United States. This exploitation of the laws
intended to prevent labor law shopping cannot be allowed to stand.”
While Norwegian citizens control NAI, which is a subsidiary of Norwegian
Air Shuttle (NAS), the company uses aircraft registered in Ireland and
has applied for an air operator certificate from that country. It
appears that its flight crews will work under individual employment
contracts that are governed by Singapore law and that have wages and
working conditions substantially inferior to those of NAS’s Norway-based
pilots.
“If NAS is permitted to pick and choose the countries in which it
establishes its subsidiaries and employs its flight crews, U.S. carriers
will be put at a severe competitive disadvantage because the United
States has one set of laws and regulations for all of its airlines,”
said Capt. Moak. “The U.S.-EU air services agreement was never intended
to allow this type of scheme, which games the system for competitive
economic advantages.”
ALPA maintains that the NAI scheme raises the specter of the “flag of
convenience” business practice that undermined the U.S. maritime
industry by allowing a vessel to be registered in a country different
from its ownership and apply the country of registry’s laws to its
operations. The practice precipitated the decline of the industry and
the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. maritime jobs as companies flew
the flag of countries with the weakest labor and tax laws and
regulations.
Moak noted a quote by the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department in
an opinion piece published today by Aviation Daily: “We must
reject business models premised on scouring the globe for cheap labor no
matter the consequences, and not pretend this is somehow acceptable
competitive behavior.”
“The NAI scheme must be immediately and unequivocally rejected,” said
Moak. “The DOT must not permit U.S. airlines and their employees to face
an unfair competitive disadvantage from this runaway shop and swiftly
dismiss NAI’s air carrier permit application.”
Moak also called on the Irish government to reject NAI’s attempt to
register the aircraft in Ireland. “Ireland should not allow itself to be
complicit in NAI’s avoidance scheme,” he concluded.
Founded in 1931, ALPA is the world’s largest pilot union, representing
nearly 50,000 pilots at 32 airlines in the United States and Canada.
Visit the ALPA website at
Air Line Pilots Association, International.