"The days of airlines being fun and lucrative, that's over," said aviation industry consultant Mike

[luvthe9]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6082402002.html

 

[BeenThereDoneThat]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6082402002.html

That depends on being a CEO or not!

 

[PITbull]

Quote from article: "One reason is the seniority of workers at legacy carriers. Ebenhoch said two-thirds of Northwest's flight attendants are at the top of the pay scale, typical for older, established airlines. Boyd, the consultant, said Continental would have made $400 million last year -- instead of losing $68 million -- if its workers had the longevity of JetBlue's.

This is why flight attendants fear that airlines are trying to turn their jobs into high-turnover, short-term positions unsuitable to long careers.

"Our goal is to achieve competitive wages, said Ebenhoch. "Whether it's a long-term life choice is a decision the employees have to make."

This is what I had been hammering for at least3 years. The disciplines are so harsh and draconian that it is terminating the employees very quickly.

And, the reason for this is to eliminate the senior workforce to lower costs in wages and medical health claims that goes along with an older workforce.

What your seeing her folks is wiping out folks who have been at a job for years, and will find themselves not able to even get a job past 40.

There is a need for LABOR LAW REFORM now...and you won't get that by voting in Repbublicans who historically protect bug business and exec compansation.

 

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Quote from article: "One reason is the seniority of workers at legacy carriers. Ebenhoch said two-thirds of Northwest's flight attendants are at the top of the pay scale, typical for older, established airlines. Boyd, the consultant, said Continental would have made $400 million last year -- instead of losing $68 million -- if its workers had the longevity of JetBlue's.

This is why flight attendants fear that airlines are trying to turn their jobs into high-turnover, short-term positions unsuitable to long careers.

"Our goal is to achieve competitive wages, said Ebenhoch. "Whether it's a long-term life choice is a decision the employees have to make."

This is what I had been hammering for at least3 years. The disciplines are so harsh and draconian that it is terminating the employees very quickly.

And, the reason for this is to eliminate the senior workforce to lower costs in wages and medical health claims that goes along with an older workforce.

What your seeing her folks is wiping out folks who have been at a job for years, and will find themselves not able to even get a job past 40.

There is a need for LABOR LAW REFORM now...and you won't get that by voting in Repbublicans who historically protect bug business and exec compansation.

Sounds a lot like AGE discrimination! For instance, a lame brain judge has interferred with NW FAs ability to strike, per their legal rights. Funny how the CEOs want to passengers to pay market prices, but go to a lame judge to stop the FAs from getting fair market value for their work.

 

[RowUnderDCA]

I still can't believe the notion that flight attendent unions are doing their members any favors by creating a career path that keeps them in the airplance cabin for 40 years. I qualify this, always, with the declaration that I believe in the value of a labor movement in our politics and that we need to move in that direction if we want to preserve the U.S. as we've known it.

Flight attendents have great skills that have much more value as they mature on the outside of the cabin we're they can solve more complex problems. It's not age discrimination to value physical skills inside the cabin.

I see how it's good for the perpetuation of the union and keeps it from having to have any vision or imagination.

I'm ALL for a political/economic strategy that distributes more benefits to all working people, including flight attendents. But that is no reason to refuse to create a system that maximizes the efficient valuation of the skills that flight attendents have and develop in their jobs.

 

[PITbull]

It's NOT really age discrimination at least not legally. As the economy globalizes further the Seniority system becomes less viable. As does long term employement. The 40 years and a gold watch was and will continue to be a myth.

The real world going forward is for a job like F/A will be a way to get paid while you work towards your MBA, Law Degree, Etc Etc. Some out of love for of the job will stay, but the reality is that going forward profit sharing and bonusess will rule the day.

The real problem is that is not what the Companies and unions told their employees and members. Now you have senior folks who have been betrayed through no fault of their own and are rightfully pizzed.

Bob, Bob, Bob,

The f/as can not go to school and maintain a f/a job. The work rules don't allow it for that kind of flexibility. Juggling school, costs and flying is a thing from the early 90's and in the past; current day, doesn't exist...obsolete.

Unions did not betray the members. I resent unions being lumped in with the management type and their BK loop holes they use to kill off labor. The negotiated contracts DID provided for pensions, flexible workrules, and a decent livable wage. That's what was fairly negotiated in those years, and the unions sought that for their members. You sit on these boards for the last 4 years and clammor about striking and CHAOS is just not the right time...that they will liquidate their companies, and have no work..how many posts have you cited the "give-up-now" and "don't listen to your union leaders as they just want your dues", mumbo jumbo, over and over again to infinity. Same thing you cite today. Profit sharing and bonuses will not rule the day. Its in excuse to postpone compensation for the workers. Keep the bonus, keep the profits, and increase the wages. That is what has the most impact on the worker for survival.

You cite your reality above in your post, but you offer no solutions other than "accept it or move on".

Hell, with your logic, why challenge anything in life? Folks who have that mentality would have never fought a revolution for freedom and liberty, and Rosa Parks would have sat in the back of the bus like she was suppose to...women would not vote or smoke, or have jobs in the workforce trying to compete in the market for equal pay, while they raise their children.

Its not a question of what is fair; its a question of what is right, and decent. Why not accept these terms some ask? Because we don't have to!

 

[jimntx]

Sounds a lot like AGE discrimination! For instance, a lame brain judge has interferred with NW FAs ability to strike, per their legal rights. Funny how the CEOs want to passengers to pay market prices, but go to a lame judge to stop the FAs from getting fair market value for their work.

You really have two separate and almost totally unrelated arguments going on here. Age discrimination and Freedom to strike/get fair market wages for your work.

"Sounds a lot like AGE discrimination."
Not really. The short version of the Federal Age Discrmination Law is that you can not refuse to hire or promote an employee on the basis of age alone if that employee is between the ages of 40 and 65. You can say that someone 35 is too young or someone 70 is too old. (Though most companies would not be that un-PC in this day and age.)

The airlines are not practicing age discrimination. I am 61 years old and I was hired as a flight attendant with AA 6 years ago next month. In my new hire class there were 2 women who were older than I--though neither of them completed training. What they are trying to do is remold the job of f/a into what it is and was always intended to be, but has ceased to be over the years--an entry-level job, not a career.

Ask yourself, how many jobs do you know of in large corporations where someone is hired to do a specific set of job tasks, and that person is still doing basically the same set of job tasks 40 years later? The job of flight attendant was never intended to be a lifetime career. It was intended to be something that a young person would do for a few years--take advantage of the job flexibility and the travel bennies then move on to a career somewhere else either in the company or in a different field.

In recent times, the airlines have been hiring people my age who are doing it as a later in life alternate to their "real" careers. I have life experiences--such as mucho experience as an airline passenger--that make me good at my job, but I have no expectation nor does the company have any obligation to pay me much of a pension when I retire from this career, nor will I work long enough to reach top of scale pay. Or, at least I hope not. TOS comes at 15 years. I will be almost 72 then. (For those of you who are trying to trip me up on the math. I was hired at 55 in 2000, but I was furloughed for 17 months; so, right now I only have 4.5 years of company time. 😛 )

Don't get me wrong. I am not denigrating the job of f/a in any way. I love my job. But, it is not a hard job--a tiring job, but not a hard job. And, for all practical purposes, I do exactly the same job as someone who has been doing it for 40 years. Granted, they may do it better (some do and a lot don't), but from a corporate productivity/contribution to the financial bottom line, it is the same job. There is no benefit to the company to pay someone $45/hr (and owe a full pension to) when they can pay me $27/hr. For that matter, there's no benefit to the company to pay me $27/hr if they can get someone to do it for $15/hr.

AND THEY CAN. Hang around any hotel that is hosting a Flight Attendant Open House for some regional that is going to pay $13-15/hr to start. You will be amazed at the mob of people who will show up. There are any number of people who still think it's a glamorous, fun job (fun, yes; glamorous, no), and imagine themselves non-revving all over the world on their days off or on vacation (I admit, I did because I have always loved to travel. Truth is when you work on airplanes, the last place you want to be on your day off is on an airplane. )

Which brings us around to your other argument--the fair market value of the job. If someone is willing to do a job for $13/hr, then that is the fair market value of that job. (Whether you can attract someone you want or can do the job well at that pay rate is another issue.) Basic fair market value of a job is what is someone willing to pay for your services vs. what are you willing to accept to do that job. If you hang around for 40 years doing that same job, the company does not owe you $50/hr just because you didn't die and you didn't quit. Someone who hires on at McDonald's at $8/hr as a burger flipper (and, yes they break down the jobs to that elemental a level so that they can train someone to do the job well in about 10 minutes) can not expect to stay at burger flipper for 10 years, but be paid $25/hr just because they are still there.

Now, before other flight attendants get your knickers in a twist (as if you haven't already), burger flipper at McDonald's and flight attendant are not comparable jobs, but they are analogous--entry level jobs that take relatively little time to train a new hire to do. But, burger flipper is not a job with "career expectations"--and in reality, neither is flight attendant.

I was hired at Texaco in 1979 as a Programmer Trainee (I had zero background that would have enabled me to do the job.) When I left Texaco 16 years later, I was making substantially more than when I started, but I was not still an entry-level Programmer. I got raises through promotions which I got from learning new skills and taking on increasingly more responsibility--many times taking on the responsibility well before the pay increase. The people who chose not to learn new skills or take on more responsibility did not receive raises in the same proportion as I. In fact, people who showed that little initiative were usually gotten rid of. (The military has a similar philosophy for officers--move up or move out.)

Every day I see flight attendants who do the absolute minimum to keep from being terminated; show up to work barely on time; call in sick just because they view sick leave as supplemental vacation time, and refuse to learn anything new about even the most basic aspects of the job, yet they expect to be paid the same hourly rate as someone who works hard, is conscientious and goes above and beyond to provide customer service, simply because they were in the same newhire class and have been there the same amount of time. Only the fact that it is a unionized job makes that possible.

Case in point...
Just yesterday, we received new service guidelines and procedures from the company (and our contract states very clearly that the company defines the duties of the flight attendant; not the union, not the contract, and certainly not the flight attendant). I was in the mailroom at the same time as an 18 year flight attendant. That flight attendant removed the document from his mail slot, took one look at the title and threw it in the trash basket with the comment, "The company can't tell me anything about how to serve food."

Another example...
The service guidelines do, and always have as long as I've been at AA, state that soda cans are NOT to be given out in First Class unless the customer asks for it. I see senior f/as serve glasses of ice and the soda can all the time; so that they can they go park on the jumpseat and work on their latest Sudoku puzzle--even on hour or less flights where at best they might have to do one refill per customer.

And, yet these people are paid the same as flight attendants who really work at meeting the customer's needs and view the customer as valuable and absolutely necessary to the success of the company instead of nuisance to be ignored if possible.

The new reality is that the job is what it is and it pays what it pays. There ain't gonna be no more "one leg to NY, 24 hour layover, and one leg home" trips" paired with increasingly out of proportion pay rates for doing that job.

Ok, flame on. B)

 

[PITbull]

The situation changes when the company institutes new disciplines in a company whose employees are mostly senior and 45 and above.

Most disciplines today that move to terminate are those rules associated with lost time (sick).

I have taken two cases to EEOC, one was settled with USAirways among (Jerry and me) and the other one with a very close friend who was terminated for MS and is still pending and is being challenged with another company in Pittsburgh called Mathews International.

They are in the process of gathering her lost wages the past two years, vac. 40lK match etc...to determine a settlement with the company.

She is not the first this happened to at this company in Pittsburgh; she is the one who is challenging it (and I'm involved and a witness to ensure the company gets NAILED).

Jimntx,

your quote above: "Ask yourself, how many jobs do you know of in large corporations where someone is hired to do a specific set of job tasks, and that person is still doing basically the same set of job tasks 40 years later? The job of flight attendant was never intended to be a lifetime career. It was intended to be something that a young person would do for a few years--take advantage of the job flexibility and the travel bennies then move on to a career somewhere else either in the company or in a different field.

Answer: That is how you define the f/a career. I had the job for 25 years, my friend, so YOUR VIEW, is a NEW VIEW, in the NEW YUPPIE CORPORATE AMERICA.

Teachers do the same job for their career, and many many working at the same school their entire career. nurses care for sick patients for their career some in the exact same hospital until retirement. Firemen and policemen do the same job for years and years, and often times in the same municipality, same firehouse until retirement.

Better to say, 'that was then'; then to say..."it was never intended". You are incorrect and a newbie f/a at best that has no history of the career. Great you took the job as a senior citizen. Enjoy it, but make sure you don't get ill...cause then, your history.



Folks,

Hope you are preparing to get inconvenienced in the future with any carrier you fly...cause its going to get ugly out there.

 

[kicked2curb]

Quote from article: "One reason is the seniority of workers at legacy carriers. Ebenhoch said two-thirds of Northwest's flight attendants are at the top of the pay scale, typical for older, established airlines. Boyd, the consultant, said Continental would have made $400 million last year -- instead of losing $68 million -- if its workers had the longevity of JetBlue's.

This is why flight attendants fear that airlines are trying to turn their jobs into high-turnover, short-term positions unsuitable to long careers.

"Our goal is to achieve competitive wages, said Ebenhoch. "Whether it's a long-term life choice is a decision the employees have to make."

This is what I had been hammering for at least3 years. The disciplines are so harsh and draconian that it is terminating the employees very quickly.

And, the reason for this is to eliminate the senior workforce to lower costs in wages and medical health claims that goes along with an older workforce.

What your seeing her folks is wiping out folks who have been at a job for years, and will find themselves not able to even get a job past 40.

There is a need for LABOR LAW REFORM now...and you won't get that by voting in Repbublicans who historically protect bug business and exec compansation.

 

[jimntx]

and the other one with a very close friend who was terminated for MS and is still pending and is being challenged with another company in Pittsburgh called Mathews International.

They are in the process of gathering her lost wages the past two years, vac. 40lK match etc...to determine a settlement with the company.

Pitbull, yes termination for illness is wrong unless that illness makes it impossible or unsafe for the person to do the job. You didn't mention if that is the case, but even you would not say that the company has to retain a flight attendant as a flight attendant if he/she has gone blind or deaf, would you? Maybe another job in the company if they are willing to accept it and able to do it, but not the same job surely.

I heard that the #1 f/a at AA for years reached a point where someone had to help her off the jumpseat after take off. She couldn't get up on her own power. The only reason she retired is pilots started refusing to allow her on the a/c. Should we overlook safety issues simply because someone is a union member and has been on the payroll since before dirt?

Answer: That is how you define the f/a career. I had the job for 25 years, my friend, so YOUR VIEW, is a NEW VIEW, in the NEW YUPPIE CORPORATE AMERICA.

No, that is the classic BUSINESS definition of any job. We, as f/as should be paid more than the person who pushes wheelchairs in the terminal, because our job contributes more to the company bottom line. But, because a flight attendant has CHOSEN not to improve their skill set and do the same job for years because they want the flexibility/time off/just enjoy doing it does not mean that they contribute any more to the company bottom line than the person who hired on last year.

Teachers do the same job for their career, and many many working at the same school their entire career. nurses care for sick patients for their career some in the exact same hospital until retirement. Firemen and policemen do the same job for years and years, and often times in the same municipality, same firehouse until retirement.

And, not one of the examples you cite requires nothing more than reaching a certain age, not have a criminal background, be able to stand upright and tie your own shoes, and complete 5-6 weeks of training. The fact that teachers are paid what they are paid is a national disgrace. My mother taught school for almost 40 years, was required to continue her education until she had 15 hours PAST the Master's degree and had to do a lot of her work on her own time for free in order to keep her job. Also, tenure could not totally protect her from termination if some principal had wanted to get rid of her. Nor, have I ever heard a classroom teacher point to the difference between their salary and the salary of the school superintendent as justification for a job action/doing the minimum/etc. The reality of the work world is that those who are in charge get paid more than those who are not. Whether they deserve it or the situation is fair is not the issue. Life ain't fair; there ain't no free lunch; and nothing's going to come in the mail.

Better to say, that was then; then to say..."it was never intended". You are incorrect and a newbie f/a at best that has no history of the career.

No, you are incorrect. A company creates and defines a job. Not the worker. Flight attendants were the ones who decided that it was unfair to have to leave when they reached 32, gained 10 pounds, or got married. The company designed the job for young ladies of good character and sufficient education to do the job for a few years until they got married or decided to take a "real" job. The term for people who set their own hours, employment terms, and job requirements is self-employed.

And, don't twist my meaning. I'm not saying that someone should not have the right to stay in the same job for 40 years. But, if the job requires nothing of you after 40 years than it required in the first year (not the case for teachers at all), why should you be paid 4 or 5 times more simply because you chose not to progress with the company or do something else?

Great you took the job as a senior citizen. Enjoy it, but make sure you don't get ill...cause then, your history.

As I would expect would happen. No company should be required to keep any employee on the payroll indefinitely if that employee is contributing nothing to the company's financial bottom line. Early/disability retirement, yes. Still on the payroll and preventing someone else from moving up a slot, absolutely not.

And, don't try to use the argument that flight attendants can not afford to retire. Neither company pension plans nor Social Security was ever intended to be your sole source of income in retirement. If someone has not saved a dime toward their retirement years, that is not the company's problem. (And, I'm not talking about minimum wage workers who don't have pension plans anyway. Nor am I talking about executive pensions. I'll grant you that those are a scandal, but it's not really related to us working folk. If you took every one of the executive pensions at AMR and reduced them by 75%, it would not generate sufficient funds to appreciably increase the monthly pensions of 18,000 flight attendants. And, we haven't even included the thousands of mechanics, gate agents, rampers, or res agents in the equation.)

I know flight attendants who are driving Mercedes and living in $250,000 houses (which may or may not be much of a house in your part of the country, but is a nice house in Texas) because they are earning enough now to be able to make the payments. But, they are living from paycheck to paycheck, not saving a dime, and complaining that the pension is too small for them to maintain that same lifestyle in retirement.

If you want to drive a $50,000 automobile, then you need to move on from a $45,000/yr job. It is foolish to drive a car that costs more than a year's salary. And, it's ok for you to live that way if you so choose, but don't expect the company or society to pick up the slack when you are no longer able to work.

 

[PITbull]

Jimntx,

I don't know where your mom taught school, but tenure is everything in a teaching profession. They are union, Teachers Federation...so there is no job anywhere that if you don't perform up to task, can be protected.

Your mother had to go through receiving so many hours a year to keep her taching certification; so does a f/a, every single year. It use to be 16 hours, now its 8.

And who said a f/a should be paid more than a w/c pusher..YOU. Again, your definition of job responsibility and duty.

If a f/a can not do the job or pass recurrent, they go on disability. I've represented f/as in this arena more times than you cite examples.

 

[kicked2curb]

I totally agree that Labor Law reform is needed. Today's business environment, absolves corporate America from any responsibility for their unethical altough not illegal. policies. Shedding senior employees for the sake of the bottom line IS a form of age discrimination, and should be addressed legally. There should be an obligation on a company to pay for retraining or schooling of workers who are sacrificed for the balance sheet. Pensions and benefits once promised to an employee should not be arbitrarily abrogated. Also, companies can age discriminate by virtue of your resume or empoyment application. Today's work force is being brain washed into complacency, because the labor movement is systematically being destroyed by corporate America's ability to prevent meaningful labor legislation. People tend to forget that Labor Union members fought for the benefits both union & non-union workers deserve.

 

[smorzando]

Folks,

Hope you are preparing to get inconvenienced in the future with any carrier you fly...cause its going to get ugly out there.
[/quote]



Nothing will happen, absolutely nothing. Being a F/A is not the same as being a nurse or those other careers you pointed out, not even close. You can't accept what plain simple truth was just laid out for you. You can have a stroke with your famous emotional rants which solve nothing, you can call me sick, twisted whatever you choose because it really doesn't matter in the least but only makes you look old worn out and very bitter towards a world that has changed while you were screaming at it. Chaos, yes chaos in your spirit only.

 

[kicked2curb]

You really have two separate and almost totally unrelated arguments going on here. Age discrimination and Freedom to strike/get fair market wages for your work.

"Sounds a lot like AGE discrimination."
Not really. The short version of the Federal Age Discrmination Law is that you can not refuse to hire or promote an employee on the basis of age alone if that employee is between the ages of 40 and 65. You can say that someone 35 is too young or someone 70 is too old. (Though most companies would not be that un-PC in this day and age.)

The airlines are not practicing age discrimination. I am 61 years old and I was hired as a flight attendant with AA 6 years ago next month. In my new hire class there were 2 women who were older than I--though neither of them completed training. What they are trying to do is remold the job of f/a into what it is and was always intended to be, but has ceased to be over the years--an entry-level job, not a career.

Ask yourself, how many jobs do you know of in large corporations where someone is hired to do a specific set of job tasks, and that person is still doing basically the same set of job tasks 40 years later? The job of flight attendant was never intended to be a lifetime career. It was intended to be something that a young person would do for a few years--take advantage of the job flexibility and the travel bennies then move on to a career somewhere else either in the company or in a different field.

In recent times, the airlines have been hiring people my age who are doing it as a later in life alternate to their "real" careers. I have life experiences--such as mucho experience as an airline passenger--that make me good at my job, but I have no expectation nor does the company have any obligation to pay me much of a pension when I retire from this career, nor will I work long enough to reach top of scale pay. Or, at least I hope not. TOS comes at 15 years. I will be almost 72 then. (For those of you who are trying to trip me up on the math. I was hired at 55 in 2000, but I was furloughed for 17 months; so, right now I only have 4.5 years of company time. 😛 )

Don't get me wrong. I am not denigrating the job of f/a in any way. I love my job. But, it is not a hard job--a tiring job, but not a hard job. And, for all practical purposes, I do exactly the same job as someone who has been doing it for 40 years. Granted, they may do it better (some do and a lot don't), but from a corporate productivity/contribution to the financial bottom line, it is the same job. There is no benefit to the company to pay someone $45/hr (and owe a full pension to) when they can pay me $27/hr. For that matter, there's no benefit to the company to pay me $27/hr if they can get someone to do it for $15/hr.

AND THEY CAN. Hang around any hotel that is hosting a Flight Attendant Open House for some regional that is going to pay $13-15/hr to start. You will be amazed at the mob of people who will show up. There are any number of people who still think it's a glamorous, fun job (fun, yes; glamorous, no), and imagine themselves non-revving all over the world on their days off or on vacation (I admit, I did because I have always loved to travel. Truth is when you work on airplanes, the last place you want to be on your day off is on an airplane. )

Which brings us around to your other argument--the fair market value of the job. If someone is willing to do a job for $13/hr, then that is the fair market value of that job. (Whether you can attract someone you want or can do the job well at that pay rate is another issue.) Basic fair market value of a job is what is someone willing to pay for your services vs. what are you willing to accept to do that job. If you hang around for 40 years doing that same job, the company does not owe you $50/hr just because you didn't die and you didn't quit. Someone who hires on at McDonald's at $8/hr as a burger flipper (and, yes they break down the jobs to that elemental a level so that they can train someone to do the job well in about 10 minutes) can not expect to stay at burger flipper for 10 years, but be paid $25/hr just because they are still there.

Now, before other flight attendants get your knickers in a twist (as if you haven't already), burger flipper at McDonald's and flight attendant are not comparable jobs, but they are analogous--entry level jobs that take relatively little time to train a new hire to do. But, burger flipper is not a job with "career expectations"--and in reality, neither is flight attendant.

I was hired at Texaco in 1979 as a Programmer Trainee (I had zero background that would have enabled me to do the job.) When I left Texaco 16 years later, I was making substantially more than when I started, but I was not still an entry-level Programmer. I got raises through promotions which I got from learning new skills and taking on increasingly more responsibility--many times taking on the responsibility well before the pay increase. The people who chose not to learn new skills or take on more responsibility did not receive raises in the same proportion as I. In fact, people who showed that little initiative were usually gotten rid of. (The military has a similar philosophy for officers--move up or move out.)

Every day I see flight attendants who do the absolute minimum to keep from being terminated; show up to work barely on time; call in sick just because they view sick leave as supplemental vacation time, and refuse to learn anything new about even the most basic aspects of the job, yet they expect to be paid the same hourly rate as someone who works hard, is conscientious and goes above and beyond to provide customer service, simply because they were in the same newhire class and have been there the same amount of time. Only the fact that it is a unionized job makes that possible.

Case in point...
Just yesterday, we received new service guidelines and procedures from the company (and our contract states very clearly that the company defines the duties of the flight attendant; not the union, not the contract, and certainly not the flight attendant). I was in the mailroom at the same time as an 18 year flight attendant. That flight attendant removed the document from his mail slot, took one look at the title and threw it in the trash basket with the comment, "The company can't tell me anything about how to serve food."

Another example...
The service guidelines do, and always have as long as I've been at AA, state that soda cans are NOT to be given out in First Class unless the customer asks for it. I see senior f/as serve glasses of ice and the soda can all the time; so that they can they go park on the jumpseat and work on their latest Sudoku puzzle--even on hour or less flights where at best they might have to do one refill per customer.

And, yet these people are paid the same as flight attendants who really work at meeting the customer's needs and view the customer as valuable and absolutely necessary to the success of the company instead of nuisance to be ignored if possible.

The new reality is that the job is what it is and it pays what it pays. There ain't gonna be no more "one leg to NY, 24 hour layover, and one leg home" trips" paired with increasingly out of proportion pay rates for doing that job.

Ok, flame on. B)

Question- is the "entry -level" job a supplemental income for you?

 

[jimntx]

Jimntx,

I don't know where your mom taught school, but tenure is everything in a teaching profession. They are union, Teachers Federation...so there is no job anywhere that if you don't perform up to task, can be protected.

Your mother had to go through receiving so many hours a year to keep her taching certification; so does a f/a, every single year. It use to be 16 hours, now its 8.

First off, Pitbull, you have to accept that my mother was from a totally different generation. There are now, but weren't then, teacher unions in most states. In fact, most teachers considered the term "professional union member" to be an oxymoron. At the time I was in school and my mother was teaching, an article in the newspaper about the physician's unions in Europe would have been accompanied with some commentary about encroaching Communism.

Besides that, I hope you are not saying that annual recurrent training (that lasts a day and a half at AA and consists of sitting through some boring lectures, demonstrating that I can still open the door on every a/c I'm qualified on, and still have all the emergency commands memorized) is equivalent to having to spend the entire summer in graduate classes at one's own expense and will generate no additional income until the Master's degree is actually awarded.

And who said a f/a should be paid more than a w/c pusher..YOU. Again, your definition of job responsibility and duty.

No, Pitbull unless you really are a doctrinaire Communist and believe fully in "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" (and not even the Soviets did this in practice, just in theory), then you are being facetious. A salaried/hourly job exists only if there is a company to create that job. In business economics a job should pay something less than the financial worth generated by that job. Otherwise, there is no profit, no dividend to the investors, and no reason to exist.

Flight attendants are pretty useless in an economy that only has trains and busses for public transportation. But, airlines can not exist without flight attendants because the law says when the a/c takes off, there has to be one flight attendant on-board for every 50 seats on the plane. A company is not required to have wheelchair pushers. Yes, they have to provide a means for handicapped passengers to get from one gate to the next or to baggage claim, but even this is a fairly recent phenomenon. And, the company could just as easily require that you and I push a wheelchair while we are walking from one gate to our next connection. (And, given our current union's willingness to roll over for the company as long as the officers get their tummies scratched, that's probably going to be a concession in the near future. )And, note even with the wheelchair pushers, there is no requirement to get the person past baggage claim or out to the curb.

If a f/a can not do the job or pass recurrent, they go on disability. I've represented f/as in this arena more times than you cite examples.

And, I have never said that I have a problem with this. But, that person on disability is not drawing the same pay from the company that an active flight attendant draws, are they? If that is what is expected, no wonder the airlines are in a world of financial hurt.

But, at the same time, do you think it is fair for the flight attendant at 1 year or 15 years or 20 years has to still serve reserve or fly the really crap lines because there is someone senior to them who bids all the best lines, then sells their trips to a trip trade service, and keeps themselves on the seniority list without flying more than one or two trips a month at most? And, don't think I consider myself in this situation. I took the job knowing that I would NEVER be totally free of reserve months, or hold the best lines, or get every weekend and holiday off. But, I don't think it fair that after 20 years there are flight attendants that are still in the same situation I am in after 4.5 years. Reserve at some AA bases goes as high (or higher) than 20 years some months. I know that happened at PIT with all the layoffs, but remember AA does not have straight reserve. At my base reserve only goes to about 11 years, and when I was first recalled in Nov. 2004, reserve went only to about 6 years in my base. But as more senior people transfer into my base, people are being pushed back onto reserve some months.

The result is that young people (women mostly) with small children or infants who came to my base in order to be off reserve are resigning rather than go back on reserve. All that means is that reserve is getting increasingly senior because no one is being added on the bottom of the list as long as we still have over 3000 f/as on furlough.