Former Usair Chief Defends Airport Agreement

[autofixer]

Has anyone considered the fact that UAIR maybe is NOT a GREAT company. Maybe it is structurally flawed and cannot be fixed by anyone. It is quite possible it would be in the ash heap of history if it were not for the ATSB Loan. It is possible that this government intervention only prolonged the demise a year or two. Just some food for thought.

 

[RedOne]

Tug, if I take the liberty of read between the lines, I think you are asking two questions. (1) Can this company survive. (2) If they survive, will the employees make enough to live on.
My thoughts to both of the above is...I have my doubts. You and I can do our part by giving an honest days work for our (?) 8 hrs of pay. All the employees can do that but that will not make the company be successful...or even survive. For any organization, whether it be a business or a civic organization, to be successful (or to even just exist) it MUST have a vision of where it is going, and leadership to take it there. I see no evidence of real leadership within our company. IF our leadership team has a real plan, it hasn't been presented to the work force. There is little communications between leadership and the workforce (except we need more concessions). (I don't know if the communications problem is with management or with some of our unions ...is info given to them and they just don't give it to us? I know the my union doesnt' really communicate with F/S). I don't know if you have any dealings with fire ants...but we are like fire ants. Our fire ant mound (our company) has been disturbed...is on the outskirts of being destroyed...and the worker ants are in a panic. No plan of attack. No organization. No leadership that they can understand. Each individual going crazy and trying to bite anything it can find. The only command which comes from deep within the mound seems to be... "You must give more!" I don't know if the company can survive. I don't know if we as individuals and families can survive on it's salary if it does. It is indeed troublesome.

 

[Fleazle]

I don't think anybody would argure that Uncle Ed wasn't/isn't a nice guy, but I don't think he was very savvy when it came to marketing or customer service issues. For example:

Remember all the busloads of people that got hauled out to gate 32R at the old terminal in PIT; usually to a decrepit BAC-111 with no ground air or running water to wash your hands? Why were we flying those planes in 1990?

That last, ultra qiuet row of seats on the DC-9? You know....those extra-comfy seats that did not recline all the way to Florida no matter how hard you tried?

Alladin trays. I always felt like I was handing the poor passenger a dog dish.

Tough decsions needed to have been made in the years after the mergers regarding route/fleet overlap. Why did U need to fly to West Coast from CLE, CMH, IND and DAY?
PI and PSA had established, successful marketing programs and brand awareness among their passengers that U just trashed. The company should have adapted those successful programs to make the big picture work.
The mergers were handed so poorly that thousands of passengers and employees alike were alienated.
All of this "baggage" continues to plague the company to this day. There has never been a corporate culture in place to make employees feel valued, or that their opinions matter.
My first year of employment with company I got a $100 Christmas bonus; I thought it was pretty cool seeing as I had only been hired in October of that year. That was it though.....no bonus after that ever again. The downward slide had begun.

 

[etops1]

will you people just let by gones be by gones. its in the past .get over it . it sucked when it happened . yes it was bad decision making. yes its why we are the way we are today. but please enough of the what could have been . its not ok. so now lets work on what could be.

 

[tug_slug]

its not ok. so now lets work on what could be.

Amen to that etops

 

[PITbull]

Garcia,

You are confused on your "time line". Gangwal took his contractual pension pay out in November of 2001. Dave S. put us into BK on August 11, 2002. Gangwal was off the property.

Doesn't mean the 15 million wasn't an ill gotten gain at a time when the company was in DEEP trouble. Siegel could and should have made an attempt to recover the funds from Wolf & Gangster! It would have done wonders for morale and softened the blow of the bonus payouts taking place.

Bob,

It was you who mentioned bonuses in the above thread.

 

[700UW]

Uncle Ed did make some mistakes, like canceling the last three 767-200ERs PI had on order, then realizing how much money the 767 aircraft made by its London router and transcon and then having to pay Boeing $30 million dollars more to reorder the last three 767s.

 

[PITbull]

etops,

Keep it up with the cleaning crap, and your job will be "outsourced" as well, to a LCC or express. See how you like it!

 

[PITbull]

We are not living in the past, we are just stating the FACTS as they apply. A statement was made about about Uncle Ed, and we responded to it. I am saying nothing more than the wheels of destruction were set in motion by him 15 years ago. Nobody here can argue that we have not been on track since 1989 can they????
We are now forced to live and pay for a chain of blunders that started in the past while he and others live in retired wealth. The past is the past, but we suffer in the present due to it.

Wings,

I don't agree. WE hurdled the times back then with better times in the latter part of the 1990s. In 1998 U netted $900 Million dollars for the year. In 1999, $500 Million, and then the economy started to change in 2000.

So, no. I DON'T agree that we were spiraling since 1989. The spiral for U started in second quarter of 2000 along with all the majors. Our industry is highly sensitive to the economy, and we were on the decline in 2000, then 9/11 put us into and excelerated recession.

 

[700UW]

From the IAM/US Airways Mechanic and Related Contract:

Line Utility Functions.
Article 2 and 4, J of the Basic Agreement and other related articles and
provisions related to Line Utilitymen will be amended as follows:
• Utilitymen will continue to be used in BOS, DCA, LGA, CLT, PIT,
PHL, LAX and SFO. The scope of Line Utility work in these cities will
be limited to performance of RON, through and turn flight cleaning,
lavatory and potable water servicing and Line Utility cleaning as
required in the Basic Agreement.

In cities other than BOS, DCA, LGA, CLT, PIT, PHL, LAX and SFO,
Utility work may be performed by other US Airways employees or
vendors, except RON cleaning, which will continue to be performed by
Utility.

ETOPS1 the reason you can't is because it is someone else's job. The Utility folks depend on their jobs to support their families. So it would be the equavilant of the Pilots putting the plane on autopilot and doing your job so they can lay off more F/As or we can have non-revs on the flight do your job, or why don't we just let Johnnie O, let his Mesa slaved waged F/A's do your job?

I mean get real, we have a thousand or more utility on layoff and by management not staffing the airline properly and then you having the gall to do someone else's job and you are not getting paid to do it means someone else is still on layoff.

Are you trained on biohazads, do you wear gloves when you clean a plane? What happens if you get hurt while doing someone else's job that you have no right to do? You know what happens? The company refuses your OI claim because you were doing something you were not suppose too.

Oh and if you think you are helping the companay you are not, because the IAM will file a grievance and the utility workers will get paid, so in reality you are costing the company money. So show your coworkers some respect and let them do their jobs! Maybe if you want to jump into a lav truck and dump the crappers they might let you! Becareful of the BLUE WATER!

 

[etops1]

you know, i might get alot of crap by saying this .but i am begining to think that this union bull---- all its going to do is break this airline apart. and its people like you pitt. with that gun-ho no pay to the last day mentality that's doing it. i am not a company person but sadly that's the way it looks. you guys want to fight so much . in the end what do you get. your pride? well your pride is not going to pay your bills. your job is. i am not saying to give in to everything . because there are some rediculous things that have been asked from us. but i don't think working together is a bad thing. and iam not trying to outsource anyones job. and if my job is outsourced oh well it will hurt but will get back on my feet and keep going. usair is not my life. its my job and i could find another one. but for the time being i am willing to help in any way to help this company stay afloat. now go get a cup of coffe and simmer down a little. <_<

 

[700UW]

We don't want to fight, we are protecting the scope language in a federally binding contract!

If you do someone else's job you are no better then Dave, Jerry and Doug who are infamous contract abusers and union busters, do you think Dave wants to give you anything more then what Mesa pays he cant because you have a contract, if you want to clean airplanes and still be a F/A go work for one of the LCCs so you can get paid peanuts.

And the Transport Workers Union who represents WN's F/As are willing to strike over cleaning airplanes because they do not get paid to do it.

You really need an education on unions and labor. You can outsource your job, but dont do the same to others who want to work here and do the work gaurented to them by their contracts, not yours!

Well then let Dave outsource your work to MESA if you want to do anything to save him, look at us mechanics, we had to go to court to protect our work, protect your life from some unlicensed mechanic from working on it and turning us into another Valujet. Look at aircraft 700UW, it had several EMERGENCY LANDINGS because of shoddy work done by a vendor, I hope you are ok with putting your life and our passengers lives at risk by having people and companies that dont care about quality, they only care about getting a plane out on time so they dont have to pay a penality to US Airways, on the other hand our mechanics are not pressured and have protections to do the job right because we have a union to protect them.

 

[etops1]

We don't want to fight, we are protecting the scope language in a federally binding contract!

If you do someone else's job you are no better then Dave, Jerry and Doug who are infamous contract abusers and union busters, do you think Dave wants to give you anything more then what Mesa pays he cant because you have a contract, if you want to clean airplanes and still be a F/A go work for one of the LCCs so you can get paid peanuts.

And the Transport Workers Union who represents WN's F/As are willing to strike over cleaning airplanes because they do not get paid to do it.

You really need an education on unions and labor. You can outsource your job, but dont do the same to others who want to work here and do the work gaurented to them by their contracts, not yours!

let me tell you something 700. there is a rumor floating around that the ceo might go to the f/a union and propose to pay the f/a's $4.00 an hr more to clean the a/c as part of this so called plan that's coming up. now. i have asked f/a's about this and the majority of f/a's i asked said that they would do it in a heart beat if the company was going to pay them more. we do it already for free in some stations. now this is a rumor its not a fact . i don't know how you do votes but i would like to see a vote to see how many f/a's would actually clean the a/c if the company paid them to.

 

[700UW]

They can propose all they want, the IAM has a legal and binding contract that it is IAM covered work, the AFA would not even entertain that and this company all ready pays you NOTHING to clean where utility is not staffed.

So did you not learn anything by the Airbus outsourcing?

It is in the IAM contract which gives us the exclusitivity to that work where we are staffed.

And rumors are like an anus, everyone has them and they stink.

So try to come up with something better, Dave will not pay you to do something that he all ready pays, Utility, Ramp or a vendor to do.

 

[etops1]

i said it was a rumor . i don't like rumors but thats' whats floating around . i hope its not true cause i lke the majority of you guys. now this is a really hot topic so i will drop it. we started talking about colodny now its outsourcing. funny how these forums turn around. anyway 700 the best of luck for you and the mechanics and everyone here at airways in this new year we all need it. i don't want to fight and argue with you, pit ,or anyone for that matter. we are all in this together . so all we need to do is find a way to work together and keep this company afloat.