Hard Times

[Lying Dutchman]

With all thats going on in the world, everyone looking to downsize, particualy, in the states, Chapter 11 and all could someone explain why pilots, crew and everone in aviation seem so reluctant to take a wage cut or to lose just a few of their concessions to maybe in the long run keep their jobs and jobs of the other people around them. The situation at Air Canada springs to mind. Unions seem to have lots to answer for, they would rather hold out and see the companies go under, remember if they do then they dont count, all seems a little stupid to me.

[Wino]

Mostly because of pisspoor managment.

The best example that I can give you is at Delta. During the previous contract the pilots took Draconian concessions on basically the last day of a recession. During the period of that contract the company went onto make record profits. When the pilots queried about the need for those concessions continuing and maybe they could just go back to the old contract Ron Allen responded "A contract is a contract" and that pretty much sets the tone for the industry. So now when managment asks for a concession, well a contract is a contract.

WHat happens in the employees make a concessions and invariably managment hands out bonuses that equal those concession. Had managment shared the wealth during the good times, then labor would be more receptive. Instead they have to fight tooth and nail to get back to where they were.

Cheers
Wino

[arcniz]

Wino - I don't want to seem argumentative, but ...

1. Management in most public companies do not have vast latitude to be generous with corporate assets. Absent some contractual obligation, they would be made to walk the plank for simply handing out monies not somehow specifically obligated.

on the other hand,

2. Contracts can say just about anything the parties will agree to that is not clearly against the law. The way to make concessions in concert with economic reality and then win the ground back in better times is to make that plan a part of the concession deal. The negotiating problem is that management has tremendous leverage when cutting back for obvious necessity, but employees do not have similar leverage at any particular point in improving times - unless they precipitate a crisis by striking. So the gutsy thing to do now is insist on agreement terms which use some metrics of company performance to upgrade pay, etc when times grow better. Drawback to gutsy is that it tends to piss off the investors and bankers who are already fearful for their assets and who may have little more than moneychanger's concern for the company's survival.

[HZ123]

In the UK both have much to be blamed for. Certainly Flight and Cabin CRew have always made excessive demands as to how much, where and why. Management have never got a grip of things and crew costs are still far to high and will prevent significant improvements.

The ground force is equally as militant hanging on to many old work customs and practice. Just when it could not get any worst there was JAR ops a garanteed process of wasting more money, the recession, low cost operators and the war, over to you.