About one week after this story airs came this from the co.
Southwest Airlines declares 'state of operational emergency' with high number of aircraft out of service
Then the same day this came out, came this from our AMFA National.
Memo: State of Operational Emergency
February 15, 2019 -- By letter dated February 15, 2019, Southwest’s Sr. Director Tech Ops Production Lonnie Warren declared a State of Operational Emergency which imposes extra-contractual demands with respect to the services of our Aircraft Maintenance Technicians and Inspectors with the explicit threat of termination if they fail to comply. This declaration of a State of Operation Emergency occurs just eleven (11) days after a CBS News report detailing the efforts of Southwest maintenance to resist coercive pressure to ignore aircraft damage and the FAA’s confirmation of the degraded safety culture at Southwest. The CBS report exposed a problem so severe that two United States Senators have called for a congressional investigation.
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I think the co. might have jumped way too quickly with the intimidation of discipline and termination.
They should have simply called for the state of emergency, notified the mechanics and inspectors that all hands on deck are required, then deal with the individuals that refuse to work with the company under the state of emergency. Instead they throw out more intimidations prior to anything happening at all. pretty sure the FAA, and all the other groups investigating SWA currently will not like how that was handled.
This company needs to learn desperately how to deal with the troubled individuals one at a time and leave the larger group willing to help out alone, instead they always to seem to go after everyone as if everyone is gonna be the problem when only a few might and has not as of yet.
Call the o/t and deal with the individuals that need to be dealt with one on one not 2400 on one, C'mon man... It's called management 101, back to basics...