Philly Townhall

- There are approx 400 more FSA in PHL than this time last year. That's good except the fact that we lost about 200 experienced agents, and most of the new ones aren't worth crap.
:down:

PHL is a quandry. #1 city in terms of rev and customer base and #1 city in terms of sour useless employees! What is a company to do?

It will never happen but this would help for Fleet service

1) Hire by association example brother gets a cousin hired
2) Make the starting pay worth while 9.59hr will never cut
with all the BS we put up with make it 14.00hr you will get a better pool of people to draw from not fast food
just out of high school I dont wanna work kids!
3) Give these people a real work out test before hiring them have them move say a 100 bags in say 10 minutes and make the bags all 70 pounds. They cant do the test dont hire them it will save alot of time and money.
4) Train the new hires like when we were hired if your PT there in the bin every flight loading and unloading. Make the job a FT career goal for incentives.
 
The morale "Problem" at PHL is IMO a relatively large portion of the workforce (10 to 20 percent) is tenured, negative, whining, threatening, lazy and extremely vocal. The other 80%-90% KNOW who these people are.

Isolate them and don't allow their attitude to go unchallenged. They will change or be gone, either by their own doing or with assistance from the company.

Bob,

I agree with your post except for the numbers.

What you described above were the numbers from the mid 80s until the late 90s. The majority of the workforce were able to deal with the bums, each in their own way. Some agents figured it was easier to cover the bums and ended up taking on more work. Others, like myself, set the tone early with the bums so they knew that whenever they worked with you that you weren't going to put up with their BS. If it was the bums turn in the belly then no one got in the belly for them. No one would set up the gate or run their bags for them either. They had to show up for the flight or they'd get jammed up with Management...problem solved. Most of the time they just avoided working with you and worked with the agents that they knew would cover them. I'd say that at the most 10% of FSA were bums, but the job got done one way or another.

In 1998 and 1999 there was a big wave of hiring FSA, and a lot of these people should have never made it through training. Unfortunately there were a couple of FSA in the training department that "pushed" people through class that had no business making it through. This was the period of time that the so called "gangs" were hired. The bums were now at about 25% of the FSA group. A seven gate zone that had 28 FSA assigned to it now had 7-8 bums, instead of only 2-3. Couple that with a Management team that was weak and intimidated....now the problems slowly began.

I'd estimate that the ramp is now 50% bums, equipment in the worse shape ever, and the weakest Management team ever assembled. It's a meltdown waiting to happen, something that a lot of us don't want to happen again.

My point is that it's not as easy to put pressure on the bums as it used to be. They're almost, if not already, the majority. Couple that with weak Management and things aren't pretty. It'll be interesting to see how DP deals with the issues in PHL. My money is on 'not much changes'. I hope I'm wrong.
 
Management can do a great deal in terms of being the change agent in the attitudes of any workforce. Afterall Management sets the tone and so far the tone IMO is being set correctly from PHX.
Bob your right the tone is good from PHX,but they still have no idea as to what goes on behind the scenes in PHL.All they see is the pretty little picture painted for them when they come to visit.
This is the most backwords ran place in the world,the hard working supervisors here are threatened and and intimidated,while the lazy and inferior ones are turned into personal pets and protected no matter how screwed up they are.
Parts of the managment team here has set up there own little power base,and are fighting to keep it,they are getting away with it because they are using company policy for there own personel advantage
Lower personnel will not jump the chain of command and report it,they sit and wait for someone thats sain to see whats going on and correct it.
Untill these little power groups are taken of the property and dignity restored to the working force,suervisors and union workers the problems here will not go away.
The problem still stretches all the way up to old U managment still in place or repositioned,The lower managers are still using the same old tricks that they were tought early on,threats and intimidation still prevail as a means to control there little palace.
 
Bob your right the tone is good from PHX,but they still have no idea as to what goes on behind the scenes in PHL.All they see is the pretty little picture painted for them when they come to visit.
This is the most backwords ran place in the world,the hard working supervisors here are threatened and and intimidated,while the lazy and inferior ones are turned into personal pets and protected no matter how screwed up they are.
Parts of the managment team here has set up there own little power base,and are fighting to keep it,they are getting away with it because they are using company policy for there own personel advantage
Lower personnel will not jump the chain of command and report it,they sit and wait for someone thats sain to see whats going on and correct it.
Untill these little power groups are taken of the property and dignity restored to the working force,suervisors and union workers the problems here will not go away.
The problem still stretches all the way up to old U managment still in place or repositioned,The lower managers are still using the same old tricks that they were tought early on,threats and intimidation still prevail as a means to control there little palace.
Send some of those hard working agents with good attitudes to work in PHL over the holidays, i'm sure they will go back with a whole outlook on life. (if they haven't slit their wrists) PHX is living a dream out there. I do want to give the agents in PHL some kudos, because it is a tough station to work at. Most try to do it as professionally as they can, for the most part they take it in stride. If they don't they would make themselves crazy.
 
It will never happen but this would help for Fleet service

1) Hire by association example brother gets a cousin hired
2) Make the starting pay worth while 9.59hr will never cut
with all the BS we put up with make it 14.00hr you will get a better pool of people to draw from not fast food
just out of high school I dont wanna work kids!
3) Give these people a real work out test before hiring them have them move say a 100 bags in say 10 minutes and make the bags all 70 pounds. They cant do the test dont hire them it will save alot of time and money.
4) Train the new hires like when we were hired if your PT there in the bin every flight loading and unloading. Make the job a FT career goal for incentives.
:up: They get what they pay for! :up:
 
I have NO knowledge of Philly, other than what I read here and in the media and a little bit of inside gossip. However, the posts, starting with DMG #21, especially, and subsequent posts is exactly what I have surmissed from listening. In fact, I posted about hiring decisions and influence and intimidation rackets years ago. I think DMG has most likely put his/her finger right on the problem.

I think that there are management techniques to diagnose and treat influence rackets in the workplace. Hmmm. Maybe I'll Google that subject!
 
" When questioned about the raises and his pay DP said the newspapers numbers weren't accurate. When asked if fleet will get raises when the company returns to profitability DP told the agent something along the lines of "Don't kid yourself, we're a LCC now".

In the first place, only a Bafoon would ask about getting a raise during this type of meeting. You are NEVER going to get a CEO to committ to anything of this nature. This meeting would be the time to ask intellegent questions instead. When and IF the company makes a profit, there may be a chance of this when your contract is open for negotiations. All of us that were either Expressed or Outsourced would gladly work for the $17-$18 bucks an hour that these people are still earning. :up:
 
In the first place, only a Bafoon would ask about getting a raise during this type of meeting. You are NEVER going to get a CEO to committ to anything of this nature.

I disagree for 2 reasons.

1. When you bring your dog and pony show to PHL be prepared for all kinds of questions. PHL agents aren't going to sit by and only ask the "PC" questions. The company knows this, and that's why we'll never see Uncle Al at an open meeting here. He'd get blasted.

2. Sometimes you ask questions to get a read on a person by his reaction and/or answer to the question. There's not always a right or wrong answer. I don't know the motive behind the person who posed this question, but Parker's response to it told us something about him.
 

Amen!


All excellent points. :up: Did you bring these up in the Town Hall? That's what they're for...
 
This is the most backwords ran place in the world,the hard working supervisors here are threatened and and intimidated,while the lazy and inferior ones are turned into personal pets and protected no matter how screwed up they are.
Parts of the managment team here has set up there own little power base,and are fighting to keep it,they are getting away with it because they are using company policy for there own personel advantage
Lower personnel will not jump the chain of command and report it,they sit and wait for someone thats sain to see whats going on and correct it.
Untill these little power groups are taken of the property and dignity restored to the working force,suervisors and union workers the problems here will not go away.
The problem still stretches all the way up to old U managment still in place or repositioned,The lower managers are still using the same old tricks that they were tought early on,threats and intimidation still prevail as a means to control there little palace.


Excellent description!

That sounds very much like a station I know about, and sounds a lot like stations I talk to my friends about.

That description was NOT the case at U 10 years ago.

It took a while for crellinization to take hold!
 

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