This is not the bottom of the 4th or the top of the ninth, AND it is NOT a game.
I didn't say that it is. But IMHO the outlook is none the less very, very bleak.
Like it or not it should be obvious that things
do have to change.
I heartily agree that management needs to take advantage of the tools that they already have available to them. They gain no credibility whatsoever when it appears that they haven't lifted a single finger towards anything that could pass as an attempt to improve productivity. (They may have made such attempts, they may even have successes -- but communications are so pathetic nobody would know it...)
They blather on about gaining $2B in concessions from labor but neglect to state how much revenue they've thrown away by shrinking the airline -- eyeballing the 10-k would seem to show that they've slashed revenue about 50% more than they've obtained from labor over the same period. (I haven't really sat down and crunched those numbers. But they're ugly.)
There are only two ways out of this -- reduce costs or bring in more revenue for the same (or at least similar) costs. Reducing revenue faster than you reduce costs won't work.
... most important in my opinion, is while one group does more, it will have to be at the expense of costing others their jobs in other groups.
Perhaps some groups will suffer unevenly. I don't know. It does seem likely. And, yes, individually that's very painful. But it becomes even more painful as time goes by without addressing it. Ultimately (on average over the whole population, not for each and every person) these displacements do result in people being better off. As a population we're more prosperous than our parents and grandparents were and our children and grandchildren will almost certainly do better yet (yes, I'm sure that lots of people can provide anecdotes that say otherwise -- but that doesn't change the fact that over the whole population things do, on average, get better over time). You're in an industry that is undergoing disruptive change -- clinging to the old ways has a very predictable outcome.
Is that more efficient? Why, yes in the corporate business arena, however, the greater question is...is job elimination good for America? Unemploying more will make for a more efficeint leaner company and yield profits...
Unemploying more people won't make the company more efficient and profitable unless it can be done in such a way as to reduce costs faster than it reduces revenue. So far they haven't managed to do that. Hacking and slashing at labor is not, by itself, a garanteed method for obtaining a bonus.
Bronner needs to come out of his isolated "shell". He has invested in a very precarious, and volatile industry..."stupid him". But, he now needs to have the foresight and realize that ALL the labor groups by concensus, DO NOT TRUST OR WANT TO GIVE THIS MANGEMNT ANYTHING. Unfortunately for him, that IS the reality. If he truly cares about his investment, he needs to do some serious thinking. Otherwise, we will ALL lose.
You'll also all lose if you persist in this rhetoric. That's reality too.
Framing the problem as a "volatile industry" is a mistake -- you aren't looking at problems that are a result of normal business cycles. You're passing through a state change -- it's a much bigger problem than volatility. You can't just ride it out with the same old work groups, the same processes and the same contracts. (Yup, management has to see this too...)
Your stated principles are often laudable. But a lot of the details just aren't going to survive -- one of three things is going to happen 1) Dave & Dave crush the unions and the company will somehow survive (fat chance but lots more likely than the other way around
🙄 ) 2) The company goes bust or 3) You start working as a team and figure out what the new world needs to look like.
It's not a one way street... to paraphrase one of the founding fathers -- either find a way to work together or you'll surely all hang together (although Dave will probably hang from a silk rope...)
