United Airlines Pilot Leadership Unanimously Supports Strike Vote

by Gary Leff

United Airlines pilots haven’t just voted to authorize a strike vote, they have done so unanimously according to their union. Here’s what to expect.

  • This doesn’t mean a strike is imminent. Negotiations must be under the guidance of a federal mediator, who must then release the parties to ‘self-help’, before the pilots can strike. In some sense this move is symbolic, expressing pilot frustrations.

  • The outcome of the vote is largely pre-ordained. Strike votes almost always support a strike. The union would not call one they didn’t know they could win. Voting against authorization of a strike would undercut negotiations and hand a huge victory to the company, since there’d be no more need for concessions (more or less).

  • The vote will hand leverage to pilot union negotiators who will have greater power and flexibility as negotiations progress (or rather if they fail to progress).

  • It won’t even mean pilots want to strike. Union members often vote for a strike even though they do not want them, purely to support negotiations, and under the argument that voting to authorize a strike is how they will get to a contract not how they will get to a strike. Voting for a strike is often done because there’s no other choice in the vote, really, by people who do not want to see a strike, but it can take on a life of its own down the line.

There will not be a strike this summer. But it will add pressure on negotiations that could become messy if no agreement is reached.

Meanwhile, it’s not entirely fair for pilots to complain about how long the process has taken to get to a contract since their union actually came to an agreement with the airline already. United and union negotiators agreed on terms and – as they watched negotiations progress at other airlines with increasingly rich terms – rejected that deal beleiving they can do better. And in the meantime the pilots have had their own internal turmoil, with a new union head being forced to resign over a long series of misogynistic and heterosexist comments about his fellow pilots and making such unprofessional comments as talking about the airline’s CEO as ‘getting his gay on’ as pilots turn their back on the company head who sought to meet with them.

Delta pilots have gotten a new contract, while the AFA-CWA union tries to organize its flight attendants. American Airlines pilots will vote to ratify a new contract while their flight attendants remain frustrated over the lack of a new contract. United flight attendants are in the midst of negotiations as well. And Southwest’s pilots have become increasingly vocal over the lack of a deal.

While no strikes are imminent, there remains plenty of risk, and expected higher costs for airlines that have still not fully regained their profitability footing.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Given UA’s peers (DL and AA) have their pilot deals ratified, is there any reason United and it’s pilots Union can’t just take that deal and agree to it for themselves (more or less)?

  2. @Daniel – American’s pilots haven’t yet voted for their deal. And while the broad contours will certainly be matched there are lots of unique features such as pretty restrictive scope clause already in effect at United that doesn’t exist at American, not as simple as agreeing to the same deal given where they start from.

  3. They haven’t gained their profitability footing? Maybe someone should tell the executives that so they can adjust their bonus’ that are based on profits. They have the money. They have the profits. They went through bankruptcy. No need for the pilots, or any other group for that matter to sacrifice when the executives don’t. And the Southwest executives have obviously been scraping money off the top for their bonus’ without investing in their technology, so they can afford the raises too.

    You will notice who HASN’T gotten much yet? The Flight Attendants and other crafts. Do you wonder why? Because everyone is waiting to see how the pilots turn out for a pattern on the other crafts. Its interesting how that works.

  5. I greatly respect the job that pilots do but if they wanted to earn back a modicum of the respect they’ve blown by recent behavior they would offer sympathy strikes for flight attendants. As it is, pilots are looking like they’re about greed and ego. That’s not traditionally what they stood for.

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