Airline union concessions in the wake of deregulation

While deregulation of the airline industry's routes and schedules has increased the carrier's vulnerability to strikes, unions are still under pressure to grant concessions because they never enforced uniform contracts across the product market. Instead, they practiced local autonomy to meet the varying needs of members at different carriers. This bargaining structure led to an overabundance of unions in the industry, and significant industrial disputes generally involve only one union, with disputes across carriers virtually nonexistent. The pressure to make concessions depends on: 1. the probability that concessions will save jobs, 2. the employment prospects at other airlines and outside the industry, 3. the autonomy of the local union from the interests of the international union, and 4. the extent of competition from other unions for their members. Mechanics have been the work group least inclined to agree to concessions, while pilots have made more concessions than all other groups combined. To obtain union concessions and cooperation, airline management have yielded in such areas as participative management, profit-sharing, and stock ownership. This makes it more difficult for unions to achieve an industry-wide collective bargaining structure that manufacturing unions have historically used to counter wage-cutting pressures.