AN ARGUMENT IN SUPPORT OF EMPLOYEE UNIONIZATION IN AVIATION
Since the mid-1990s, labor-management relations in the airline industry have been rocky at best. From the acrimonious and disruptive pilots strike at American Airlines to the current problems at both United Airlines and Delta Airlines, labor-management relations in the airline industry have proved to be damaging to airline firms, their workers, their customers, their stockholders, and to the nation generally (Zuckerman, 2000).
Generally speaking, airline management teams have been hostile to both the concept of unionization among industry employee groups and to specific labor unions that already represent employee groups either within the industry and at specific airline firms (Brannigan, 2000). The argument presented herein, however, holds that the prevailing position of most airline management teams is detrimental to the interests of the airline companies and that the airlines, their workers, their customers, their stockholders, and the nation generally would be better served through the implementation of policies by airline management teams that fostered unionization among airline industry employees.
The airline companies are private enterprises (owned by their shareholders, who, in the instances of United Airlines, are also employees of the airline) functioning within a capitalist economic system (from which the resources required to operate the airline companies are obtained). The required resources include most notably the human resources without whom airline companies cannot function. The required resources also include capital without which airline companies cannot function. Thus, airline management teams must devise strategies that balance the constraints imposed by the holders of the resources required (Puffer, 1999). Most airline management teams over the past decade, however, have tended to treat labor as a throwaway commodity, while attempting to sa...