Cwa’ers And Us Airways Management Met

[Dea Certe]

Bob,

Thanks for the invite. I'd really love to come meet all my favorite roaches but I'm so tired from commuting all I want to do is get home and go to bed. Alone. With the remote. And my National Enquirer.

My life is so glamorous.

Besides, I don't know how well my go-go boots would hold up to another pool party. I do expect a full report though. I know you won't let me down!

Dea

 

[BoeingBoy]

Union cringes at concession demand

By Steve Halvonik
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, June 24, 2004

Union officials representing ticket, gate and reservations agents are balking at US Airways' demand for another $122 million in concessions, saying it would reduce top salaries for the 4,800 full-time union workers' by more than 35 percent, or an average of $14,000 apiece.

Article

Jim

 

[mweiss]

Today, it's hard to find any station that has a full service pump and I live in Los Angeles!

Ya gotta move to Portland! Self serve is illegal in Oregon and New Jersey.

MGM Grand was a premium airline that didn't make it. I think there's been a few others I don't remember.

Legend is one, though they had other problems, namely AA. It would have been interesting to see how they would have done if they were really given a chance. Midwest Express is another; they cut back service some but they still have the 2x2 seating.

Von's, Ralph's and Albertson's are all owned by the same parent-company -- Krogers!

Minor quibble there...Vons (no apostrophe) is owned by Safeway. I can even use my Safeway Club card at them!

It's the Wal-Marting of America.

OK, I'm going to pick on you for this comment, even though you're hardly the first to say it. You refer to Wal-Marting in concert with you observation that the corner dry-cleaner is leaving. In other words, the big chains are taking over the mom-n-pops. I agree; it's happening.

But let's not put the disappearence of US or UA in the same breath, shall we? Neither company is anything like Jim's Air Transport and Cattle Feed. Both are large, multigalactic corporations.

Yes, the industry's rules are changing again, after a relatively stable period from the late 80s through most of the 90s. Just as EA and PA were unable to survive the last era of shifting landscape, there are likely to be more casualties in this shift than just TW. But that doesn't mean that our airline service is going to look like a half-dozen identical RyanAirs. In fact, if someone decided to start a RyanAir in this country, I'd short the stock big time. It ain't going there.

Look at the current darling of the industry. Why is B6 so popular? Because they tried something completely different. They didn't go for 29" pitch and no window shades. They have decent pitch and live satellite television at every seat. They're offering enough "more" that DL has been forced to copy it...and their customers are asking why the rest of DL can't be like Song!

Contrary to what many of you are saying, this is not a race to the bottom in service. Yes, I'm afraid that market forces are going to push wages down significantly, and that's going to be ugly. But customers are not stupid; they can see the differences among airlines in terms of service. It's just that nobody has convinced them that there is an airline out there today providing service worth eight to ten times that of WN...so they're not willing to pay eight to ten times what WN is charging.

 

[BoeingBoy]

mweiss,

To be fair, I don't think most of the usage of "race to the bottom" is talking about service. This company does seem to have a habit of coming to the employees before looking anywhere else.

As far as market forces pushing wages down "significantly", let's examine that a little closer. And let's use our main LCC competitor, WN. According to 1st quarter reports, their cost per employee is about $5000 less than ours. A pretty good difference on the surface. But under the surface...

WN reports total employees while US reports "full time equivalent" employees. I don't know what adjustment needs to be made here, but an adjustment needs to be made.

Now adjust for seniority levels. Again, I have no idea how much to adjust but an adjust is called for.

Finally, adjust for the greater number of employees needed for a traditional hub/spoke mixed fleet airline vs a basically point2point single fleet airline.

Or don't make any adjustments. If our "full time equivalent" employee cost what the average WN employee did, the difference would be about $137 million a quarter or $548 million a year. What's the company asking for? $800 million a year.

Jim

 

[mweiss]

To be fair, I don't think most of the usage of "race to the bottom" is talking about service.

Agreed. But enough of it is that I felt compelled to speak out against it.

As far as market forces pushing wages down "significantly", let's examine that a little closer.[followed by a solid analysis]

Point taken, but that's not what I mean. We're going to start seeing wage pressures at WN in short order as well. The contraction of the industry over the past few years has left an increasing supply of labor chasing a smaller demand for it. This causes a decrease in wages. If it doesn't happen directly because of union counterpressure, it happens indirectly because of competing companies.

 

[ELP_WN_Psgr]

We're going to start seeing wage pressures at WN in short order as well.

I am not sure what you mean by this statement.

Are you suggesting that employees at WN will want higher wages or will management at WN work for reduced wages?

What I think you will see at WN is a desire by the employees to maintain the status quo, which will somewhat dampen their yearnings for higher wages.

Instead of chopping wages, what I think WN's management will do is try to enhance productivity throughout the system.

Their website has proven of great value to them. Accordingly, they have been able to close 3 res centers. While they did not terminate any employee, some left rather than accept a transfer.

The self-check-in set up at WN is pretty darn user friendly, and this bodes well for reducing the ticket counter staff...or at least squeezing a little more productivity out of them.

For at least 30 of the 33 years WN has been in business people have been predicting their demise or (at the very least) dismal difficulties for them. Initially it was their concept would not work once they took it beyond 3 cities. Then it was the Rio Grande Valley was an aberration and their business plan wouldn't work in the other Texas stations. Then it wouldn;t work once they went interstate. Then it was their costs would explode once they got into busy congested airports loke PHX, LAS, LAX. Then it was the airline would self destruct once it got a taste of winter in Chicago and Detroit and then Baltimore and finally upstate New York. Most recently, we've heard they won't be able to make PHL work because of all of the above.

What WN is is a company that pretty much does everything their own inimitable way. They have not made a practice of abusing employees. No layoffs, no furloughs, no wage chopping. Thus I do not think they will be going to their employees for wage reductions.

They may let attrition thin the ranks some, and in future contracts they may try for a B scale of some type...but I can pretty much assure you that unless there was a massive sea change, they are not going to attempt a wage reduction among their current employees.

 

[Reservation Agent]

The concession suggestions from the company are laughable....

Management hasn't even given up anything themselves, and CWAers have already given upmoney and benefits twice...3 times if you count giving up pensions before...to help the company...

Their "suggestion's" would never pass a vote....

The ONLY part of a plan would be an early "buyout" for employees at the top scale which is even lower now than Southwest Airline's top agents...

It is funny when the company wants to...They tout comparissions to Southwest Airlines, when they seem fit to,.... but when they want a comparrison of benefits or pay they use only JetBlue or America West...

I believe the comparison of Southwest, who has been in business 30 years, is a more justifiable comparison...

*******************************************************************
The last time I checked.... which was about 5 minutes ago, JetBlue only serviced a grand total of 27 fricking....cities......LOL...LOL

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The current feeling is, if management keeps getting their bonuses....and they keep asking for what we have left now,..... we'll wait for the bankruptcy judge to sort this out......

 

[youngblood]

The concession suggestions from the company are laughable....

Management hasn't even given up anything themselves, and CWAers have already given upmoney and benefits twice...3 times if you count giving up pensions before...to help the company...

Their "suggestion's" would never pass a vote....

The ONLY part of a plan would be an early "buyout" for employees at the top scale which is even lower now than Southwest Airline's top agents...

It is funny when the company wants to...They tout comparissions to Southwest Airlines, when they seem fit to,.... but when they want a comparrison of benefits or pay they use only JetBlue or America West...

I believe the comparison of Southwest, who has been in business 30 years, is a more justifiable comparison...

*******************************************************************
The last time I checked.... which was about 5 minutes ago, JetBlue only serviced a grand total of 27 fricking....cities......LOL...LOL

********************************************************************

WN comparisons disappeared when our union shot it all down with a pretty good break down of our wages and benefits versus theirs.

It's a freakin propaganda to try and get what they want. They make our job more difficult daily with great new ideas like the call transfers and push for more online bookings. We have a people who don't know how to utilize our phone system properly and a web site that sucks.

At this point I am getting paid to be rude and unproductive.

 

[Reservation Agent]

It doesn't matter what the suggestions the company is asking for....We knew they would ask for "THE SKY" as the limit...They know it would never pass a vote..That is part of THEIR PLAN!!!! Bust those Carpetbagger Unions!!!

I believe they really do not want a real concession agreement,........... to be that "Off The Wall"....

It is merely part of Mr Lakefield's/ Retirement System Of Alabama's plan to blame losses on the employees, give the appearance of "having" to do another bankruptcy......Blame Unions...... sell off assets and profit from the sell-offs.....He is an investor!!! Not an airline person...His motivation is profits,no matter where it comes from...And, his backers in Alabama are nervous about their risk...investment...

If he was really trying to get the airline back on track...he would not be giving his managers merit raises, bonuses, buying brand Embraileer jets, new Kiosk machines, new boarding card readers, etc......

Hey, the passengers are back....There are 250 calls on hold most times, with a lack of agents to handle the call volume....Customers are getting tired of waiting on hold for an agent, because we went for 9 reservation centers down to 2 centers.....And, no hiring has been done in years.....American Airlines I hear is about to announce a profit...And they were one of the 2 airlines most affected by Sept 11th, as their planes we used by the terrorists...

Did I mention that the company is paying OVERTIME every day in the Res centers because of a lack of staff...

I know what THE PLAN is....

 

[youngblood]

The irony of it all is that we are greeted at work with an unforseable demand on our wages. I read the memo, get pissed, rant and rave, then get on the phone and do the best job I can trying to retain customers. I do my job through thick and thin. Why can't management do the same.



FULL PAY TO THE LAST DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Or until they lay my a$$ off.

Chapter 7 here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[FLYUSAIRWAYS]

Can't really say I would want to pay union dues for the privilege of having a yearly salary of 13K. Since 27 years seniority only gets you part time now.

 

[thepoohbear]

Felons Paid in Voter Registration Drive
I just read an article that a group called ACT is paying felons to canvass neighborhoods and register voters. They earn $8 to $12 per hour.
So it seems to the company we are just a bit above felons. Actually the felons are ahead ,because much that they get is paid for by us. :cop:

 

[unit4clt]

Elp_wn_psgr

Dont forget Wn has no costly RJ operators to SUBSIDIZE! Also they have management who know when passengers have a choice they will chose a 737 over a 50 seat RJ every time. They have management that realize in order to keep cost down you have to grow the airline.

 

[mweiss]

Are you suggesting that employees at WN will want higher wages or will management at WN work for reduced wages?

Both. You describe plenty of ways that WN has survived in the past with their current business model. But look at their competitors back then...Braniff, American, Continental, USAir...these were all legacy carriers. I wholeheartedly agree that their business plan would kick the legacies' butts to the curb every time.

The landscape is changing. FL and B6 seem to have a pretty good thing going, and there's only so long that LCCs can expand into new markets before they start competing for the same customers. The market forces will change at that point, and WN will find itself under pressure.

 

[mweiss]

It is merely part of Mr Lakefield's/ Retirement System Of Alabama's plan to blame losses on the employees, give the appearance of "having" to do another bankruptcy......Blame Unions...... sell off assets and profit from the sell-offs.....

Oh, puhleeze. Bronner doesn't have to point fingers to sell off the assets. He just has to sell off the assets, period. The employees simply don't matter if that's the goal. He doesn't need their permission or assistance. Just a contract between him and the purchaser of the asset(s).