Mechanics turn down the concessions.

Yes atabuy, all who said no should listen to that message very closely and more than once.
Yes it is in print; but, print does not do it justice.
 
[blockquote]
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On 11/30/2002 8:42:07 PM atabuy wrote:

You see, although mechanics feel they have been screwed by management,
----------------
[/blockquote]
We've all been screwed by management...so what! This isn't about the past, it's about our collective future. Those mechanics who are voting their emotions are babys and need to grow up.

The airline, the world, the economy, etc, are different today. UAL can't operate with its present costs, end of story. THE HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL, and my prediction is it's going to get worse, not better. So be prepared to dig deeper into the wallets guys, this hasn't even begun.

Some of you guys are in total denial...there is denial in the whole industry. Change or die...I bet money this is only the beginning. DEAL WITH REALITY!!!
 
Bob, Bob, Bob,

What can I say? I don't know what it is you want from the pilots. I am not a military guy, so let's get that stright. I paid good money for my own education, and just finished paying off my flight training!

As for details, I don't know what you want. As for pilots telling mechanics anything, I think we are saying this is the wrong fight at the wrong time. YOU will be the big losers if this goes pear-shaped. But, the collateral damage will include ALL UAL employees...and some of you revel in this fact!?!

When it comes to pay, no-one is entitled to say what anyone else should or should not get paid. Your union negotiates for you and ours for us. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose...there is nothing new there. THIS TIME WE LOSE!

As for the rest, I can't waste my time any further. I have written about a much as I have been able and tried to explain that we are ALL in this together and it is an ALL OR NONE proposition. I have detailed the losses I will personally take, and those are significantly less than many others have already given and WILL be giving shortly. If it helps, I will figure out how much pay I will lose over this and see if that satisfies you. Seat movement, retirement, and other contract changes ALL have monetary values, but are much more difficult to quantify. I will post the number below when I figured it out.

After this, I am done with this whole nonsense. I can't bang my head against the wall any longer.

mancityfan
 
Bob,

Just run the numbers, adn just for you!

I will lose a grand total of $365,276 in JUST PAY, plus about $8K per year in retirement. So, I guess that makes it a nice round $400,000 or so. I hope you are happy, and feel like that is sufficient.

As I stated on the last post, this will be my last post on this issue. I hope you have a good time with the other people who both share and oppose your viewpoint. I am sure it will all makes LOTS of difference to the eventual outcome.

mancityfan
 
A Union Wrench in United's Retooling Kit


Sunday, December 1, 2002; Page H02


United Airlines' desperate campaign to win a $1.8 billion federal loan guarantee was set back last week after its mechanics union rejected a proposed 7 percent pay cut. The vote threatened to effectively nullify even bigger concessions made by United's pilots and flight attendants; United hoped the package would shave $1 billion a year off its labor costs and allow it to return to profitability. With cash reserves rapidly dwindling and a $375 million debt repayment due tomorrow, United may have no choice now but to seek a financial timeout in bankruptcy court.

Even with all its unions on board, United's bid for federal aid was far from certain. Although House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Boeing and a legion of well-connected lobbyists were actively agitating on its behalf, United faced stiff opposition from rival carriers as well as the Bush administration's ideological distaste for undisguised corporate bailouts.

United's big problem, like that of American, Delta and US Airways, dates back to before deregulation, when the airlines were essentially a government-sanctioned cartel. Back then, airline unions used their threat to strike to win pay far above what other Americans with comparable skills were able to command. And because airfares were set by the government based on airlines' actual costs, the burden of these above-market wages was passed on to consumers in higher ticket prices.

Although deregulation largely changed that dynamic, it never really lowered the base pay on which subsequent increases were calculated. Nor did it eliminate many of the benefits and arcane work rules that prevent the old airlines from operating anywhere near as efficiently as well-run upstarts such as Southwest and Jet Blue. Now these low-cost carriers are the price-setters in the deregulated marketplace, forcing United to operate at a loss on many competitive routes.

In that context, the mechanics' vote is easier to understand. Bankruptcy or no, these workers are now face to face with the harsh reality that, after 25 years, deregulation is about to erode the last vestige of their above-market pay scales. Rather than surrender, they decided to go down fighting.

If United is forced to declare bankruptcy, it may be only a matter of time before the competitors who lobbied against the federal loan guarantee will be forced to follow suit. For the most part, these carriers are caught in the same cost squeeze as United. And after United emerges from bankruptcy shorn of debt, unwanted leases and onerous parts of its labor contracts, those rivals will face stiff competition from one more low-cost carrier ready and able to lower fares even further.
 
1995 was a good year for United Airlines. It was the first year under its new ESOP, which owned 55% of the company. It was also the best year for shareholders in the company’s 70-year history, outperforming Standard & Poor’s by 67%, increasing shareholder value by over $4 billion. Employee grievances fell 74 percent. Revenue per employee went up 10%. Surveys showed employees liked working at United, and workers compensation claims and missed work days both improved sharply. Employees were organized into system-wide best of business (BOB) teams to iron out thorny issues, such as free pass policies for travel, as well as to find ways to improve operations and cut costs.

2000 was the last year of the ESOP, and the start of a disastrous period for United. The BOB teams were long gone, having been disbanded just a year after they started. Pilots were negotiating for a new wage deal and staged a work slowdown that, combined with bad summer weather, led to horrendous delays and furious customers. The airline was starting to lose money, but ended up acceding to pilot and later machinists demands for wage hikes. Employee morale was crumbling. The next two years have only made things worse, as economic conditions and 9/11 severely damaged most of the industry. Now United is mulling bankruptcy and the trustees of its ESOP are selling some of the plan’s shares in order to preserve some value if bankruptcy does occur.

What happened, and was employee ownership to blame? To listen to most analysts these days, United’s woes can be traced directly to excessive union control. Although employees have just three seats on the board, they say, United can’t make a move without union approval, including hiring a CEO. United’s management, they contend, should have forced labor to back down on wage demands in prior contracts, and now should take a tough line on needed concessions. While it is true that United’s unions bargained for, and got, a veto power over strategic decisions, that was only an obstacle in one case, the failed attempt to buy USAir. Even there, the company did get support from the machinists, enough to proceed with the effort, which was later turned down by the Justice Department for antirust reasons. In light of subsequent developments at USAir, that was probably a good thing for United. It’s also true that unions have had more than the usual influence in choosing a CEO, but it is hard to see how having a CEO the employees were opposed to would have made the situation at United anything but worse.

It may be stylish these days to dismiss the ESOP at United and long for the good old days when management managed and employees did as they were told, but this explanation for United’s failure just won’t wash. United’s pilots did get an industry-standard-setting wage increase, but that has been the pattern at each successive pilot contract at every major airline, ESOP or not. Pilots simply have enormous power at an airline. Other employees can at least be partially replaced; pilots cannot. United’s management did struggle for months to resist the wage demands, even in the face of disastrous customer relations. It eventually gave in, but which major airline has not in the face of similar work actions? The machinists did get a raise, but only after not getting one for many years.

If caving in on wages cannot be laid simply at the feet of the ESOP, and the ESOP did not stop United from pursuing any business strategy its major competitors have pursued, then just what is it employee control has done that is so disastrous? Every other major airline but Southwest (which itself has broad employee ownership and much more employee influence over day-to-day operation than United ever had) is losing money. One airline is in bankruptcy (USAir) and at least one other (American) is near it, while Delta and Northwest continue to bleed money. Yet no one seems to be arguing that investor ownership is a failed model at these companies.

The ESOP Did Not Cause United to Fail, But It Failed to Help United Succeed
While the ESOP did not cause United to fail, the ESOP has abjectly failed to help the company the way most ESOPs do. The overall ESOP track record, both in public and private companies, is impressive. Major academic studies show that companies with ESOPs grow in sales, employment, and productivity by 2% to 3% per year faster than would have been predicted without an ESOP. In public companies, ESOPs are also associated with higher returns on assets and stock prices (these variables cannot be studied in private companies because the data are not available). But for ESOPs to succeed, companies need to combine broad ownership with an ownership culture that gives employees more influence in day-to-day decisions and shares corporate performance data with employees in a detailed and regular manner. United's unions pursued the ESOP not because they wanted to be owners so much as because they wanted to use ownership to prevent United from breaking up into regional carriers, diversifying out of the airline business, and outsourcing work performed by union members. They succeeded in that goal. Management also was not enthused about the ESOP per se, seeing it primarily as a way to get wage concessions. They succeeded in their goal as well. Both sides, having done that, had only limited interest in making the ESOP a permanent part of United.

Perhaps because of this indifference toward making the ESOP part of United’s culture, United’s plan was fatally flawed from the outset:

Flight attendants, the face of the company to customers, never were in the ESOP. They didn’t want to make concessions, and the company and other unions were not willing to include them unless they did.
The ESOP was set up so that in five years no further contributions would be made. New employees would not be owners, and existing employees would get no more stock. So everyone knew from the outset that the ESOP could be put in the this too will pass category.
Employees took substantial concessions for the ESOP, and bitterness over these givebacks never faded. Only 1% of all ESOPs require concessions. In fact, employees in ESOP companies generally are paid more than comparable employees in non-ESOP companies.
Neither labor nor management was ever fully committed to creating an ownership culture in which employees could participate actively in day-to-day work-level decisions. Both sides tried out this approach in the first year, with the remarkable results noted above. But at the end of that experiment everyone reverted to the old ways of doing things. United’s key management did not like the idea of the ESOP or employee involvement, and labor leaders had, at best, mixed feelings. Both sides had built long histories of bashing one another, and those habits were hard to change.
By contrast, Southwest, which is about 10% owned through employee benefit plans and gives options widely on top of that, says it puts employees first, customers second, and shareholders third. Employees work in teams to make decisions, full information on corporate and work unit performance is shared, and employees are urged to use their judgment to make whatever decisions are necessary to please customers. Southwest continues to make a profit and has a market capitalization greater than the major airlines combined. Employee ownership can and does work in the airline industry. It just failed at United.
 
[blockquote]
----------------
On 11/30/2002 11:31:06 PM spacewaitress wrote:

[blockquote]
----------------
On 11/30/2002 8:42:07 PM atabuy wrote:

You see, although mechanics feel they have been screwed by management,
----------------
[/blockquote]
We've all been screwed by management...so what! This isn't about the past, it's about our collective future. Those mechanics who are voting their emotions are babys and need to grow up.

The airline, the world, the economy, etc, are different today. UAL can't operate with its present costs, end of story. THE HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL, and my prediction is it's going to get worse, not better. So be prepared to dig deeper into the wallets guys, this hasn't even begun.

Some of you guys are in total denial...there is denial in the whole industry. Change or die...I bet money this is only the beginning. DEAL WITH REALITY!!!
----------------
[/blockquote]
Sounds good to me...that 3% sure didn't make much sense to me. And we are reading the handwriting...we're moving on into other fields and ventures. I'm sure somebody will be around to work on whatever planes are left....maybe
 
[blockquote]
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On 11/30/2002 8:42:07 PM atabuy wrote:

[blockquote]
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On 11/30/2002 7:56:34 PM ual06 wrote:

Hey guys and gals, lets give Bob a break. He knows good and well that regardless of what happens at UAL; that he is getting close to the front of the line to receive the same. He is scared.
----------------
[/blockquote]

You can't blame Bob for doing what he is. Everyone is motivated by self interest to get what they want.
It is just a shame that 6,000 mechanics can make it bad for 100,000 workers who stand to lose well over $120,000,000 plus what folks have in retirement funds.
The worst part is they are taking themselves out at the same time. I know they are mad at the situation we are in right now, but to ruin others lives to feel a little bit of satisfaction at taking down a company is going too far.

If this happens I wonder what repercussions will be inflicted upon mechanics for years to come.

You see, although mechanics feel they have been screwed by management, how would you like to be screwed by a union brother. I think there will be trouble.

There won't be a union who will protect them from what others might do.
I already heard of fights breaking out. People being fired for fighting. How would you like to have 20, 25, 30 years and be fired for fighting.
Or be treated like the plague and never know what your car will look like when you come out of work. You know how those little dents can annoy you.
You guys have proved a point. I hope you are willing to accept the consequences.
You're not just messing with the company anymore. Now you are messing with your co-workers money.
Please don't take this as a threat from me. I would never do anything like that. It just occurred to me when I heard of the fights and thought you might not have thought this the whole way through. I don't know why I think you didn't. You guys are smatter than that.
----------------
[/blockquote]
Whoa....I thought we lived in America. The mechanics chose not to go along the plan presented to them by their union and company reps. You know, sort of like when THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS REFUSED TO GO ALONG WITH THE ESOP. This is a choice my friend, goes along with the freedom thing ya know. The do not owe you or any other individual anything. They realized they were throwing away their careers and decided it was what it was. And if any entity wants to take this thing to the next level...bring it on!!!!
 
I don't get it...are you telling me that those uneducated grease monkeys that can be replaced at a drop of the hat are about to bring down a great airline??? How can that be???
 
You know our foremen was called by Bill Norman...and he asked him to find out what was wrong with the mechanics!!! All I can say is that explains the WHOLE situation at United...our foremen just laughed, shaking his head why his bosses don't get it.
 
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #177
[blockquote]
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On 12/1/2002 4:05:50 AM The Ronin wrote:

You know our foremen was called by Bill Norman...and he asked him to find out what was wrong with the mechanics!!! All I can say is that explains the WHOLE situation at United...our foremen just laughed, shaking his head why his bosses don't get it.
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[/blockquote]
Would you mind listing all your issues with Ual please.
Then explain how sending the company into BK will help your cause.
This does not seem to be an issue about money or you would not want to do this.
 
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On 12/1/2002 4:11:04 AM The Ronin wrote:
...we're moving on into other fields and ventures.
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[/blockquote]
Good riddance...the sooner the better!!
 
In the end, we all must live with the ramifications of our actions. Any mechanic who thinks that by voting down this ERP they'll get a better shake in Ch 11 are very naive. If your intent is to masochistly usher in the failure of United Airlines, you are off to a wonderful start. All it does is reduce your stance to a balsa wood foundation. We've all heard the incessant whining and complaining about bad leadership and the need for change. Yet, now, when we finally have a real leader and that change has a good chance of happening. those very employees don't want to help make those changes because they'd rather exact some payback to make themselves feel a little better. They can one-up the Eastern guys by bragging about how they brought mighty United to its' knees. But then reality sets in and you're on unemployment trying to feed your family, pay your mortgage, send your kids to college, etc...........basically just trying to live. And all of a sudden, that 7% paycut and payment for 4 vacation days doesn't seem so difficult to swallow.

In the end, these ERP's are the best any of us are going to get. My opinion is that Ch.11 is about 10 days away at the most. And when it happens, you have no idea how ugly it is going to get. The cuts in employees, planes and infrastructure will be much, much worse. I just hope that in the end, it will have been worth it.
 
[blockquote]
----------------
On 12/1/2002 12:52:25 AM mancityfan wrote:

Bob, Bob, Bob,

What can I say? I don't know what it is you want from the pilots. I am not a military guy, so let's get that stright. I paid good money for my own education, and just finished paying off my flight training!

As for details, I don't know what you want. As for pilots telling mechanics anything, I think we are saying this is the wrong fight at the wrong time. YOU will be the big losers if this goes pear-shaped. But, the collateral damage will include ALL UAL employees...and some of you revel in this fact!?!

When it comes to pay, no-one is entitled to say what anyone else should or should not get paid. Your union negotiates for you and ours for us. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose...there is nothing new there. THIS TIME WE LOSE!

As for the rest, I can't waste my time any further. I have written about a much as I have been able and tried to explain that we are ALL in this together and it is an ALL OR NONE proposition. I have detailed the losses I will personally take, and those are significantly less than many others have already given and WILL be giving shortly. If it helps, I will figure out how much pay I will lose over this and see if that satisfies you. Seat movement, retirement, and other contract changes ALL have monetary values, but are much more difficult to quantify. I will post the number below when I figured it out.

After this, I am done with this whole nonsense. I can't bang my head against the wall any longer.

mancityfan
----------------
[/blockquote]

To be perfectly honest I dont care what you will be giving up. Tell me what you are still getting because thats all that matters now doesnt it?
 

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