USA320Pilot said:
Firstamendment:
Firstamendment said: "Also, if you have another career option, go for it. Why hang around mouthing off how you can do this or that or that you do this or that already? Quit and go for it."
USA320Pilot comments: The reason most people do not quit is that they do not have another option, however, without an across-the-board competitive cost structure they will need to find one and in a hurry.
Tic...Toc...Tic...Toc
Regards,
USA320Pilot
The point is you can keep giving forever, it wont make your life better. The secret to a better life is charge more, work less. Never the opposite, when you get old you will never say to yourself, gee, we should have agreed to work for less. The fear of change is legitimate, but you should not allow that fear to ruin your life.
If USAIR closes its doors you will work again. The planes will fly again, they may be painted a different color but they will fly again. All those people who are getting on those planes are not going to stay home. Someone will take them to where they want to go, and they will need competant mechanics to keep them flying.
If you want to increase your opportunities then make sure they close the doors behind you. Then other airlines that can make money and pay their people, such as SWA can expand.
The workers of Pan Am thought they could get job security through concessions, all the got was a few more years working for lower wages and the lost opportunity to get back up to top scale quicker at the next carrier.
Two years ago I posted on your site saying not to give concessions, that it would not help because everyone else would simply follow. Well thats what happened didnt it? Now Usair is coming around for a third time, in the meantime the big wigs at the top are raking in millions off your backs. Over at Pan Am, after the company finally liquidated, despite having the lowest wages in the industry, the courts threw the last CEO a few extra million, that should have gone into the Pension fund. Talk about adding insult to injury, that carpet bagger was only there a few months and he made several times what most employees made over a lifetime yet the judge threw him an extra few million, their pension was that much lower.
If USAIR is going to fail your sacrifices will not change that, all it will do is give people like Segal the opportunity to pocket a few extra million over the next couple of years. He will leave a very rich man. In the meantime you will leave a few years older, with less time to make enough before you retire, and a lot poorer. Just ask the Pan Am guys if in hindsight they wish they had said no to the first round of concessions.
USA320 pilots talks about cost structure. Saying that you should agree to make hundreds of dollars less every week than a SWA mechanic so USAIR can match SWA cost strucure. In other words you should subsidize the inefficiencies of management. You should agree to earn hundreds of dollars less every week so the stockholders can get a fair return on their investment.
I said all this two years back, and its still true today. Make as much as you can while its there and bank as much as you can. Selling yourself cheap can only lead to slavery. Years of your life will pass you by and things will only get harder, not better. When the worst happens you are likely to find, as the Pan Am and EAL workers did that it was not that bad after all, you will survive. Give no more back and prepare for the inevitable. Thats the risk we take when we rely one one employer for our means of supporting our family.
Or have you been neutered???? 
