spacewaitress said:
The rumor mill is of course active as always...heard from a gal today who *said* she was talking to our (AFA) president, Greg Davidovitch. According to her, after the company junks the pensions they are going to come after us for 19%.
Of course, no one here has any regard for AFA and some of our crew were speculating that AFA is putting the rumors out so they'll look good when they end up negotiating less.
AFA will be gone from this property in a few years. There is an extremely well organized effort at replacing AFA with an in-house union. Some of our leadership (AFA) are even involved in it.
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Spacewaitress
I just feel that no matter what union is in power, it wouldn't matter. The airline industry has figured out the best way to handle unions. As one of our officers put it, capitulate or liquidate. Labor has been a thorn in the side of airline managements for a long time.
How ironic that it is lcc that has given the "legacy" carriers the economic excuse to crush the more hardline union mentallity. The reason I say that is that with a huge part of their employees unionized, SWA has a much more cooperative relationship between management and labor. Now many will argue that, but SWA gets it right with the understanding that it truely is wasteful to hire individuals that can be outsourced such as cleaners. In the past, we have done just the opposite and have paid them as if Rhodes scholars. Whereas at SWA it is expected that everyone..fa's, pilots, agents, and nonrevs...yes nonrevs..help clean the airplane to get that sucker ready to board. There is a team effort that revolves around being efficient, thus making $$$.
The legacies like U and UAL don't get that. We will have utility workers ask our name and write us up and get paid time and a half...even if the flight is waaaaay behind...if we as much as touch a pillow. The excuse? You are doing OUR job. WE don't do YOUR job. Wow, that one cleaner for a big 757 wants to play marter AND cause the flight to be delayed on principle. The pax could careless about principle. I know, management should hire more utility. WRONG!! Legacy management would rather punish labor and the customer by taking a stand. I still haven't figured out what their taking a stand for.
Management wants to break labor because they think they are right.
Labor wants to break management because they think THEY are right.
Meanwhile, the company continues to bleed money, some union leaders are more concerned with "principle" (sorry it ain't gonna pay MY bills) and fight for their inflated pigheaded egos, the ceos come and go away with millions of money built on the concept that they are somehow entitled a financial package worthy of a king....and the rest of us workerbees continue to live day to day wondering if we should leave now, go back to school, stay the course, or go to rehab.
Even one of our officers has the attitude that all along we should have been looking for other opportunities based on the situation. Wow, does that make me hopeful, but by damn, we'll take a stand and show them (sarcasm). :angry:
That's the future for ALL the "legacies" until both the managements and unions wake up.
