You get an interview with an airline or fractional company and you get blindsided with a question you didn’t expect. “What do you think of unions?”
If all you know about unions is what you’ve heard on television, you likely don’t have much of an opinion. In reality, though, unions can polarize companies and the workforce or maintain the proper balance between worker bees and their management. On the political front, unions are a hot button. Big labor has been known to cripple companies and vice versa. The battles have been legendary and often the lines divide right down the right and left sides of the political spectrum.
Battles between unions and management can sometimes be ugly. Company management could impose tougher work rules and pay cuts, causing laborers to counter with work slowdowns, sickouts, and strikes. The union methods, inefficient as they are, prove to management how important good labor is to a company and hits the company where it hurts—on the bottom line. Often the banter from either side is countered with misinformation and misleading propaganda.
Perhaps the most famous aviation-related battle between unionized labor and management (in this case, the government) occurred in 1981 when air traffic controllers represented by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike to demand better work conditions, pay, and shorter work weeks. The strike was technically illegal because of a 1947 law, but other government worker unions had struck without penalties, including postal workers. President Ronald Reagan, however, citing the safety implications of operations without ATC, vowed to fire any controllers who did not return to work. After a 48-hour period, only 1,500 of the 13,000 or so controllers returned to work. The rest were fired and banned from future government work. The replacement workers, known as scabs, were heckled and threatened by the fired workers for “stealing” the jobs.
Unions represent pilots at most airlines and even some fractional ownership companies, such as NetJets. Pilots, who are rarely reserved in doling out opinions, will likely give you a huge range of opinions on unions and what they do or don’t do for them. At the extremes, some would say that were it not for unions, pilots would be flying for free. At the other end of the spectrum, some might say that union representation is a useless expense. Once they elect to be represented by a union, pilots participate in and vote on labor contracts that are presented to the company. Once that contract is ratified, the company and all pilots must adhere to the rules of the contract.
But what if you’re the kind of person who can’t stand the thought of union representation? It would be extremely difficult for a pilot at a unionized airline to forgo union representation. In fact, I’ve never heard of anyone doing it.
Union representation is good insurance in the event of certificate action, loss of medical, getting fired from the company for a debatable reason, substance-abuse problems, post-traumatic stress, and representation in the event of an accident. Airline pilot unions also provide representation on Capitol Hill in governmental affairs that will affect the piloting profession.This coverage comes at a price and some pilots complain that it’s very expensive insurance they may never use.
Dues usually are deducted automatically from your paycheck and are a percentage of your total earnings, usually about 2 percent. For senior pilots making six figures, that 2 percent is a significant chunk of change being handed over to the union.
In good financial times, unions and company management may agree to contracts that are very lucrative to pilots. However, other work groups such as mechanics and flight attendants use that as leverage to bargain their own sweet contracts. Furthermore, pilots see the favorable contracts awarded at another airline and they demand the same from their management. This happened at United Airlines and Delta early in this decade, making pilots at those airlines the highest paid in the industry. Shortly thereafter, the bottom fell out and labor had to give back in the form of huge concessions, and both companies went bankrupt. The best of times led to the worst of times.
So what’s the answer to the interview question regarding unions? Depends on what you know about unions and your personal stance on them. Be careful. You don’t know what the person across the table’s stance is on unions. He could be a staunch union bible-thumper or an anti-union type. Regardless of how you answer, be diplomatic. If you’re familiar with union representation explain the good and the bad points of it. Let the interviewers guess what side of the fence you’re on.
Pete Bedell is a Boeing 737 first officer for a major airline and contributor to AOPA Flight Training and AOPA Pilot magazines.
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