I listened intently at this weeks outsourcing conference in Dallas to the presenters and there was one theme that struck me. It wasn't the fact that that companies were at a loss as to why they couldn't attract young people into the industry. I think the reason for that should be obvious when they state things like "pay for mechanics in the south eastern United States is in line with emerging economies in Asia". Why would people possessing the skill sets that we have move towards this industry when there are several others including health care and the computer industry that pay better and have better hours? No, the thing that struck me was the industry realized that it needed to work together to protect their thin margins. This message continued through the week and came from airlines, OEM's and MRO providers.
Airlines through their lobbying arm A4A (old ATA) stated that they needed to all work towards a common legislative goal to revamp the industry so they could survive. It was stated that this rarely happened in the past and it had hurt the industry. In every presentation I attended that had a high level airline executive this theme was repeated.
OEM's are working with airlines and MRO providers to provide more and enhanced services whether through cooperative agreements or by combining companies to provide an enhanced product.
MRO's are making agreements between themselves to work together to enhance the product they offer and increase profits.
What is a Union? They are a group of people that form together to achieve what an individual can't achieve on his own in its basic form. Haven't the above three groups all just described doing the same thing? And don't these types of agreements happen in every other industry in the country? And further, haven't these types agreements happened over a very long period of time? Of course the answer to those questions is yes. Yet in doing basically the same thing we are told time and again that unions are inherently bad. Why? Well because we threaten profits these conglomerates would otherwise enjoy. Is it bad that they make money? Obviously not. Anyone that has survived bankruptcy would rather work for a company that makes money. In good times and bad, we need to band together to protect our jobs and wages. In good times we need to share in profits generated by our labor. In bad times we need to protect ourselves as much as possible. In employing similar survival tactics as the above groups, are we really doing anything bad or wrong? I don't even have to answer that. The next time someone tells you it is bad to belong to a union be sure to tell them when companies stop unionizing themselves for protection so will we. Unions are not bad or greedy because they want to protect each member. The very notion is absurd!
