career vs. job?

[legacy-to-LCC]

a recent post in another thread suggests an intolerance towards those who choose to make the airline industry a career, particularly among those who are in senior management. i can well understand the motivations for arriving at such a conclusion: financial obligations, etc. yet, the duplicity of "celebrating" our origins with throw back liveries (despite a consistent inability to do it with the right paint color) and heritage logos balanced against this assault on career minded employees, assents to something much different...
dp and i share a common bond: we both have a masters from the same university! but, somehow, my choice to make flying a career is inferior? and, somehow a pilot who has invested incalcuable dollars and time to fly is inferior? and, somehow, a mechanic who has labored through legions of certifications is inferior? etc., etc...
wake up tempe!!! this is--and always will be--a career for people!!!
thoughts?

 

[PITbull]

Bottom line...Management does not have any respect or regard for the rank and file employees. It is not a matter of what they say or don't say, but rather, by their actions. And as evidenced by the wages they pay their professionals.

What they don't want is long-time employees. Higher wages translates to less management bonus money, and stock value.

 

[hp_fa]

What they don't want is long-time employees. Higher wages translates to less management bonus money, and stock value.

Unfortunately, PitBull is correct. It very much seems that the airline wants to pay Wal-Mart wages with the same job expectency for its workers that Wal-Mart "associates" have. This attitude will kill the company sooner or later. One bad incident that arises because of people just having a job rather then a career, and taking the responsibity one feels with having a career, will give some lawyers somewhere all the evidence he/she needs to sue the company into oblivion.

 

[Furloughedagain]

HP FA

Naturally you don't feel that unions had anything to do with this decline? Automakers, airlines, the steel-industry, the grocery industry.

It's not the 1950s anymore. All of the wishing and hoping in the world will not turn back the clock and reverse globalization. The United States needs to learn to compete in that marketplace. It can be done - but only by improving efficiency and stripping costs from production.

It's funny. I know a whole lot more people who have made 30+ year careers in retail than I do in the airlines. I know retail employees who started pushing carts in stores and moved on to become regional vice presidents, logistics managers, ISD professionals, and corporate pilots for their company.

I know very few airline pilots nowadays who have the same career potential. Most of our generation of pilots simply hop from job to job.

I would venture that unless you happen to work for FedEx there is no such thing as an airline "career" anymore. Just your next airline "job".

Part of the problem of working for an airline (or multiple airlines) over the last decade is that it's very easy to find yourself wearing blinders - incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.

A few years as a corporate pilot for a Fortune 500 company has provided me with a clarity that I never could have gained had I remained in the airlines... hopping from job to job seeking that elusive "career". While you look down your nose at retail employees, I look at them with admiration. With some education and drive, they have the potential to far exceed our earning power and job security.

 

[ChrisUS]

I would venture that unless you happen to work for FedEx there is no such thing as an airline "career" anymore. Just your next airline "job".

Another benefit from the "Southwest effect". :down:

No company wants long term employees anymore. Just about anywhere you go, it's obvious the employees dont give a rat's ass. It is just a "job" and they put up with it for the pay. And look what they've done to retirees.

 

[PITbull]

HP FA

Naturally you don't feel that unions had anything to do with this decline? Automakers, airlines, the steel-industry, the grocery industry.

It's not the 1950s anymore. All of the wishing and hoping in the world will not turn back the clock and reverse globalization. The United States needs to learn to compete in that marketplace. It can be done - but only by improving efficiency and stripping costs from production.

It's funny. I know a whole lot more people who have made 30+ year careers in retail than I do in the airlines. I know retail employees who started pushing carts in stores and moved on to become regional vice presidents, logistics managers, ISD professionals, and corporate pilots for their company.

I know very few airline pilots nowadays who have the same career potential. Most of our generation of pilots simply hop from job to job.

I would venture that unless you happen to work for FedEx there is no such thing as an airline "career" anymore. Just your next airline "job".

Part of the problem of working for an airline (or multiple airlines) over the last decade is that it's very easy to find yourself wearing blinders - incapable of seeing the forest for the trees.

A few years as a corporate pilot for a Fortune 500 company has provided me with a clarity that I never could have gained had I remained in the airlines... hopping from job to job seeking that elusive "career". While you look down your nose at retail employees, I look at them with admiration. With some education and drive, they have the potential to far exceed our earning power and job security.

Your one world order and globalization has not started in the airline industry yet. So, don't use labor as an excuse for airlines to compete. Competition is not a factor except that the consumer is now competing for the seat. The "over capacity" is shrinking. All the airlines have stripped labor costs and their is still a race to the bottom using Bk or threatening BK as their loop hole. Currently, they are all pretty much competiting with about the same labor costs, excluding SW which is an anomoly. Airlines can't control fuel prices, and that is keeping profits pretty much out of the scene.The only advantage airlines had is ATSB financing and BK. That is where they can screw not just labor, but creditors, tax payors along with sharholders as collateral damage. The only entity that goes unscathed are the execs. That's just the natural order of our capilalistic Corporate system of "screw the little guy"...keep them down, hungry and stupid.

What we have here currently is who can fool the wall street analyst the best with the most positive speculation. The Execs and shareholders only care about the stock price, not about profits. Whatever the company can conjure up to push up the stock...that's what they will do and are doing.

After all, the service and product is basically the same across the board. There really has been no improvements or added perks. Just more cutbacks on service. Customers are in the equation for 'give backs' as well.

As PB has implied, get the bottom educated and you may just change the entire equation. B) My motto is keep your debts low, keep going to school, stay informed so you can stay ahead of the curve.

 

[RowUnderDCA]

Well it goes deeper than that.

In the US the concept of "40 Years, A gold watch & pension" was the "American Dream" and most of the so called Boomers have had that ingrained in us practically since birth.

It was sustainable as long as the US dominated the world as a manufacturing juggernaut and had little consistent competition post war for high quality goods and services. This myth was exploded by of all things the construction of the World Trade Center which was the first large building in the US built with Foriegn Steel. As all of the PIT folks are well aware, the Steel Industry began its long slide just shortly after 1976 reaching the point of collapse in the Mid Eighties.

Much like the airlines of today Big Steel used every trick in the book to wring concessions from their workers with one huge difference. The bonus concept had not crept in and CEO's were of a different generation. Now Factor in the huge growth of NuCor Steel as technology advances allowed them to compete for the high profit structural shapes. Their workers made MORE than their USWA counterparts and so did their company (Sound like SWA?)

Thus the myth began to crumble to the crumbs of today. You could eliminate Executive Bonuses entirely and it wouldn't change a thing strictly in dollars and cents terms. What has changed is the attitude of CEO's in regards to employees and their value to an organization. As the so called "Knowledge Worker" is finding out, a programmer that is competent in C+ need not be competent in english or even reside in the United States. If things continue the Knowledge Worker of today will be the equivelent of the airline ReZ agent tomorrow, expendable.

Our parents generation had a sense of social responsibility and sought to give back to the community in which their companies flourished, todays exec's do not share that sentiment.

Bottom Line their are no careers in terms of getting a job out of scholl working hard and staying until you're 65. That was always a myth hidden by years of prosperity in the 50's and 60's. Now you can work in an industry for a long long time just not doing the same thing. You have to increase your marketability and this is where there is a breakdown IMO between the old style industrial union and the new economic reality. If you want to work in the airlines you'd best look at increasing your marketability each and evey year. If you start as a ramper, plan on getting your A & P ticket punched so you can earn more. In terms of job performance, a TOS Ramper is worth less to a company than a new hire as the TOS ramper delivers a higher cost unit of production and no real value other than to train the younger ones. The young worker of today is likely to move companies 5 to 7 times over 40 years making the concept of a defined benefit pension not only costly but unworkable. If you don't develop the same mercenary attitude as those at the top you will be crushed spiritually and economically. It's a very scary new world out there.

I totally agree, except for the mercenary attitude part. We have enough of that already! And I'd say it was a 'scary' new world but not 'very scary.'

So, I guess that's not totally agreeing. :huh:

 

[sentrido]

Well it goes deeper than that.

In the US the concept of "40 Years, A gold watch & pension" was the "American Dream" and most of the so called Boomers have had that ingrained in us practically since birth.

It was sustainable as long as the US dominated ...

Amen Piney.
Another way to look at the situation is that you may find yourself in the right place at the right time with the right skill that a company has to have and you take em for every penny they have.

 

[SoftLanding]

Bottom line...Management does not have any respect or regard for the rank and file employees. It is not a matter of what they say or don't say, but rather, by their actions. And as evidenced by the wages they pay their professionals.

What they don't want is long-time employees. Higher wages translates to less management bonus money, and stock value.

PITbull,


I agree with your statement.

However, why do they not have respect for us, the frontline employees?

Could it be that we have not earned it the last couple of years?!!!

Especially so for the US Airways pilots, as we have used the CH11 and liquidation excuse to give it all back...


SoftLanding

 

[USCREW]

That happens to be the position I'm in myself right now. I just put myself "In Play" this morning. Don't get me wrong I love where I work but Money talks and Bull Feces walks.

Put another way: Money is sickness and I am the cure!

Bonus points if you know the name of the song and it's author.

"Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed?
"Miracle Cure" by The Who?

 

[PITbull]

PITbull,
I agree with your statement.

However, why do they not have respect for us, the frontline employees?

Could it be that we have not earned it the last couple of years?!!!

Especially so for the US Airways pilots, as we have used the CH11 and liquidation excuse to give it all back...
SoftLanding

If management actually respected their employees, they would then have to value their work and professionalism, and that would mean they would have to pay you what you are really worth vs. paying you what management can get away with by threats and intimidating the workers.