During the recent storm here in the Northeast, that closed Airports across the Northeast, thousands of AA workers were unable to get to work. In New York the government banned all non-emergency traffic from the roads. Police were stationed at city border points stopping any motorists that tried to enter the city and told those motorists that if they tried to enter NYC their car would be impounded and fined $200.
AA's response was to code their employees who could not make it to work TEU, Travel Emergency Unpaid. In the past the company would pay, even when the company was losing money, even in Bankruptcy the company would pay.
Now as they are reporting over $6billion in profits they have decided they have decided to dock their employees pay.
The company is basically incentivizing workers to break the law by docking their pay. Penalizing them for obeying the government.
People across the Northeast lost a days pay because they acted responsibly, obeyed the law and called in Snowbound, and still the company is docking them a days pay, if they had hurt their back shoveling snow and called in sick they would have only lost half a days pay. Had they somehow made it into work there would not have been much for them to do anyway as all flights were cancelled.
I suspect that the next time it snows people will behave differently and attempt more extraordinary (foolish) efforts to get to work despite the danger and injure themselves (the average age of a mechanic is over 55, hopefully we don't see Heart Attacks-several people in NY died from just that), a sore back or any injury usually takes more than a day to recover from but instead of losing a days pay they would only lose half a days pay. So instead of staffing levels returning to normal immediately after the storm its likely that the operation would remain short staffed for many days after the storm making operational recovery that much more challenging.
There is really something very wrong with the way the people making these decisions think. Have they ever run a real airline before? AA's compensation is wAAy below what its competitors pay, AA is so far ahead of the game ($6.3 billion in profits) that the days pay, for their employees who are so far behind to start with, will have ZERO affect on their "Competitive Position", if anything it is highly likely that their short sightedness will cost them far more as Storms like this are bound to happen again.
They really should reconsider the stupid position they have taken on this and not dock their employees for something they had no control over. They certainly cant claim they cant afford it.
AA's response was to code their employees who could not make it to work TEU, Travel Emergency Unpaid. In the past the company would pay, even when the company was losing money, even in Bankruptcy the company would pay.
Now as they are reporting over $6billion in profits they have decided they have decided to dock their employees pay.
The company is basically incentivizing workers to break the law by docking their pay. Penalizing them for obeying the government.
People across the Northeast lost a days pay because they acted responsibly, obeyed the law and called in Snowbound, and still the company is docking them a days pay, if they had hurt their back shoveling snow and called in sick they would have only lost half a days pay. Had they somehow made it into work there would not have been much for them to do anyway as all flights were cancelled.
I suspect that the next time it snows people will behave differently and attempt more extraordinary (foolish) efforts to get to work despite the danger and injure themselves (the average age of a mechanic is over 55, hopefully we don't see Heart Attacks-several people in NY died from just that), a sore back or any injury usually takes more than a day to recover from but instead of losing a days pay they would only lose half a days pay. So instead of staffing levels returning to normal immediately after the storm its likely that the operation would remain short staffed for many days after the storm making operational recovery that much more challenging.
There is really something very wrong with the way the people making these decisions think. Have they ever run a real airline before? AA's compensation is wAAy below what its competitors pay, AA is so far ahead of the game ($6.3 billion in profits) that the days pay, for their employees who are so far behind to start with, will have ZERO affect on their "Competitive Position", if anything it is highly likely that their short sightedness will cost them far more as Storms like this are bound to happen again.
They really should reconsider the stupid position they have taken on this and not dock their employees for something they had no control over. They certainly cant claim they cant afford it.
