Unions And Concessions

[FM2436]

FM2436:You forgot to mention however that a yes will keep the majority employed

Majority of whom? The ones at the control of the "virtual" arline? Abstractions are always great for positive press and broad statements...coming down the ladder of abstraction is to be avoided by the purveyors of corporatespeak.

Rah Rah.

What "virtual" airline are you taking about?

 

[ELP_WN_Psgr]

The problem with most of your proposals is that US is too weakened strategically and too small to be the force of change in an industry where six badly bruised gladiators are out to kill each other while still being able to walk away with all four limbs.

The bigger problem is that if USAirways keeps on doing what it is doing, with our without employee concessions, it will fail. If it does a dramatic metamorphosis (my daughter always watches "Makeover Story" on TLC...this would be something akin to that insipid reality show "The Swan". At any rate, if USAirways TRIES to remake themselves, they will probably fail due to their weakened financial state.

---> which do you choose - will fail or will probably fail? Personally, I will go with probably over certain failure.

Moving headquarters from CCY will not cost money and distract a bunch of very distractable folks at the time when they most need to be aware of what is going on around them. Probably needs to happen but not now.

If not now, when? Seriously.....distracting the folks at CCY might be a good thing. They might quit doing some of the silly crap they do on an ongoing basis. Disctracting them would be a good thing. Would a move save money? Maybe not that much. But the BIGGER piece of this is....a move would be a leadership thing. Putting management at or near an airport location would sort of reintroduce everyone to the idea that "we are all in this together." Not to continue to beat the WN drum...but do you know where WN's General office is? It's at Dallas Love Field. The offices are probably 5 (maybe 7, depending on the traffic lights) minutes from the front door of the terminal building.

I generally hate to talk badly about management, but with USAirways it is sort of fun. It's almost like they had a group of people get together, see what bad ideas they could come up with to damage an airline as much as they could....and decide by committee to follow that course of action. You would have fared much better, I am convinced, by writing various courses of action on a poster board and picking which one to adopt by seeing which one a chicken pecks at.

You want to save money? I bet you could get rid of 65% of the people your company calls management. You have Vice Presidents of this and Vice Presidents of that. The big boss is having to give t hem bonuses (rather than cut their pay) because of their extreme talent. if they are so talented, they ought to have a much better span of control than what they have demonstrated to date. Heck, you guys have VPs of everything for USAirways and VPs of everything for MidAtlantic and VPs of everything for domestic and VPs of everything for international. That's bullsh--. Line em all up, put 1000 white beans and 2000 black beans in a jar...have the managers walk by and draw one. Keep the ones that draw white beans and fire the black bean folks. If you run out of beans before you run out of managers.....well, judge the rest based on appearance and personality.

 

[RowUnderDCA]

CCY is a three minute metro ride to U's ticket counter at DCA.

 

[ELP_WN_Psgr]

CCY is a three minute metro ride to U's ticket counter at DCA.

Last time I checked DCA wasn't a hub, but I will give you that point.

A bigger point is...how costly is the DC Metro area to live in? What are rates like for renting office space?

Once upon a time, when there was a CAB, it might have made sense to try and cozy up to the people who handed out route awards etc etc.

There is no CAB anymore. Why pay high rent on some flashy office in the nation's capitol when you can go elsewhere for a lot less. And oh by the way, if you had the corporate offices somewhere esle...you might be able to pay people a lot less and they wouldn't damage the precious lifestyle that has had to be propped up via executive bonuses.

Continental may have the best of all worlds. the Houston area has always had showy housing at relatively reasonable prices. Dallas isn't bad. Atlanta. Minneapolis. These aren't bad when you compare them to DC.

The argument I hear in favor of the status quo....is that it would be a drop in the bucket. Okay, we'll take that drop in the bucket. If the company is desperate enough to want to screw the employees over again (I might add "over and over and over again") then every little bit helps. So off with the expensive offices in an expensive city, gone are the country club memberships and the chauffered automobiles (and maybe even the company cars), if a USAirways employee (incl mgmt) wants to join one of the airport clubs, let him pay the membership fee. If he or she wants to ride in F, let them buy a ticket in F. If they want to travel in coach for free, if there is a seat, be my guest. If not, guess stand by passenger Vice President-Finance will have to sit tight til the next one.

If USAirways is in the dire financial straits that management alludes to, then there is no such thing as an insignificant amount.

 

[tadjr]

A bigger point is...how costly is the DC Metro area to live in? What are rates like for renting office space?

In fact, RSA is working on leasing space in its own 35-story office tower, which should open in 2006 or 2007. Those talks include a couple of out-of-state tenants, he said.


How's the South?

CCY moving info?

 

[hp_fa]

Continental may have the best of all worlds. the Houston area has always had showy housing at relatively reasonable prices. Dallas isn't bad. Atlanta. Minneapolis. These aren't bad when you compare them to DC.

Actually, weather and cost-wise I would take PHX over HOU. The humidity in HOU is awful. PHX is just hot 3 months a year.

 

[cavalier]

Michael and ELP,

No need for me to add to this thread; y'all did just fine.

Thank you.

I concur with a BIG AMEN.

I am late coming to this thread and glad I am because MW set the tone better than I could. I would simply like to strangle the starter of this topic whereas MW fought fire with fire.

I too would like to see this airline survive but I believe no matter what we do or don't do it's all too slow too late.

When management starts asking for seniority and other insane extreme measures and really means it, then the fat lady is tuning up and will be screaming out her tune not far down the road, and personally it will be a relief. Like a sad ending but glad the ending is finally coming regardless of its outcome. Many of my co-workers feel the same way and are holding out for a chance at severance.

Someone should write a book about the story and lives affected by what happened to the airline industry and how people that are paid millions to fix the problem acted like kings did in the past; using measures comparable to drawing and quartering the people who are making them instant millionaires without suffering any kind retribution for their despicable actions.

Books have been written on Eastern and this story is even better if you’re into horror novels.

 

[RowUnderDCA]

Of course the thread was started to undermine labor leaders, but, to be fair, the poster did not say that 'concessions will make U efficient.' Rather he said something like: concessions will allow U to be come efficient. I did not take that first sentence to mean that concessions, alone, will make U efficient. But perhaps I'm a generous reader.

In fact, here is the first sentence:

Airways’ plan to become a more efficient airline can be achieved with further concessions from the employees.


The following sentences seemed like a hopeful wish that maybe it's worth trying, and maybe it's worth going for, if it's ok with your needs and the needs of your family, but then it goes into a 'don't trust them' diatribe.

 

[mweiss]

But that's just it. Concessions are absolutely orthogonal to efficiency. The company can be more efficient with concessions. The company can be less efficient with concessions. The company can be more efficient without concessions. The company can be less efficient without concessions.

Concessions, with the company in its current state, do absolutely nothing more than buy time. If, and only if, the time were to be used wisely, then it is possible that concessions would permit the company to become more efficient.

But so what? That was equally true of the last two rounds.

 

[RowUnderDCA]

Mweiss wrote:

"Concessions, with the company in its current state, do absolutely nothing more than buy time. If, and only if, the time were to be used wisely, then it is possible that concessions would permit the company to become more efficient."

I agree, and that is, perhaps, generously, how I read the first sentence. I kept accepting that premise through the next few sentences, taking them to mean: it's a gamble, but that U needs the time to transform. Then I realized that I was probably duped by about the fifth sentence.

 

[Doc]

The unions have secured some of the premier salaries in organized labor in the last few years. The current industry can’t support these salaries and compete with America West. We can compete with the LCCs, but we need to work together as a union and give management the essential concessions. Another bankruptcy won’t save jobs, but concessions might.

You must be smokin some good @#*@........Don’t come on here and tell me that the current industry cannot support our wages you don’t know what you are talking about LUV turns a profit with higher wages than U……The enemy is our poor ass management that hasn’t even attempted an original thought the only thing they can do is look at wages. All work groups have been offering different ways to save money but they don’t listen because they can’t see past the wages of the employee.
Do you think that even one of our leaders in the last 4 years even knows what 42,000.00 is they probably have no clue what that buys they see it as a lump sum you and I see it as week to week….. it’s not much and now you say come on give more save my JOB… I say NO thousand times NO I would serve better to fail then allow them to survive paying wages that a teenager should make on a summer JOB.

And just for laughs I have not heard any corporate sap offer to make 26,000.00 per year and I mean 26,000.00 per no more no stocks no noth

 

[colorado_cowboy]

colorado cowboy

You forgot to mention however that a yes will keep the majority employed.

It'll keep em employed alright... at Walmart wages.

 

[PITbull]

JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY.....


WHO IS THE OTHER 77%...




B)

We have the rest of the market on the East Coast.

 

[Prince of PAWOBs]

I am hopeful that The Mole's post was farcical, because if it wasn't, then it was a slap in the face to every US employee, especially mainline.

Mole, if your post was meant to be serious, then I can only say that if we ever meet on the street, you would be better off crossing over to the other side. It's an insult to ask for more concessions from employees after they gave them once before and have seen no return on their disvestment.

 

[mweiss]

We have the rest of the market on the East Coast.

I have a couple questions about that analysis.

1) What is defined as the "East Coast?" East of the Mississippi? States that touch the Atlantic?
2) US has 77% of what? Passengers? Revenue? RPMs? Passenger-Segments? Lost luggage?

(sorry, couldn't resist)