UNIONS AND THE HELICOPTER INDUSTRY

For over thirty years unions have somehow been involved with my profession as a helicopter pilot. In the early years the union connection was while working for non-union mine operators in the coalfields. Of course in those days I was young and adamantly non-union. I had not yet had the opportunity to see neither how the helicopter industry was to change nor how the lack of bargaining power (a union) would lead to the stagnation of pilot’s livelihood. The years since have afforded me a realization yet unavailable to young pilots.

During the years in the coalfields my non-union employers always set their employees wages slightly higher than the latest UMW contract. This of course was a welcomed raise but who or what was responsible? You bet – it was the UMW Union. Amazingly enough this wage ploy was all it took to keep those mines non-union. Of course other benefits such as retirement, job security, time off, and insurance were regarded very lightly as long as the wage scale was higher. Incidentally, the mine owners always gave credit to the UMW Union for its positive effect on the whole industry – especially safety.

Much later in my career (20 years to be exact) the union issue reared its head again. The coal company was sold to another with an existing aviation department and I was gone. By this time however, I was no longer the naive, independent, close-minded, rah-rah boy of the past. I made the transition from the coalfields to EMS and the stagnation hit home. I started for a contracting EMS company for the same wage I had started for twenty years earlier as a corporate pilot. Everyone realizes (or should) the disparity between corporate and commercial contract flying but twenty years difference is unconscionable. What had or had not happened was a union to look out for pilots’ issues and to help management bid contracts in a manner that facilitates pilot’s just expectations. Later the company I worked for in the EMS field went through a unionization attempt. It was amazing to see the pay raises, bonuses and increased benefits roll in – all illegal during unionization efforts of course. The point is that after years of being told of no pay raises and decreasing benefits, money was suddenly there when management wanted it. Who was responsible? You said it – the union or in this case the threat of one.

Nobody wants to drive the companies out of business. That would be like cutting your nose off to spite your face. Many of us have long and deep loyalties to companies and their owners, but we need loyalties to ourselves and our counterparts as well. We see the need to have input to management so those contracts are bid in a way that allows for pilot’s needs. This obviously may take more time than us older pilots have but supporting a union should not be looked at as shooting ourselves in the foot. We want to be part of an industry that does not reflect policies formulated two decades ago by individuals sitting around the flagpole who still support those long outdated management decisions. Additionally, we need to realize that ownership threats of selling the company are hollow. The contracts are neither going away nor the helicopters junked. The hospitals will still be there with aircraft to be flown and maybe the new ownership/management will be more inspirational.

Either management continues to view us a “six inches across the eyes with a brain like a bird egg” or we realize and admit there is a time and a place in every industry for a union and ours is now. Which will it be?

Respectfully,

fellow EMS pilot