But your crappy union believed AA when AA told them that the productivity gains/cost savings were in exchange for keeping the maintenance bases open (for the time being) instead of pulling a UAL (as in IND and OAK). And people say management is stupid. Nowhere near as incompetent as the worthless union.
In the case of the TWU the company IS the union.
Smart or stupid? SWA still gets the most productivity out of their workers and they pay much more than AA does-now thats smart. Real productivity gains, a lean work force and real, consistant profits. SWA gets the max out of their work force because they treat them well and it has paid off well for the company, its stockholders, the workers and the customers.
If AMR was run like SWA they would have made billions in profits without paycuts. The ATA claims that the average airline workers earns around $60,000, so by eliminating 40,000 workers AMR should have netted an extra $2,400,000,000. Thats without any paycuts. Then by not replacing workers it loses through normal attrition it could have continued to increase productivity and lower labor costs. But AMR chose to attack its workers instead.
At SWA the emphasis is on making the flight go. Because thats what makes money. Simple and effective.
At AMR the emphasis is on cutting costs and showing on paper that the workers are more productive. That doesnt make you money-especially if the majority of the cost cutting is centered around pissing off your workers by taking money out of their pockets. Sure, they can cut pay, threaten, take away laptops, assign more work cards, harass about sick time but that wont make anyone produce more airplanes on the gate-it will just make them watch the OT list more closely. AMRs cost cutting has also resulted in skyrocketing MEL counts, counts so high that the airline has resorted to "MEL days"-(days where all regular maintenance is cancelled and workers are told to work MEL items only), numerous flight delays and cancellations.
SWA says "We are going to pay you well and if we do well you will get even more" AMR says "We are going to pay you the least we can get away with and if you meet the goals we set we will give you $25 a quarter extra. If we cant blow all the money and end up with half a billion extra that we have to pay taxes on (which has only happened a handful of times in their 80 years of existance) we will take 15% of that overage and disperse it among 80,000 employees.
So while the workers at SWA are looking to get that plane out on time, and live comfortably on their 40 hour check the guy at AA is looking to see where the OT is. If he is going to be kept busy then there is no rush to get anything done is there? Since after all, other than OT the most that an AMR worker can count on is more demands, more threats, more harassment and more concessions.
The $150 million dollar "breakthrough" is nothing more than propaganda. The company could have just as easily claimed they lost $150 million by keeping them open. Its purpose is to try and convince the workers to work more for less. Nothing more than "Rah, Rah".
