American labor history is filled with examples where unionized employees demands came to be so unreasonable that the end result was bankruptcy and unemployment. Such a fate was averted today as Delta Airline pilots and the firm came to a tentative agreement on wage and benefit cuts. The details of the plan remain unclear, but one thing is for certain, if agreed to, the deal will avert a strike, which most certainly would have destroyed Delta airlines, leaving thousands of people out of work and more still stranded at airports around the country.

Delta airlines, like 2 of the Big Three automakers and several fellow airlines, have been reeling from increased competition from more nimble and efficient competitors, meanwhile Delta continued to embrace wasteful practices, ill suited for today’s post 9/11 world. The airline’s management must assume a large, large, large share of the responsibility for Delta’s woes, but the airline’s union employees, especially its pilots are also culpable in Delta’s decline, now faced with looming losses, the airline, now under bankruptcy, has asked its pilots to take on greater pay cuts and benefit reductions.

The pilots, accustomed to being the highest paid in the industry, balked at the cuts and threatened to strike, a move that would have spelled certain doom for the airline. These pilots would rather loose their jobs than take a pay cut? By what measure of logic is this…to say nothing of their co-workers whose jobs are at risk. Fortunately it appears cooler heads have prevailed.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Finance_General/Delta_Pilots.html