Will Comair Pilots Strike This Time?

A federal judge Wednesday gave Comair management a green light to impose new work rules on its pilot group when a deadline runs out tonight at midnight.

For their part in the process, the pilots got a poke in the eye as the court added insult to injury not only by sanctioning the imposition of new work and pay rules, but also by banning pilots from using the one tool left in their labor arsenal … a strike.

The question, of course, is whether the Comair pilots – or any regional pilot – would ever again consider walking another picket line anyway. I have my doubts.

While a strike is not new territory for Comair pilots – they called a 90-day strike in 2001 – the ALPA leadership seems to be giving signs that they will comply with the court order. The question on everyone’s mind is why now when the union had promised in the past that they’d walk if new rules were shoved down their throats? Is there a deal in the offing?

Reading the Workplace Professor blog, reminded me about a point of law few have spoken about during any of these labor conversations, but one that calls for repeating here … the Norris LaGuardia Act.

That 75-year old piece of federal legislation for the most part bars courts from imposing restrictions on labor in cases very much like this one at Comair. Quoting from one online source about a Senate report on the bill … “A man must work in order to live. If he can express no control over his conditions of employment, he is subject to involuntary servitude”

One report on the Comair situation baffled me though. The fact that Comair pilots might simply walk away from their jobs rather than strike. If you’re willing to leave your job, why not stick up for you job on the way out I wondered.

So why would Comair pilots quit rather than strike? Simple, because the major airlines are all in a hiring mode and honestly, few regional pilots want to sit in the front seat of an RJ when they watch a 777 pass them going the other way.

Imagine getting that first big interview at United and they ask why they left their last job? “Well, you see, my job essentially disintegrated when I began walking a picket line.” Good luck getting to a second interview.

From a practical point, sucking it in and looking for a new job probably makes sense to most Comair pilots.

But of course, we still must go back to the discussion we had about the air traffic controllers union, as well as the earlier post about non-union Ryanair.

Is A union better than NO union? If you think so, how do you carve out the parts of collective bargaining you agree with fro

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m those that interfere with your career progression.

By early next week we’ll learn what the Comair pilots decided. The bigger question about unions in the already highly-unionized aviation industry will remain a continuing point of contention though.