Grüezi!
Which 200 SWISS drivers will be the first to go?
Well, surely after any "social and solidarity measures" such as early retirement, unpaid leave, contract out, reduced contracts, salary sacrifice, dismissal due to biased screenings, forced deportation of non-EU foreigners with standard unlimited contracts etc etc, the layoffs will occur by the industry standard of "last on first off"?
Not exactly. One would expect that the ex-Crossair drivers would be relatively safe despite their regional fleet being cut drastically. They were after all established and operating in the then Crossair(name change to SWISS July 2002) which took on around 880 would be unemployed ex-Swissair drivers 31 March 2002. These new kids on the block(albeit Airbus and MD 11 experienced) showed their gratitude and graciousness, with the help of a subserviant management, to negotiate a new "World's Best Practice" and "Industry Standard" seniority list which put most of the ex-Swissair drivers ahead of the ex-Crossair drivers. SWISS - So What Its Still Swissair!
The seniority issue is the subject of litigation before the Swiss Courts and a final non-appealable decision is expected not before May 2003. The previous Court which looked at this issue found in mid 2002 that a "discrimination" against the ex-Crossair pilots was made. Management's response was to ignore this decision and hence this latest litigation by SWISS Pilots(ex-Crossair pilots association).
Will SWISS management give 3 month notices to ex-Crossair drivers before that Court decision is handed down? Having done their best to delay this latest Court decision, management may well proceed with dismissals and attempt to pre-empt any subsequent Court decision.
Yes, the reductions are most unfortunate and terrible for those affected. However a massive reduction in capacity had to occur and was totally predicted and foreseen with the over-bloated, over-optimistic and unrealistic Business Plan which used Crossair to save a Swiss airline industry. Stay tuned for further cuts not including any possible Iraq Conflict reductions. Will the overseers and implementers of this debacle: Chairman Bouw(ex-KLM) and CEO Dose help in this latest round of cost cutting by showing their solidarity and joining the list of 700 retrenched SWISS staff? A current share price of 6 Sfr compared to 56 Sfr in late 2001 when the expansion and re-capitalisation was commenced, together with continuing losses in 2003 will probably not help their job security.
Tschüss!