Dhast,
That was one of my points. The poster I quoted made reference to the incorrect fact that if they worked hard and good, that they would protect their jobs. This is untrue. I used to work for UA when customer contact wsa non-union, and I worked for them after it was union. A few bad apples got lazier with the union, but in time, they were terminated. Favoritism did go way down after they went union though, which to me, was a net good. An employee knew what to expect if he screwed up, instead of arbitrary decisions that varried from one supervisor to another.

The senority system has its faults...it does not recognize "above average" performers and reward them, but after all, what kind of a promotion would you give a mechanic? You make them a lead, then what? end of line. SUre they could be a supe, but that is not done by seniority. Until an equitable system that is applied uniformly can be divised to evaluate thousands of employyes work skills/ethics across hundreds of stations, senority works for me. FOr those who say that you can hide behind the senority system and goof off...you could hide behind a merit system and goof off to, provided you never got cought or wer friends with the supe. The bad apples will get thrown out in a union system too, but at lest they have someone making sure they do not get railroaded, they can appeal, and can comapre their case to other cases with precidents set.

Union or not, NW would try given todays economic conditions to do the same thing. The only difference is with the union representation, the AMFA folks got to vote on their course of action to accept NW proposal instead of having it handed to them with no choice. To me, a choice is always better than no choice.