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On 7/12/2003 4:34:01 PM KCFlyer wrote:
No...it also allowed airlines to grow and provide jobs to disgruntled welders.
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WRONG!
Demand creates jobs not cheap wages. In order for demand to continue people have to have the ability and desire to buy. The fact is that job growth in the airline industry has not outpaced job growth throughout the economy as a whole. While some airlines have increased in size the fact is there are less airlines.
Deregulation did not help job growth. The trend for overall job growth in the airlines did not see a rapid increase with the advent of deregulation, in the early years it went down, at best it was a continuation of the trend it had been following since the beginning of the industry.
The myth of deregulation, and concesionary contracts helping to generate job growth was one of Koziateks cop out excuses for doing a lousy job representing members. In fact he laid that one on me a couple of years back with Jim Little present. (Obviously Jim is following in his predecessors footsteps, with a vengence).With unions putting forth such lame excusese for concessionary contracts one has to wonder if union representation is needed, hell isnt that what the companies have been saying for years? Why should we pay these guys to just agree that we should work for less in order to create more low paying jobs? Low wages for less unemployment? What ever happened to the idea of a shorter workweek for less unemployment? I dont mind making less money if I''m working less hours but working more hours for a lot less money while doing the same job is going backwards.Left in the hands of guys who make six figures a year without a timeclock I guess those ideas lose their allure.
What is particularly sad is that the union did all it could to eliminate jobs. By agreeing to give back a week of vacation it helped eliminate more jobs and kill morale and productivity.There are other options to layoffs. If they had offered to keep the heads but have everyone take a week or two off without pay it would have kept the least paid employees with the lowest benifits cost on payroll, avoided paying severance and lowered unit costs. It would have also kept these employees current and on hand for when the industry rebounds. Many of the younger workers will not come back. When you figure that the company invested at least $10,000 to $20,000 in training each and every one of them its a terrible waste. What they did was piss off everyone, they will never get the same productivity out of the guys after cutting their pay. But then again the bean counters dont know how to quantify morale. They may soon get the required information.