Will Oneworld lose JAL?
- Thread starter JFK Fleet Service
- Start date
That argument has been tried already more than once. Give us our wages back and productivity will improve,moral goes up,therfore the company is more stable. They(management), not us, are enrinching themselves on the backs of our labor while our wages have remained stagnet.THEY continue to make decisions that impact my quality of life, THEY continue to recieve multimillion dollar bonuses while we havent recieved anything ecxcept in increase in isurance costs which further erodes our wages.THEY continue to stall the contract talks. So you see there is really a "they" which isnt us,the front line employees that do the work which keeps the machine rolling while THEY sit in centerport trying to keep US down.
This is a very difficult position to be in. How do you hurt "them" without hurting 'US'. Even if a lot of what you say is true, how does making AA weaker improve your negotiating position? Who was hurt more by the pilots refusing to fly DFW-PEK? "They" or "Us".
I'm sure there is an argument against investing in JAL, but not investing until pay restored shouldn't be one of them.
AA767JET
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- Mar 7, 2009
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American was quoted saying that they would spend millions of dollars to make this deal work with JAL but remember not to long ago they were talking about bankruptcy and more jobcuts could be possible, Hmmmm!! wonder where AA is coming up with all this money all of a sudden, from an airline that was almost broke a couple of weeks ago. It seems to me it's all smoke a mirrors what they preach to us about bankruptcy, remember folks there in between contract talks with all there bargaining groups, just remember when they mention the words bankruptcy again what you should think. Of course this is just my opinion. 
Hackman
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- Sep 30, 2003
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There is a very good argument against blowing millions which the employees were told we don't have, take care of business at home first!
P.O.ed employees don't make for a good business model, employees should come first.
This is one reason why SWA makes money year over year, they mostly get this fact of running a business and taking care of what Ourpay jokes is AA's finest asset...... The Front Line Employees. Hollow words? Seems so.
British Airways and Qantas may join in the bidding to provide aid to JAL:
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/1059...E&cm_ite=NA
This is potentially good news; yesterday, there were reports that AF/KLM was discussing an investment to help bolster DL's proposal. If several member airlines of OW pitch in, the amount per airline would be very small.
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/1059...E&cm_ite=NA
This is potentially good news; yesterday, there were reports that AF/KLM was discussing an investment to help bolster DL's proposal. If several member airlines of OW pitch in, the amount per airline would be very small.
There's no doubt that management has a long way to go in resolving issues with employees. I kind of doubt that will ever happen.
Your statment, "take care of business at home first" is very subjective. To you that may mean being treated like a human, to another it may mean restore 2003 pay levels, and yet another it means bring back everyone that has been furloughed. We all know that non of that is going to happen soon.
All you have to do is look at this from a selfish point of view. What outcome will be the best for me. Is it better for my job security to lose JAL or keep JAL? If we feel it's better to keep JAL, then what are we willing to risk to keep them? Is it worth it to risk a few hundred million dollars (probably of someone else's money) to invest in them?
To me it means all three.
Job security is a myth in the private sector. What we must seek is economic security and that means earning more than we spend so we can eventually aquire enough wealth so we no longer need to work. We've been hoodwinked into believing that working for a large company would provide that through a company sponsored and controlled Pension. The Pension was the end result of years of service but until you actually start to collect its just a promise. For airline workers in their 50s on down the odds of actually collecting a promised pension are not good, many have already seen that promise broken. Economic security in the private sector is best achieved by maximizing your wages.
So if the question is "what outcome is best for me" I'd have to say its against my best interests. Even if it's somebody elses money it still becomes debt for the carrier, debt that has to be serviced through the revenue we must generate and debt that they use as an excuse to claim that they cant pay us. So this extra debt will simply be another obstruction to achieving maximum wages. All of the sacrifices of the past six years have done nothing to improve our economic security, we would have been better off with the extra money in our accounts.
Lets not forget the whole point of building these alliance's was to provide a seamless travel experience, and to protect revenue that might otherwise be lost to the competition. Losing JAL would weaken the structure of ONEWORLD and AA would lose revenue from customers who do not want to transfer in HKG. With flights to NRT from both coasts, ORD and DFW we have an interest in trying keep NRT as a connecting point, not just a destination.
Over the last 23 years I've seen AMR double in size while real wages for mechanics declined by over 40%. My guess is that you guys have seen a similar trend.
I've seen scores of alliances and a handful of mergers that had to happen in order to put us in a "competitive position".
So far none of these moves have benifited workers, neither will this.
In this industry the plan for workers is "sacrifice now so you can sacrifice more later".
This will simply be more debt that will need to be serviced with the revenue we will have to produce.
You're right, Bob. The sensible alternative is to do nothing except raise the wages of the poor employees. Without all the connecting passengers resulting from OneWorld alliance, the employees will have plenty of free time to make the traveling experience memorable for the few remaining passengers.
Land of Milk and Honey, Here you come!
Bob Owens for Board Chairman and CEO!
You're right, Bob. The sensible alternative is to do nothing except raise the wages of the poor employees. Without all the connecting passengers resulting from OneWorld alliance, the employees will have plenty of free time to make the traveling experience memorable for the few remaining passengers.
Land of Milk and Honey, Here you come!
Bob Owens for Board Chairman and CEO!
Ah your typical lawyer reflex has kicked in, cant make a valid point or a credible lie so you resort to sarcasm.
We are talking about AA borrowing millions of dollars to invest in JAL here. If they want to form alliances fine but dont expect us to fund them and we should certainly not support aquiring more debt thats going to be used by another carrier, even if they are part of an alliance. Debt that they will then use as a means to try lower our wage demands.
What we are looking at here is a choice, for us it would be like "should we pay the electric bill or put money in our 401K? Both make sense. But in our case if we try and tell the electric company that they should forgo payments from us now because by letting us put money in our 401K we will be able to pay them well into our retirement we wouldnt get a positive response. Thats what AA has been telling us for decades, forgo wages now so we can invest in the company and provide you a job far into the future, but the fact is that nothing is guaranteed and its a very poor investment on our part to forgo wages now because the company doesnt even pretend that they have any intention on allowing us to reap any benifit from that investment. Yea I have a job, and even in this economy 90% of everyone else does too.
- Dec 21, 2002
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Just wondering, do you mow your neighbors yard before your own? Taking care of your own house is paramount. AA seems to be purposly neglecting their own house to take care of their neighbors.
When they tell YOU they don't have enough money to give you a raise because they are investing in OUR future and then THEY take bonuses, come back to the board and let us know how you feel. The company is good about promoting shared sacrifice for us and not them.
If it causes you to post coherent, thoughtful posts like the one below, it was worth it.
I actually agree with you; as I posted earlier, I'm not in favor of a big multi-hundred million dollar investment in JAL.
My sarcasm was aimed at your assertion that none of AA's prior moves in the past 23 years have benefitted the workers. I'm skeptical of your allegation that AA is batting .000 on that front. I'll concede that AA has made errors, but with each and every transaction? I think the purchase of TWA's London assets was a good idea, as was the huge MIA buildup. I view the TWA purchase as of January, 2001, not the hindsight view which is popular here.
Your pay is much lower than you'd like it to be. I get it - you've said it often. Your contract doesn't contain enough beneficial work rules for your taste - I get it.
How much worse off might AA's nearly 80,000 employees be if AA had not undertaken any of those transactions over the past 23 years? We'll never know, but I have a hard time believing that your lot in life would be better if none of those deals had been undertaken. I'm certain you'll disagree. I'd be disappointed if you didn't.
Of course the workers take it on the chin when expenses have to be cut, since so many people are willing to cut their price for their labor. Oil companies and airports aren't as willing to slash their rates, as you have observed. Even though WN has a thousand or so mechanics making lots more money than AA's TWU-slaves, it's not like WN is looking to hire a few thousand more mechanics at similar wages. Same thing at CO, where the mechanics make a little more money than you. Employees are always the lenders of last resort, where the company can beg and plead for concessions with a vague promise that if things get better, the company won't forget your sacrifice. As you're painfully aware, we're still waiting for a prolonged period of "things getting better." And yet, enough mechanics (and pilots and FAs) keep showing up for work everyday to accomplish most of AA's daily goals.
I don't envy Arpey's current position. AA doesn't have several hundred million dollars to spare right now. Taking on yet more debt (assuming someone would lend it at non-usurious rates) to help out JAL strikes me as a poor idea, especially since JAL is intertwined with the Japanese Transport Ministry (who might even be worse airline managers than AA's management). But if Arpey says "no" to JAL, and JAL gets funding from Delta and perhaps AF/KLM, and bolts to Skyteam from Oneworld, that would be a big blow for AA and BA.
Some decisions are easy. Rebuild terminals that will provide competitive facilities for the next 50 years? Easy. Buy new fuel-efficient airplanes like the 787? Easy. Begin the replacement of AA's antiquated information technology? Easy.
But throw away a few hundred million dollars (invest? yeah, right) in JAL in the hopes that JAL stays faithful to you? While Japanese politicians are goading JAL to leave OneWorld and join Skyteam or Star instead? That's a much more difficult decision. If Arpey says "yes" to JAL and AA is able to secure an antitrust immunity with JAL, it will be tougher to criticise. But if he says "yes" to JAL and JAL fails anyway and ends up with Skyteam, Arpey will look even more stupid than he does today.
