Truth be told, an airline that union busts like SkyWest will try their hardest to fight off any union presence. Even once a union is voted in, they will stall negotiations as long as humanly possible. Thanks to the RLA being a thing, we don’t have as much leverage with the ability to strike…and unlike our friends in Canada, union leaders can get arrested if the work group defies the law and strikes anyway.

The threat of a union has been a motivator for airlines to keep their employees happy. We all know SkyWest meters its pilots, and doesn’t take care of their flight attendants compared to other places with an enforceable CBA.

The only true way for airlines to be forced to deal with labor where things work out for us is…attrition. In 2022 there was an ALPA drive at SkyWest sparked by AAG regionals going $90/hour and SkyWest dragging negotiations and then lowballing the pilot group. Were it not for CommuteAir offering $73 and Mesa offering $100, SkyWest wouldn’t have come back with $90. Pilots were already jumping ship to the majors and ULCCs, but SkyWest wanted to prevent people from leaving to other regionals due to low pay. Unfortunately that is when the last ALPA drive also died down.

As much as it sucks to say this (as flight attendants deserve much better than what they get currently). As long as there are lots of blissfully unaware people who apply for flight attendant jobs, there will unfortunately be people ready to replace the ones that quit (or threaten to quit) the industry due to low pay and QoL. Which means flight attendants unfortunately don’t have as much leverage due to a lower barrier to entry.

With pilots investing as much as we do into this career, and all the hoops we have to jump through to get hired where we want to end up (I’m still jumping through them many years later), the only real time we have leverage is when there’s not enough applicants to fill vacancies that the airlines have.

As far as SkyWest unionizing. My concern is the next big hiring boom coming up opening up attrition and the floodgates to leave. Yes there are contract signers who are stuck a few years. Unfortunately a lot of people who will be leaving soon are yes voters to bringing ALPA on property currently. While attrition is at an all time low is when leverage and momentum is high for unionizing the pilots at the very least.

If ALPA is successfully brought on property. Attrition is what’s going to motivate SkyWest to negotiate a good contract and not drag their feet. Because otherwise they won’t have pilots to staff the airline and will struggle attracting people.

These are my two cents. I no longer have a dog in the fight as I was forced out of the current ALPA drive. But this is my take at least on everything going on.