TIME FOR CHANGE
Veteran
well stated
It was everyone else except AMR's piss poor management that turned the company around
yet AMR's management still reaps the rewards of everyone elses sacrifice
ARPEY - CEO of the Year
- Thread starter WingNaPrayer
- Start date
well stated
It was everyone else except AMR's piss poor management that turned the company around
yet AMR's management still reaps the rewards of everyone elses sacrifice
eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
- 15,959
- 9,374
Nobody is asking anyone to shed tears. Employees, suppliers and creditors all took a haircut. They took less of a haircut than they would have in bankruptcy. That's a fact, not opinion or spin.
Unfortunately, management decided not to eat their own dogfood in 2003, and you'll get no argument from me regarding the fact that paying out the bonuses was fundamentally wrong and showed a total lack of leadership.
I've said many times over that if any bonuses were due to be paid out, they should have been given from the top executives all the down all the way to the building cleaners.
But... your contract is your problem to deal with. The company's goal is to get you to work harder for the least amount of money they can get away with, and as long as your union continues to have laymen going up against MBA's and people who know more about running the business than you do, you're going to wind up with the short end of the deal. Other unions have the same problem, so it's not the TWU that is necessarily flawed here. It's all in their approach to negotiating. Match them skill for skill at the table, and perhaps you'd wind up with better contracts.
Unfortunately, management decided not to eat their own dogfood in 2003, and you'll get no argument from me regarding the fact that paying out the bonuses was fundamentally wrong and showed a total lack of leadership.
I've said many times over that if any bonuses were due to be paid out, they should have been given from the top executives all the down all the way to the building cleaners.
But... your contract is your problem to deal with. The company's goal is to get you to work harder for the least amount of money they can get away with, and as long as your union continues to have laymen going up against MBA's and people who know more about running the business than you do, you're going to wind up with the short end of the deal. Other unions have the same problem, so it's not the TWU that is necessarily flawed here. It's all in their approach to negotiating. Match them skill for skill at the table, and perhaps you'd wind up with better contracts.
TIME FOR CHANGE
Veteran
The bonuses should have been paid from the bottom up not the top down.
I dont have to have an MBA to realize the company wants as much as they can get from us be it work rules benefits or pay
How does the saying go...
"They pay me just enough not to quit so I do just enough not to get fired."
Tell that to the MBA's and to the people who know more about running the business than I do
This is the mentality that the company has pounded into our heads and thats why no one gives a rats arse if the plane leaves today tomorrow or next week. Just keep paying me and I will show up.
They pay us as little as possible so we do as little as possible.
A business plan that is doomed to fail.
local 12 proud
Veteran
- Mar 5, 2004
- 4,265
- 4
The bonuses should have been paid from the bottom up not the top down.
I dont have to have an MBA to realize the company wants as much as they can get from us be it work rules benefits or pay
How does the saying go...
"They pay me just enough not to quit so I do just enough not to get fired."
Tell that to the MBA's and to the people who know more about running the business than I do
This is the mentality that the company has pounded into our heads and thats why no one gives a rats arse if the plane leaves today tomorrow or next week. Just keep paying me and I will show up.
They pay us as little as possible so we do as little as possible.
A business plan that is doomed to fail.
Stellar....
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!
SWA has thrived in a deregulated enviornment without canibalizing its employees.
Wrong, thats opinion. Maybe the vendors would have taken a hit in BK , but the employees are much worse off by accepting the concessions. (Didnt vendors get stock options and flight benifits?)
Another crock. Just because someone has an MBA it doesnt mean that he is a more qualified negotiator than someone who doesnt. Are all these agents that negotiate mega million dollar deals for pro-athletes MBAs? I dont think so. All the benifits that were won in the past were negotiated by people without MBAs. If you sell your house to someone with an MBA does that mean you are at a disadvantage? What we need is negotiators with knowlwdge and balls that truly have a stake in the result.
The TWU is deeply flawed.
Members of the TWU are constantly disappointed in the way their negotiations with management have turned out. Yet those who hate the TWU continue to think that the negotiating team should continue to consist of wrenches and bag smashers instead of individuals who negotiate for a living.
As I've posted before, you'll continue to be disappointed with your "once every three to five years" part-time negotiators. Expert at fixing and loading/unloading airplanes? What makes you think those people are any good at negotiating?
No wonder the execs continue to celebrate. Beating the TWU (as well as the APFA) is child's play.
As I've posted before, you'll continue to be disappointed with your "once every three to five years" part-time negotiators. Expert at fixing and loading/unloading airplanes? What makes you think those people are any good at negotiating?
No wonder the execs continue to celebrate. Beating the TWU (as well as the APFA) is child's play.
Our negotiations turn out the way they do because the company pays the TWU millions a year to insure they get what they want. The "wrenches and bag smashers" dont negotiate with the company, they negotiate with the TWU International.
Pilots have done prety well for themselves. Most pilots are not MBAs.
How many of Enrons top dogs were MBAs?
How about LTCM?
As I said before, all the gains that were made decades ago were negotiated by people drawn from the rank and file(of real unions, not the TWU). Strength at the table doesnt come from a sheepskin, it comes from the charecter of the negotiator.That said its not an endorsement of the TWU or its negotiating practices-if you could call it that. But to think that turning over negotiations to people with MBAs would be a solution is false. They may be useful at checking the numbers but may or may not be good a striking deals or being able to see through false or misleading figures.
I think its a very safe bet that the unions representing employees at AA will continue to come up dissapointed and empty handed. Flight attendants have convinced themselves that no one could possibly understand the intricacies of their job, and they are the best people to negotiate. Truth is as FWAA has stated, AA has to love the disorganization and infighting, they bring to the table.
Quick question: How many of those gains "made decades ago" happened post-1978? You've posted before about the pattern of concessions going back almost 25 years, right? Seems like the "no hired guns" policy ain't been working too good. Could be the lousy negotiating team or could be that deregulation has made "winning" anything darned near impossible (ever since market forces entered into the equation). Maybe it was easy for the company to agree to wage and working rule improvements back when it wasn't really competing against other airlines. The CAB was the enemy then.
You guys have more than one problem: You've got the corrupt TWU which you should have replaced a long time ago.
A second problem is the part-time negotiating team: You've got the guys in matching custom-made T-shirts who march into a negotiating room and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I've never seen it, but that would crack up anyone on the other side of the table. That ain't the way to out-negotiate a multi-billion dollar company.
Good luck fixing those problems. Success won't be achieved, IMO, until both of those failures are addressed.
Most of the gains in this industry were won in other-deregulated- industries prior to 1978. The construction trades in NYC have thrived in a deregulated enviornment for years. The fact is there is a demand for labor in this industry yet wges and benifits have been seriously eroded, bringing in MBAs will not fix that, the whole structure of labor needs to be changed. Portability from company to company is the key, not having an MBA negotiate for you under an extremely flawed structure.
TIME FOR CHANGE
Veteran
Portability from company to company is the key
That would be the only real solution to our problem seniority being the date on your A&P license
That would be the only real solution to our problem seniority being the date on your A&P license
That would be the only real solution to our problem seniority being the date on your A&P license
And the only way for that to work would be to get everyone into the same union.
T
The Goose
Guest
I agree - a REAL union, and not an association run by rank amateurs.
Ken MacTiernan
Veteran
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