Rise In Outside Repairs Raises Questions

[mweiss]

A flat tire on the road is an inconvenience, a flat tire on the Concorde killed people.

It wasn't a "flat tire." It was a blowout caused by runway debris. Blowouts from road debris regularly kill people on the road. In North America alone, about the same number of people die every year from road debris-caused automobile accidents as died on the Concorde in two decades.

When faced with an automobile repair bill with labor charged at $65 per hour, people pay without blinking. When reading a news story about airline mechanics making $30 per hour, articles that consistently fail to mention the level of risk or the nights/weekends/holidays part of our jobs, most Americans polled consider them overpaid and blame 'the unions'.

Hmmm...so the auto mechanic is making $65 per hour? And all this time I thought that there was retail markup involved.

And who do you think gave them that reputation, the unions themselves?

Yes.

Call the local paper in your nearest big city and tell them you represent a union wishing to take out a full page article explaining how whatever large airline is their major advertiser may be unsafe.

I'll do that today. Should be an interesting experiment. I will phrase it differently, because as I said before you have to handle this sort of thing with finesse.

no evidence was presented that the union itself authorized or approved of those actions.

And yet, the contract between the union and the airline was still breached. My employer is still liable for illegal actions that I take if they can be misconstrued as representing my employer.

I believe that I was clear; a reduction of $.05 to CASM.

That's huge. That's over 30% of CASM. No wonder it's such a powerful force. Ask people to pay a third more for their airline tickets in exchange for an unknown reduction in an unknown risk, when airline fatalities are exceptionally rare, and it shouldn't come as a tiny, remote surprise that they balk.

ANY message from a union is spun as job protection in the media.

Nearly any message from union leadership to its membership is spun as job protection. Why would it be surprising for the media to hear the same message?

 

[mweiss]

The only differentiation is on fare because that's the only issue the passengers seem to react to.

This sounds like a chicken and egg argument. In any case, I must disagree with your statement. Passengers base their decisions on value. Different segments value different features to different degrees. For nearly three decades now, most airlines have occasionally tentatively dipped their toes in the differentiation pool.

One airline stands out in that regard. AS marketed on differentiation, and successfully held WN back with that strategy. They didn't choose safety as the element of differentiation, but it's really, really hard to credibly claim to be safer than WN, who has had zero air crash fatalities in over thirty years.

Because that is the the easiest explanation, which is all they would look for and the only message they would be allowed to hear.

Not at all. They hear the words, but they don't believe them. I explained why in the last post, so we should try to keep this subtopic there.

 

[NWA/AMT]

That'd be an overstatement.

[post="259641"][/post]​

Yet that seems to be your assessment of the efforts to date, based on the comments you have made on the subject.

Oh, please. The means isn't disappearing. It's the direct demand that's disappearing.

Oh, please yourself. You were just saying that the "demand isn't going away".

Because they have to pay the bills today in order to even consider a tomorrow. In other words, they're mortgaging their future in order to have a future to mortgage.

Yet in all airline history not one airline has "shrunk" their way to success.

Because of how they are told. If the message sounds like job protection, it doesn't matter if the facts are accurate. It sounds political, so the validity of the message is discounted.

Yet again, I ask you how you would craft that message, since every attempt so far is dismissed by you as job protection.

I'm sure Bernie Ebbers would be surprised to hear that. Ken Lay, incidentally, is using the same defense in his case.

Lets set Bernie aside until he actually does some time, rather than having his sentence overturned on appeal. As for Ken, he still seems to be enjoying the benefits of his openly criminal actions without the accountability you say he's subject to.

Hmmm...so the CEOs you listed no longer worked in the industry. That's not failing upward.

Yet every one of them worked for (or owned) more than one airline and improved their position at each step in their career despite their repeated failures to succeed. That is the very definition of failing upward.

That they had enough money afterward to retire didn't make their careers any less over.

That they had the foresight to take care of themselves while leaving their employees with little shows an incredible level of knowledge in their own lack of ability.

The others you listed weren't CEOs.

Every one I listed was the CEO of at least one major airline:

Harding Lawrence - Braniff

Howard Putnam - Braniff

Frank Lorenzo - Texas International / Continental / Texas Air

Carl Icahn - TWA

Martin Shugrue - Eastern

Phil Bakes - Eastern

It wasn't a "flat tire." It was a blowout caused by runway debris.

And that is the form flat tires most often take on aircraft, either from runway debris or from other damage such as skid burns or recap disbonding. That this is so is primarily because the tires are inspected and have their pressures checked frequently by licensed mechanics.

Blowouts from road debris regularly kill people on the road. In North America alone, about the same number of people die every year from road debris-caused automobile accidents as died on the Concorde in two decades.

And what is the ratio of people traveling the roads in North America in one year to the number of people travelling on the concorde in two decades?

How many of those fatalties might have been prevented if tire pressures and condition on automobiles were monitored as closely as they are on aircraft, increasing the possibility of the tire surviving the road debris ?

 

[NWA/AMT]

Hmmm...so the auto mechanic is making $65 per hour? And all this time I thought that there was retail markup involved.

[post="259652"][/post]​

Just as there is for the airline mechanic when his services are offered by his employer to another airline. Yet auto mechanic pay still outpaces airline mechanic pay, with top BMW/Mercedes certified mechanics earning in the $85-$100 per hour range, without retail markup. The best airline mechanic pay is less than half of that.

Yes.

Preposterous. The image of unions is hardly in their own hands. Union spokespersons are outnumbered ten to one and, as you have repeatedly pointed out, anything from their mouths smacks of job protectionism. It is certainly spun that way by just about every other party involved.

I'll do that today. Should be an interesting experiment. I will phrase it differently, because as I said before you have to handle this sort of thing with finesse.

Please do. Since you have so much criticism for what has been done so far, please show us specifics of the amorphous 'something' you would have us do.

As you do, you should know that AMFA tried to place ads in papers in every major city in the US, just to put their logo and motto and a list of airlines whose mechanics they represent the before the public as a first step toward creating a 'brand identity'. More than half the papers refused the ads outright, citing various excuses. Of those who were willing to accept the ad, most objected to the list of airlines out of fear of offending advertisers or potential advertisers and several objected to the inclusion of the AMFA slogan "Safety in the air begins with quality maintenance on the ground".

Good luck with your "finesse"; show us ham-handed mechanics (and our high dollar PR firm) how it's done.

And yet, the contract between the union and the airline was still breached.

The judgement against the APA was for a RLA violation, not a contract violation, since contract violations would have to be addressed via the contractural grievance procedures prior to judicial recourse.

That's huge. That's over 30% of CASM. No wonder it's such a powerful force.

Apparently I was not as clear as I thought I was, I meant five hundredths of one cent. In other words, an increase of .05 on a CASM of, for instance, 7.50 cents. If it were .05 cents we would have been gone long ago. As you can see, the derived benefit, and the cost to the passenger, is not quite the same.

Nearly any message from union leadership to its membership is spun as job protection. Why would it be surprising for the media to hear the same message?

Since the primary purpose of a union IS job protection for it's members, why is it abnormal for the union leadership to do what they were elected to do? As you have stated, the primary purpose of a CEO is to maximize the profit for his shareholders, in other words represent his constituency. Why are the leaders of a union held to a different standard than a CEO?

This sounds like a chicken and egg argument. In any case, I must disagree with your statement. Passengers base their decisions on value. Different segments value different features to different degrees. For nearly three decades now, most airlines have occasionally tentatively dipped their toes in the differentiation pool.

Yet, millions spent on brand differentiation are wasted once the passengers select "Sort By Lowest Price" on the web search engine. Take a tour of Orbitz and various airline sites and see how often the phrase "Low Fares" repeats itself. Compare that with the number of attempts at brand differentiation. For several decades passengers have equated the concept of "Value" with "Low Fare", and the airlines have concentrated their differentiation attempts along those lines.

Not at all. They hear the words, but they don't believe them. I explained why in the last post, so we should try to keep this subtopic there.

You put forward the contention that all messages from the union sound like job protectionism, but ignored - as you are ignoring now - how the message from the unions is spun by the media and the other participants in the system. That's far from the complete explanation you would have us believe it is.

 

[NWA/AMT]

Meanwhile, while the unions stand accused of "job protectionism" for bringing forward safety concerns, the airlines and manufacturers are working to prevent certain safety information from being presented to the NTSB at all:

U.S. airlines resist proposal on safety reporting

 

[mweiss]

Yet that seems to be your assessment of the efforts to date, based on the comments you have made on the subject.

Well, then, let me clarify. It has slowed the process down slightly. That's slightly better than having done nothing at all. It's far worse than having stopped the process altogether.

Oh, please yourself. You were just saying that the "demand isn't going away".

Sorry...I got my wires crossed on this specific quote. You said "the means is going away," and somehow I was thinking we were talking about maintenance, not air travel.

The demand for air travel isn't going away. The means to which you referred is, I assume, alluding to decreasing wages in the US. While that is certainly true, your airline hasn't been able to profitably fly leisure travelers anyway (those who would pay out of wages). The business demand isn't going to go away. It's just more tied to the cyclical nature of the economy as a whole, among other factors.

Yet in all airline history not one airline has "shrunk" their way to success.

Yet growth hasn't been an option. The choice is between burning the furniture and living on the streets. Or, to pull away from the analogy, it's a choice between mortgaging the future and closing the doors in a couple of months. Fiduciary responsibility would suggest the former approach.

Yet again, I ask you how you would craft that message, since every attempt so far is dismissed by you as job protection.

The message must be about how a particular maintenance facility is performing shoddy work, couched with the statement that outsourcing is not inherently going to lead to bad maintenance. The message has to be all about quality. It won't happen, though.

Lets set Bernie aside until he actually does some time, rather than having his sentence overturned on appeal. As for Ken, he still seems to be enjoying the benefits of his openly criminal actions without the accountability you say he's subject to.

So we have a conviction, but that's not good enough. We also have someone who is still in the courtroom, trying to use the same defense as the convicted felon, but that's also not good enough. I'm sure that once Bernie's in prison, you'll say that we have to wait until he serves his entire term. I doubt I'll still be posting here at that point.

Yet every one of them worked for (or owned) more than one airline and improved their position at each step in their career despite their repeated failures to succeed.

I'm asking you what happened to CEOs who were CEO when the airline failed. That's a far cry from asking about how they did along the way.

And what is the ratio of people traveling the roads in North America in one year to the number of people travelling on the concorde in two decades?

A big number. But if we're going to really make the apples-to-apples comparison, we would have to ask the percentage of road travelers each year who die from road debris, and compare that to the percentage of air travelers each year who die from runway debris. It'd be a higher percentage of road travelers. Even then, the comparison is hard to call a true apples-to-apples, though.

How many of those fatalties might have been prevented if tire pressures and condition on automobiles were monitored as closely as they are on aircraft, increasing the possibility of the tire surviving the road debris ?

Clearly some would. But that leads back to my earlier point that, in a relative sense, we're overspending on air maintenance, or underspending on auto maintenance, or both.

Meanwhile, while the unions stand accused of "job protectionism" for bringing forward safety concerns, the airlines and manufacturers are working to prevent certain safety information from being presented to the NTSB at all

I saw where the pilots didn't want TCAS sent to the NTSB. I can see why, though I disagree with both the desire and motivation to suppress it.

The confusion between the FAA and NTSB only serves to make the rest of these reporting and investigation issues worse.

 

[mweiss]

Yet auto mechanic pay still outpaces airline mechanic pay, with top BMW/Mercedes certified mechanics earning in the $85-$100 per hour range, without retail markup.

Yes, indeed. The retail world is strange that way, isn't it?

The image of unions is hardly in their own hands. Union spokespersons are outnumbered ten to one...

It's not the quantity that matters. It's the quality.

Please do.

I did. Specifically, I asked for two different ads. One in the Sunday front section, and one in the Sunday travel section. They said I could have either, though they did note that it was too late to get in for this week. I didn't write down the price, but I remember that it was pretty expensive to get a full-pager, and was slightly less in the travel section.

I did not identify myself as a union spokesperson. I did, however, explain that the ad would contain information surrounding specific maintenance issues regarding the "hometown" airline.

Now, granted, they could change their minds if they saw the copy. I don't know, and I'm not going to put up the money necessary to go far enough to find out.

Since you have so much criticism for what has been done so far, please show us specifics of the amorphous 'something' you would have us do.

The drum must be incessant and consistent, focusing on safety and nothing else. If it's coming out of the union leadership's mouth, it needs to include phrases like "we aren't opposed to outsourcing per se," and "if the airlines can get quality maintenance for less, we applaud and support them." But that's not going to happen.

several objected to the inclusion of the AMFA slogan "Safety in the air begins with quality maintenance on the ground".

I get what they're trying to do. It's something along the lines of "Intel inside." However, the brand has to be built independently before attaching it to such an ad.

The judgement against the APA was for a RLA violation

Because it was construed to be a wink-and-nudge statement to the members to strike. Similarly, my employer would be liable for many of my actions, even if I attempted to distance myself from my employer as I did it. It's all about context.

Apparently I was not as clear as I thought I was, I meant five hundredths of one cent.

No, you weren't. $.05 is five cents. $.0005 is five hundredths of a cent. That's why I asked you very clearly for clarification. It would have saved a cycle if you had simply answered the question.

What does the five hundredths of a cent cover, and what is the source of this information?

Since the primary purpose of a union IS job protection for it's members, why is it abnormal for the union leadership to do what they were elected to do?

I never said that it's abnormal. I said that it serves to confuse the message if one is truly focused on safety above all else.

Given that behavior, why should it come as a surprise that people would have doubts about the validity of the claims made by union leadership regarding safety?

Yet, millions spent on brand differentiation are wasted once the passengers select "Sort By Lowest Price" on the web search engine.

Not really. Even when I sort that way, I still look at the price differential among carriers, and do a gut-based value analysis before making my determination. So does my wife (though she values features differently than I), and most people I know. I do know some that will choose a carrier strictly based on price. Generally, these are people whose finances are particularly tight (e.g., students).

Take a tour of Orbitz and various airline sites and see how often the phrase "Low Fares" repeats itself. Compare that with the number of attempts at brand differentiation.

Chicken and egg. Do people focus on low fares because that's all the differentiation that they see in marketing, or are the low fares the only differentiations in marketing because that's all that the people focus on? I'll trot out Alaska again as an example of the marketing making a difference in the value proposition.

 

[NWA/AMT]

Sorry...I got my wires crossed on this specific quote. You said "the means is going away," and somehow I was thinking we were talking about maintenance, not air travel.

[post="259956"][/post]​

Actually, since you mention it, the means to perform the consistent quality maintenance that has made air travel a commodity most passengers take for granted is also going away as airlines dismantle their maintenance departments because the vendors have proven that they are not equivalent replacements.

Yet growth hasn't been an option.

Yet the airlines are, yet again, coming to the realization that it is only through growth that they may survive. All the recent discussion of mergers only serves to reinforce that point. Again, no airline has ever 'shrunk' their way to success.

The message must be about how a particular maintenance facility is performing shoddy work, couched with the statement that outsourcing is not inherently going to lead to bad maintenance. The message has to be all about quality. It won't happen, though.

No, it's not - but not for the reason you imply.

It won't happen because the problem is not with one particular vendor, or even one subset of vendors. The problem is that the nature of outsourcing, and the competitive nature of the MRO market that has arisen, means that the pressure on each vendor to cut costs is incredible. Since they have already cut wages to the point that they are unable to hire people, quality suffers and the decline is happening rapidly.

Yet even when the problems of one specific vendor are addressed, as they were by L33 President Ted Ludwig, you pan the effort as job protectionism. Maybe it's not our efforts but your preconceptions that are at the core of your dissatisfaction with the way the unions present their message.

So we have a conviction, but that's not good enough. We also have someone who is still in the courtroom, trying to use the same defense as the convicted felon, but that's also not good enough. I'm sure that once Bernie's in prison, you'll say that we have to wait until he serves his entire term. I doubt I'll still be posting here at that point.

Perhaps it's many decades of seeing such people convicted but never serve a day or, if they do serve, do their time in a minimum security resort. Even Martha, that exception that is supposed to prove the rule, served less time than someone who had committed misdemeanor theft. So, no, it probably won't be good enough and certainly will not qualify as the onerous accountability you would have us believe it is.

I'm asking you what happened to CEOs who were CEO when the airline failed. That's a far cry from asking about how they did along the way.

Each of the men I mentioned contributed significantly to the failure of the airline they controlled. Many of them were at the helm at the time. Even when they weren't, I see no reason not to hold them accountable for their actions just because they had the good sense to leave before the damage they caused reached it's inevitable conclusion.

Clearly some would. But that leads back to my earlier point that, in a relative sense, we're overspending on air maintenance, or underspending on auto maintenance, or both.

And I return to my earlier question; if air travel fatalities reach the same level as auto fatalities per operating hour, is that acceptable?

I saw where the pilots didn't want TCAS sent to the NTSB. I can see why, though I disagree with both the desire and motivation to suppress it.

From the article I had provided a link to:

"But airlines like United Airlines <UALAQ.OB>, aerospace manufacturers like Boeing Co. <BA.N>, helicopter makers, and leading pilot groups object to some or all of the changes."

"The Air Transport Association, the leading trade group for U.S. airlines, said direct reporting of engine failures and anti-collision alerts "is neither necessary nor beneficial.""

And from that all you gleaned was the part about the pilots? Again, is the problem us or do you have a predisposition to blame the employees and hold the companies blameless?

The confusion between the FAA and NTSB only serves to make the rest of these reporting and investigation issues worse.

Giving enforcement powers to the NTSB would solve that, but because they have proven far less "reasonable" than the FAA on such issues, it is unlikely that will ever happen.

Yes, indeed. The retail world is strange that way, isn't it?

Yet people defend CEO pay by invoking the alleged level of responsibility and accountability that job entails, relative to the other employees.

It's not the quantity that matters. It's the quality.

One voice in ten gets drowned out, regardless of the message. Particularly when the predisposition of those who control the means of distributing the message, and the programmed predisposition of the audience, is against the messenger and/or the message.

 

[NWA/AMT]

I did not identify myself as a union spokesperson. I did, however, explain that the ad would contain information surrounding specific maintenance issues regarding the "hometown" airline.

[post="259962"][/post]​

Then you chose not to compete the experiment as it was proposed. All you have proven is that if we misrepresent ourselves we increase our chances of success.

The drum must be incessant and consistent, focusing on safety and nothing else. If it's coming out of the union leadership's mouth, it needs to include phrases like "we aren't opposed to outsourcing per se," and "if the airlines can get quality maintenance for less, we applaud and support them." But that's not going to happen.

Again, it isn't going to happen, but again, not for the reason you imply. We are opposed to outsourcing our jobs, but the fact that not one vendor has proven to be able to deliver quality work consistently, and the fact that the standards have begun to erode quickly as more responsibility is given to the vendors, makes it difficult to endorse outsourcing even if we weren't.

Even when AMFA leaders have only pointed out that the employees of the vendors are not subject to the same identity verification requirements as those at airlines it has been dismissed as job protectionism, even after the recent Timco revelations. That Timco had people working on the aircraft of several carriers, people whose identities, and agenda, were unknown, is not apparently considered a significant issue by the FAA or the airlines. The fact that the unions had warned of this exact issue is conveniently forgotten.

With that experience in mind, I doubt that your suggestion is the universal panacea you imply it to be.

I get what they're trying to do. It's something along the lines of "Intel inside." However, the brand has to be built independently before attaching it to such an ad.

So that is a valid reason for refusing the ad? The concept was to show that airline mechanics are more than the technically-adept grease monkeys that polls had shown to be the prevailing image, and that their union is more than the greedy job-protection machines that the public perceives them to be. In the end, the idea was dropped because so few papers were willing to run the ad.

Because it was construed to be a wink-and-nudge statement to the members to strike.Similarly, my employer would be liable for many of my actions, even if I attempted to distance myself from my employer as I did it. It's all about context.

Yet all that was proven was that some officials of the union, acting against written, established union procedures and against the expressed wishes of the union leadership, may have indirectly endorsed an action defined as a job action.

If you violated your employer's written, established procedures, and went against their expressed wishes in your actions, would their level of culpability be the same as in the example you present?

No, you weren't.

No I wasn't, and for that I apologize. As airline employees we come to think of such things in the terms they are presented and I did not correctly represent the numerical value of hundredths of a cent, confusing it instead with hundredths of a dollar.

What does the five hundredths of a cent cover, and what is the source of this information?

As I stated before, it is the value NWA expected to achieve through outsourcing and greater than the amount AS expected to achieve through outsourcing their heavy maintenance. It comes from data provided by both carriers in negotiations and in grievance arbitrations on the subject.

Given that behavior, why should it come as a surprise that people would have doubts about the validity of the claims made by union leadership regarding safety?

Yet, the statements of the airlines and the FAA are not seen through the same cynical lens. Only the unions are expected to pass this vested interest litmus test.

So all that has been achieved is a big "I told you so" when the inevitable casulaties occur, cold comfort indeed.

Do people focus on low fares because that's all the differentiation that they see in marketing, or are the low fares the only differentiations in marketing because that's all that the people focus on?

As Freddie Laker proved in the 1970's, people prefer low fares to higher service. That was part of the rationalization for deregulation in the first place. The presentation of the supply has been tailored to meet the demand, not the other way around.

 

[mweiss]

Actually, since you mention it, the means to perform the consistent quality maintenance that has made air travel a commodity most passengers take for granted is also going away as airlines dismantle their maintenance departments because the vendors have proven that they are not equivalent replacements.

I know. That's why my wires got crossed there.

Yet the airlines are, yet again, coming to the realization that it is only through growth that they may survive.

That's an oversimplification of how it works. When one has a bowl-shaped supply curve, survival isn't guaranteed regarless of growth or shrinkage.

It won't happen because the problem is not with one particular vendor, or even one subset of vendors.

That's beside the point. If you start to paint in broad brush strokes, the message sounds more like job protection.

Yet even when the problems of one specific vendor are addressed, as they were by L33 President Ted Ludwig, you pan the effort as job protectionism.

I'm not panning the effort as job protectionism. I'm panning the message as sounding like job protectionism. How you craft the message is extraordinarily important when there are years of prejudicial context to overcome. One has to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction, specifically to overcome those prejudices. Simply complaining about the injustice of prejudice does nothing to remove it.

So, no, it probably won't be good enough and certainly will not qualify as the onerous accountability you would have us believe it is.

At that level of the organization, being denied a seat on the Board of Directors is as significant as a mechanic losing his license. While neither preclude you from doing the job, both remove significant elements of the job from consideration.

Even when they weren't, I see no reason not to hold them accountable for their actions just because they had the good sense to leave before the damage they caused reached it's inevitable conclusion.

In that respect, it's much easier for those people to claim plausible deniability. Like it or not, it's the guy at the top that takes the heat, much as the President is blamed for the economy, regardless of culpability.

And I return to my earlier question; if air travel fatalities reach the same level as auto fatalities per operating hour, is that acceptable?

To me? No. To the average consumer, possibly. It's probably somewhere a bit short of that, but I doubt that it's far from it.

And from that all you gleaned was the part about the pilots?

Not all. I called out the pilots because they're also objecting, and you ignored them in your synopsis. So do you have a predisposition to hold the employees blameless?

Yet people defend CEO pay by invoking the alleged level of responsibility and accountability that job entails, relative to the other employees.

"People" do. I don't. They're overpaid. The closest I come to "defending" them is recognizing that they get what they negotiate, just as you do (albeit indirectly).

One voice in ten gets drowned out...Particularly when the predisposition of those who control the means of distributing the message, and the programmed predisposition of the audience, is against the messenger and/or the message.

[post="260072"][/post]​

The media aren't anti-union. The problem is that the mechanics' union messages have been dog-bites-man, which means that they only show up in evergreen stories, and only as tried-and-true stereotyping. Reporters are lazy people, and you have to wake them up with a man-bites-dog angle in order to get any sort of attention. That's what I'm advocating.

 

[mweiss]

All you have proven is that if we misrepresent ourselves we increase our chances of success.

You're saying that omission is misrepresentation. I'm saying that to do otherwise is to achieve the equivalent of putting the message into tiny type at the bottom of the page.

We are opposed to outsourcing our jobs, but the fact that not one vendor has proven to be able to deliver quality work consistently, and the fact that the standards have begun to erode quickly as more responsibility is given to the vendors, makes it difficult to endorse outsourcing even if we weren't.

But listen to that paragraph with the critical ear of the "man on the street." It sounds like this, instead "The companies doing the outsourced work don't do a good job, but even if they did we'd still be against it." The subtext is that the quality is a red herring, even if it's not. How is that going to convince anyone?

Even when AMFA leaders have only pointed out that the employees of the vendors are not subject to the same identity verification requirements as those at airlines it has been dismissed as job protectionism

See above.

With that experience in mind, I doubt that your suggestion is the universal panacea you imply it to be.

Sure couldn't be worse than the current message.

So that is a valid reason for refusing the ad?

Valid by what standard?

If you violated your employer's written, established procedures, and went against their expressed wishes in your actions, would their level of culpability be the same as in the example you present?

For many actions, absolutely. I won't go into more specifics, as it would identify my employer.

As I stated before, it is the value NWA expected to achieve through outsourcing and greater than the amount AS expected to achieve through outsourcing their heavy maintenance.

I'm very curious to know the details here. Five hundredths of a cent is so clearly not worth it that there must be some other element present.

Yet, the statements of the airlines and the FAA are not seen through the same cynical lens. Only the unions are expected to pass this vested interest litmus test.

The statements of the airlines are seen through the same lens. The statements of the FAA are not, because most people are unaware of the conflict of interest that used to be codified, and still remains organizationally, at the FAA. To them, it's at worst a disinterested third party, and at best an advocate for the consumer.

As Freddie Laker proved in the 1970's, people prefer low fares to higher service.

That's not what he proved, but it's what most people believe he proved. People want value, nothing more and nothing less. I doubt that there are many who would choose charter-class seating over, say, VS's UpperClass on LAX-LHR if they saved only $10.

The presentation of the supply has been tailored to meet the demand, not the other way around.

[post="260077"][/post]​

The presentation of the supply has been dumbed down to the point of being worthless. The market consists of many demographics. Those who accurately identify and serve those demographics will be more successful than those who don't. We probably won't see much successful segmentation until some of the legacies die, though, because of that bowl-shaped supply curve.

 

[NWA/AMT]

That's beside the point. If you start to paint in broad brush strokes, the message sounds more like job protection.

[post="260384"][/post]​

The fact that the issue of job protection is intertwined with the issue of air safety is not the fault of the unions, it is a function of the fact that the decline in job security for airline mechanics and the decline in the safety of the aircraft has the same source - the outsourcing of the work to vendors who are either unable or unwilling to maintain the same standards.

Pretending otherwise is not just disengenuous, it's outright dishonest, and the public is smart enough to realize that.

I'm not panning the effort as job protectionism. I'm panning the message as sounding like job protectionism.

Since what he did was exactly what you have advocated, concentrating one one problem with one vendor, and you still say the message sounds like job protectionism, one wonders what it would take to craft a message you would find sufficently free of such taint.

You still decline to acknowledge that the reason his message 'sounded' like job protectionism was because that was how it was spun by NWA, the FAA and the media, not because of any alleged 'impurity' in either the message or it's intent.

One has to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction, specifically to overcome those prejudices. Simply complaining about the injustice of prejudice does nothing to remove it.

Yet it wasn't until enough people called attention to prejudice against blacks, by complaining publicly, that anything was done about it. Most people didn't want to hear it, but in the end they had no choice but to listen.

At that level of the organization, being denied a seat on the Board of Directors is as significant as a mechanic losing his license.

How many mechanics who lose their license are protected by a golden parachute that provides for a comfortable retirement in which to write their memoirs? How many airline executives have been denied a seat on the BOD at one company and not gone on to at least an equal position at another company, usually an airline or to a comfortable retirement of their own choosing? Very few, undoubtedly, because I have not been able to find one.

In that respect, it's much easier for those people to claim plausible deniability. Like it or not, it's the guy at the top that takes the heat, much as the President is blamed for the economy, regardless of culpability.

Ludicrous. Who was punished for the Valujet debacle? Certainly not Jordan and Leonard, the people who were directly responsible for creating the system that led to the events. It was the mechanics who removed the oxygen generators and the ones who were trying their hardest to work within a system that placed profit ahead of safety.

To me? No. To the average consumer, possibly. It's probably somewhere a bit short of that, but I doubt that it's far from it.

So, it's more than we have now but less than the level of auto fatalities. We're getting a little closer to defining the numbers that will determine when we have reached an unacceptable level of safety through outsourcing. Now, is it more or less than the number of people killed in railway accidents in an average year?

Not all. I called out the pilots because they're also objecting, and you ignored them in your synopsis. So do you have a predisposition to hold the employees blameless?

No, but I do understand that the reason they objected was the same reason they object to having a camera in the cockpit, rather then the less honorable motives of the airlines and manufacturers. The pilots are the only ones in the debate without a profit motive, but rather a workplace privacy one.

The media aren't anti-union.

The predisposition of the media, and of the average American, is anti-union because of the negative stereotypes of unions and union members that have been ingrained into them.

The problem is that the mechanics' union messages have been dog-bites-man, which means that they only show up in evergreen stories, and only as tried-and-true stereotyping.

Yet they have not been able to craft a message you would describe any other way, even when they do EXACTLY what you said they should.

Reporters are lazy people, and you have to wake them up with a man-bites-dog angle in order to get any sort of attention. That's what I'm advocating.

That reporters are lazy is proven by their handling of the USAirways holiday debacle, as is their tendency to an anti-union bias.

The ultimate 'dog-bites-man angle', and one that I'm rapidly coming to believe is the only thing that will wake people up and overcome the objections of 'job protectionism', is to point at the dead bodies of the next wreck caused by outsourcing.

I had thought that the USAirways Express crash in 2003 was sufficient, yet the public seems to not care. Despite the fact that the direct cause was outsourcing maintenance to vendors who either couldn't or wouldn't follow simple written instructions, written instructions that thousands of licensed mechanics have successfully followed over the years, the appropriate number of spokespersons were deployed to reassure the public and the casualties were apparently not sufficient to focus public attention on the issue. I wonder what level of casualty WILL get their attention.

 

[NWA/AMT]

You're saying that omission is misrepresentation.

[post="260391"][/post]​

That's exactly what I'm saying; that to pretend that the unions do not also have another interest in the question is misrepresentation. Particularly in light of the fact that those who have a vested interest in discrediting the unions on this subject, and removing the last public objection to the prevailing conventional wisdom, would be quick to point out that omission.

I'm saying that the only hope the unions ever have of getting people to listen to them on the subject of air safety is to be honest with them and that if they attempt to hide their own interests either through omission or misdirection, they risk what little credibility they may ever hope to achieve.

But listen to that paragraph with the critical ear of the "man on the street." It sounds like this, instead "The companies doing the outsourced work don't do a good job, but even if they did we'd still be against it." The subtext is that the quality is a red herring, even if it's not. How is that going to convince anyone?

How is pretending that they don't going to convince anyone?

Sure couldn't be worse than the current message.

See above.

Valid by what standard?

What standard would validate refusing the ad because the 'brand identity' hasn't been previously established?

For many actions, absolutely.

Yet that same standard does not appear to apply to airline executives. How many executives have been held responsible for deaths that resulted from their decisions? How many have voluntarily stepped forward to accept that responsibility? Compare that with the recent events at JAL.

I'm very curious to know the details here. Five hundredths of a cent is so clearly not worth it that there must be some other element present.

To the airlines it is. They've "picked all the low-hanging fruit" long ago and are reduced to chopping the limbs off the tree.

I'm afraid that I'm somewhat limited on the details I can provide as the information provided in grievances and negotiations is proprietary and not for public disclosure. However, when you take into account public statements like that from AS at the time they closed their last maintenance hangar in OAK that the savings they expected to realize annually was in the neighborhood of $12-$13 million and compare that with their annual costs, the miniscule nature of the savings becomes apparent.

The statements of the airlines are seen through the same lens.

I disagree. If they were the airlines obvious vested interest in justifying the conventional wisdom would allow their motives to be called into question as well. To date that has not happened when the subject is dealt with in the media. At no point is the airlines contention that outsourced maintenance is equal to in-house maintenance questioned, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is not. As we have seen in the Ludwig case, the airlines would simply prefer to prevent the evidence from reaching the public at all.

The statements of the FAA are not, because most people are unaware of the conflict of interest that used to be codified, and still remains organizationally, at the FAA. To them, it's at worst a disinterested third party, and at best an advocate for the consumer.

Only for those willing to ignore the FAAs past track record of seeking to justify the status quo until the body count or political pressure for them to act. They did not get the nickname of "The Tombstone Agency", pardon the expression, accidentally.

That's not what he proved, but it's what most people believe he proved.

They certainly were held to be so by those who sought to justify deregulation.

 

[NWA/AMT]

The presentation of the supply has been dumbed down to the point of being worthless. The market consists of many demographics.

Are any of them large enough to justify the expense of targeting them specifically? The business traveller is the only other market segment the airlines seek to appeal to in any meaningful way.

"We know why you fly"... We just don't know why you won't fly us.

Those who accurately identify and serve those demographics will be more successful than those who don't.

Yet the only ones currently successful are those that appeal to those interested in price above other considerations.

 

[mweiss]

The fact that the issue of job protection is intertwined with the issue of air safety is not the fault of the unions

No, but the fact that the message confusion makes "safety" sound like a euphamism for "job protection" is. I agree that it's a dessert topping and a floor wax, but I'm not the person you need to convince.

Pretending otherwise is not just disengenuous, it's outright dishonest, and the public is smart enough to realize that.

Well, then, if that's the case, you're doomed.

one wonders what it would take to craft a message you would find sufficently free of such taint.

"One" would only need to have read a couple of days ago, where I pointed out that it's time to change the message. As I pointed out, however, it won't happen...because the union's primary role is job protection. There's nothing wrong with that; it just means that they're not credible to the general public when safety coincides with job protection.

You still decline to acknowledge that the reason his message 'sounded' like job protectionism was because that was how it was spun by NWA, the FAA and the media, not because of any alleged 'impurity' in either the message or it's intent.

It's not "the" reason. It's "a" reason. There's nobody else countering the reasons, either.

Yet it wasn't until enough people called attention to prejudice against blacks, by complaining publicly, that anything was done about it.

Of course, it helped that the people calling attention to the prejudice weren't simultaneously reinforcing the stereotypes that led to the prejudice in the first place...

How many airline executives have been denied a seat on the BOD at one company and not gone on to at least an equal position at another company, usually an airline or to a comfortable retirement of their own choosing?

You were responding to my statement regarding convicted felons. The number of convicted felons joining the BOD of other companies is zero.

Ludicrous. Who was punished for the Valujet debacle?

I didn't realize that ValuJet went bankrupt. I was under the impression that they were still flying, albeit under a different name.

So, it's more than we have now but less than the level of auto fatalities. We're getting a little closer to defining the numbers that will determine when we have reached an unacceptable level of safety through outsourcing. Now, is it more or less than the number of people killed in railway accidents in an average year?

I don't know. How about taking a poll? As I said before, it's not me you have to convince. I'm trying to reflect the broader demand here. Just based on my observations of past events, I'd say that it would take around 250-300 fatalities per year to cause enough public concern to result in moderate changes. Probably twice that for major, wholesale changes.

I do understand that the reason they objected was the same reason they object to having a camera in the cockpit

As do I. Your error of omission was curious, that's all.

The pilots are the only ones in the debate without a profit motive, but rather a workplace privacy one.

It's not just a workplace privacy motive, though that's an element. It's also a job protection motive. Just as mentioned before, it's a dessert topping and a floor wax. At least be honest and admit both.