Do Utility And Stores Make Too Much?

[cavalier]

You want to know more, do it off the board, you know how to find me.

Fair enough

 

[cavalier]

US Airways is in crisis mode.

I have been at U for a while now, in fact longer than any other place I have been employed.

Since I have been here, U has just about been in a nonstop crisis mode.

When one is subjected to being in the crisis mode for years on end it has an effect on you.

One analogy would be something like this: Your loved one, maybe your spouse, is in the critical care unit and they are hovering on the fine line of life and death. This continues for weeks on end with the highly trained critical care doctors at their wits end on just what the outcome will be, they can’t really tell you. But what they do tell you is one day your loved one is doing great, then the very next hour or a day later, they tell you to call in your family members because the end looks very close only to have that change yet again and everything is stable, for the time being.

So you live from one hour to the next wondering when you will be looked upon with sympathy from your family and friends, they all feel bad for you but no one can help you. So you turn to your only hope, the power that gave you life; whoever that may be in your belief system.

That is where we are today, looking upon a higher power because no one down here has a clue as to what the outcome will be.

I write this from real life experience, so this is not some made up fantasy, it’s real and so are the lives of the employees who are living this continuous crisis.

 

[openview]

Every contract for the past 12 years has had concessions in Bob.

So for the last 12 yrs you have conceeded benefits. While paying union dues for that 12 yrs. Yet staunchly pro union. And nothing needs to change but mgmt.

 

[cavalier]

So for the last 12 yrs you have conceeded benefits. While paying union dues for that 12 yrs. Yet staunchly pro union. And nothing needs to change but mgmt.

There is nothing open about that view.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Well,

What changed aside from concessions?

- Lots of Airbuses promised, some delivered

- Failed merger with no plan B

- Plea for concessions to avoid bankruptcy

- Bankruptcy with more concessions (and not just employees) resulting in Siegel's plan A - lots of RJ's and smaller mainline (wait for the profits to roll in)

- Profits didn't roll in, hints of plan B if there are more concessions

- Finally plan B but (gosh darn it) only if there are more concessions

- (You heard it here first) Possible plan C (morphed plan B)

Jim

 

[openview]

So for the last 12 yrs you have conceeded benefits. While paying union dues for that 12 yrs. Yet staunchly pro union. And nothing needs to change but mgmt.

A union could hope for nothing more than a member who doesn't question that faith.

 

[cavalier]

A union could hope for nothing more than a member who doesn't question that faith.

Personally I don't have enough faith to work at U WITHOUT union representation.

I look at the low level managers all quaking in their shoes every day from the most recent threat they received from a MUST attend meeting and offer them some Maalox.

 

[9lives+1]

right on Cav.....I agree.
Bring on the coal and iron police. I bet Glasses father was one.
Everybody deserves a good beating. Ah yes, the good old days are
coming back....

 

[PITbull]

Or consider that had the company not been saddled with onerous work rules it might never have sunk to the level it has today.

Perhaps more enlightened policies would have been implemented if not for unions? Employee Involvement teams involved in the Total Quality Management concept have in certain cases been deemed by various courts as interfering with a CBA. IIRC the NLRB made such a ruling. I know the airlines are covered by RLA, that's not the point. It's more a philospohical issue to me.

Like I said in another post there is plenty of blame to go around.

Bob,

There you go with your yang.

You start with the crap about..."what if there were no unions"...speech.

You are full of it, once again. Go take a laxative already!!!

UNIONS ARE NOT TO BLAME FOR POOR MANAGMENT!What was negotiated in contracts was BOUGHT by the unions. Companies don't decide to be generous for FREE.

 

[cavalier]

NO ONE IMO can claim the moral high ground in this disaster known as commercial aviation.

Let God sort it out, the final court of arbitration and I bet I know how it will be ruled.

 

[FlyingHippie]

Brainless?

Doing an FAA mandated security check is brainless?

Cleaning up biohazards is brainless?

Cleaing up hazmat is brainless?

Getting stuck by a syringe is brainless?

Crawling into a wing fuel tank to clean it is brainless?

Crawling into a hellhole to clean up skydrol is brainless?

Hanging 100 feet from the hangar ceileing buffing the crown of a 767 or A330 is brainless?

I believe you need to walk in someone's shoes and do thier job before you can mindlessly criticize it.

Yeah it is a no brainer job it's a physical job. Somebody has to do it though.

 

[700UW]

Yeah it is a no brainer job it's a physical job. Somebody has to do it though.

Apparently you have no idea of what that involves.

You have to be trained on biohazards and hazmat.

Like I said, you have no idea.

 

[FlyingHippie]

Apparently you have no idea of what that involves.

You have to be trained on biohazards and hazmat.

Like I said, you have no idea.

Management wants to hire people at $7 an hour to do this hazardous job. Reality sucks.

 

[mweiss]

The sad thing is you're both right. They want to pay $7/hr for a job that, in order to be done properly, requires a decent amount of training.

The usual result in this situation is a job that is done improperly, but the only person who really gets injured in the process is the insufficiently-trained $7/hr employee.

After that, the company will work hard to deny long-term disability benefits when the lack of training puts the employee out of commission.

Like Hippie said, reality sucks.

 

[openview]

Apparently you have no idea of what that involves.

You have to be trained on biohazards and hazmat.

Like I said, you have no idea.

Almost any job today in most companies are training those things. i.e. HIV transmit, office chemicals, syringes, suspect mail procedures, etc. Its common, ongoing learning.

But, any time a company has large groups of employees, where the job involves little ongoing training or learning, yet the pay and benefits are ramped to continual advancement, and the employees want stay for 20 or 30 years, then that company is ripe for competition and demise. That is what is occuring now and change in inevitable.