Seems we agree a quite a few points. Of course I don't exactly see everything your way. For example, the cost of recruiting, hiring, training, and terminating people in a revolving door type job is quite expensive even for people making $10-20 per hour. Therefore it would be financially no benefit whatsoever of terminating a productive and proven employee in order to save $1 per hour with a new hire that might not give the same effort as the good employee you just dismissed. The variance between the current wage and the new hire's wage needs to be greater than that.
That being said, if you have a very low-skill task and a endless supply of willing labors who can come in at a lower starting rate, then there is also very little financial incentive to pay wage premiums and institute employee retention programs when the skill gap between a new hire and a 20-year employee is practically zero after a month or two. Increase the level of skill, experience, training, and responsibility in a position and the gap between a new hire and a 5-10 year or more employee and retention becomes much more vital. So, practically speaking without allowing emotions to cloud the issue, Doug is likely correct that there is little if any value differences between a 1-year employee and a 20-year employee in that same entry-level position. And if that's the case, why should Management expend money and effort to retain longevity in such a position? Providing annual wage increases has a breaking point a few years into job that is easily staffed by entry-level candidates. The people doing those jobs for decades may be great people, but why would an employer want to have a huge pay disparity between two workers doing the same exact type of work be it loading bags on the ramp, picking apples in an orchard, washing cars, or tearing ticket stubs at the entrance to a movie theater? If you can substitute a new hire for the lifer with no loss in productive work, it simply doesn't make sense to tailor the job so that people will stay in that role for life when it was always structured to be entry-level.
I have no idea how Delta treats their employees, but they mere fact that they are mostly non-union tells me they must be doing things relatively well. I would also venture a guess that they have very few obstacles to dealing with under-performing employees who work in an at-will status. Having the ability to get rid of bad apples is a fundamental tenet of having a productive and motivated work force. In that environment it is easy to identify people with bad attitudes and a poor work ethic who need to be let go. There is nothing worse than being a motivated, hard-working employee who is surrounded by people who don't care about anything other than avoiding work and milking their paychecks. Unions ensure a high level of worker mediocrity and apathy because it is much more difficult and costly to terminate a represented employee. It only takes a few with this attitude to spread their misery like a cancer and infect the whole organization. This in turn leads to low productivity, higher operating costs and less overall pay for everyone in that job function. If the attitudes reflected on these boards is any indication, I would say US has a substantial productivity issue and throwing obscene amounts of money at that the problem will not fix it. Give someone twice the salary and it is extremely doubtful that they will offer a sustained doubling of their productivity. Studies have shown that pay raises motivate workers for less than two weeks before they return to normal IIRC.
There is no "free market" in the US, at least on the corporate level.
