March 30, 2004
US Airways Update
To All IAM Members Employed by US Airways:
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
On March 24, 2004 US Airways CEO David Siegel addressed his employees, shareholders and passengers through an Internet video web cast. Siegel tried using fear, rewriting history and criticizing your union’s leadership to gain employee support for additional pay, benefit, and work rule concessions. He failed miserably, and looked like a CEO making a very public plea to save his job in the face of his own miserable failure.
Siegel claimed that the airline has been avoiding the issue of high employee costs. He apparently has forgotten that District 141 and 141-M members are already providing the carrier with $278 million in annual cost reductions as a result of the company’s bankruptcy.
Thousands of employees have been furloughed, and active employees are working harder, earning less and paying more for healthcare to ensure the future of US Airways.
Further demonstrating the IAM’s commitment to US Airways, District 141 and 141-M Representatives have been meeting separately with members of Siegel’s management team to ensure the airline operates in the most efficient manner possible. The $80-100 million the company could save by enacting the IAM’s recommendations would be achieved without necessitating changes to collective bargaining agreements.
Similarly, IAM officials have held constructive meetings with US Airways Chairman Dr. Bronner to develop a positive working relationship. The IAM’s commitment to a viable and competitive US Airways is without question.
Siegel’s tunnel vision, however, prevents him from acknowledging the substantial participation of IAM members in the airline’s recovery. He clearly appears to be out of touch with what is occurring within his own company.
Incredibly, Siegel also used the web cast as a platform to renegotiate his employment contract, offering to reduce his compensation to a level comparable to the CEO’s of low cost carriers. But those CEO’s and their company’s are successful, and similar compensation for David Siegel would still be too much and cannot be justified.
As graphs appearing in the March 1, 2004 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology demonstrate, US Airways has lowered personnel costs by 12 percent since 2002. However, the company’s non-personnel costs actually increased by more than 4 percent. By comparison, ALL of US Airways' competitors were successful in REDUCING non-personnel costs during that same period.
It is painfully evident that David Siegel’s bankruptcy restructuring did nothing but reduce labor costs while failing to similarly reduce non-labor costs.
Siegel’s business plan seems to be centered on scaring employees. Unfortunately, he is 20 years too late to scare airline employees into believing that repeated concessions could save an airline. Airline after airline has demonstrated that no amount of employee concessions could save a company from its own incompetent management.
Siegel likes to blame the unions for US Airways’ problems, but it was he who a year ago claimed to the business community, the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, and his employees that he a had a business plan to make US Airways successful.
It was the employees that gave David Siegel the tools he said he needed to make the plan work. However, he has failed us all and it is now time for him to do the right thing. David Siegel must begin working with, not against, his most important asset, his employees. Otherwise, he should step aside and give the job to someone capable of handling it.
Sincerely and fraternally,
Scotty Ford
President
IAM District 141-M
US Airways Update
To All IAM Members Employed by US Airways:
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
On March 24, 2004 US Airways CEO David Siegel addressed his employees, shareholders and passengers through an Internet video web cast. Siegel tried using fear, rewriting history and criticizing your union’s leadership to gain employee support for additional pay, benefit, and work rule concessions. He failed miserably, and looked like a CEO making a very public plea to save his job in the face of his own miserable failure.
Siegel claimed that the airline has been avoiding the issue of high employee costs. He apparently has forgotten that District 141 and 141-M members are already providing the carrier with $278 million in annual cost reductions as a result of the company’s bankruptcy.
Thousands of employees have been furloughed, and active employees are working harder, earning less and paying more for healthcare to ensure the future of US Airways.
Further demonstrating the IAM’s commitment to US Airways, District 141 and 141-M Representatives have been meeting separately with members of Siegel’s management team to ensure the airline operates in the most efficient manner possible. The $80-100 million the company could save by enacting the IAM’s recommendations would be achieved without necessitating changes to collective bargaining agreements.
Similarly, IAM officials have held constructive meetings with US Airways Chairman Dr. Bronner to develop a positive working relationship. The IAM’s commitment to a viable and competitive US Airways is without question.
Siegel’s tunnel vision, however, prevents him from acknowledging the substantial participation of IAM members in the airline’s recovery. He clearly appears to be out of touch with what is occurring within his own company.
Incredibly, Siegel also used the web cast as a platform to renegotiate his employment contract, offering to reduce his compensation to a level comparable to the CEO’s of low cost carriers. But those CEO’s and their company’s are successful, and similar compensation for David Siegel would still be too much and cannot be justified.
As graphs appearing in the March 1, 2004 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology demonstrate, US Airways has lowered personnel costs by 12 percent since 2002. However, the company’s non-personnel costs actually increased by more than 4 percent. By comparison, ALL of US Airways' competitors were successful in REDUCING non-personnel costs during that same period.
It is painfully evident that David Siegel’s bankruptcy restructuring did nothing but reduce labor costs while failing to similarly reduce non-labor costs.
Siegel’s business plan seems to be centered on scaring employees. Unfortunately, he is 20 years too late to scare airline employees into believing that repeated concessions could save an airline. Airline after airline has demonstrated that no amount of employee concessions could save a company from its own incompetent management.
Siegel likes to blame the unions for US Airways’ problems, but it was he who a year ago claimed to the business community, the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, and his employees that he a had a business plan to make US Airways successful.
It was the employees that gave David Siegel the tools he said he needed to make the plan work. However, he has failed us all and it is now time for him to do the right thing. David Siegel must begin working with, not against, his most important asset, his employees. Otherwise, he should step aside and give the job to someone capable of handling it.
Sincerely and fraternally,
Scotty Ford
President
IAM District 141-M
