What dose future hold for organanized labor in the u.s commercial Research Paper

What dose future hold for organanized labor in the u.s commercial aviation industry - Research Paper Example The decline in organized labor was to such an extent that by the beginning of the 21st century, it represented less than 10% of private sector workers although in the public sector organized labor still represented about 35% of all workers. In 2005, there was another setback to organized labor, when two of America’s most powerful unions – SEIU and Teamsters – resigned from AFL-CIO. The commercial aviation industry has been undergoing several setbacks due to rising prices for jet fuel, increasing uneasiness about the legacy carriers moving towards bankruptcy which can disrupt the market place, and issues such as public liability potential for unfounded pensions of major carriers (ENO, 2005). Strategies in the commercial aviation and airlines industry has been evolving based on two factors – growing concern for passenger safety and ever increasing and changing consumer demands and expectations (Appelbaum & Fewster, 2003). The strategy thus has to focus on ho w the HR department aligns the activities, policies and procedures with the employee and labor relations. Despite these challenges, passengers traveling by air is on the rise and is expected to double by 2025 (ENO, 2005). The aircraft operations are expected to triple which implies that public confidence in safety is back to normal. It is feared that public safety may be taken for granted in the future, which could lead to under funding of safety measures. It is very important that Air Traffic Management (ATM) system handles the growing congestion in the skies efficiently and safely. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the past two decades had failed to bring about significant improvement. There are inefficiencies built into the current labor contracts within the airline labor unions. According to a union representative the airline management cannot ‘plead temporary insanity’ regarding the