A Northwest Question

[filkertom]

Well, on the first day of the Northwest Airlines mechanics strike, a plane blew four tires while landing at Detroit Metro Airport. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But that, and a news story about the preparations for the strike, have me wondering something.

Northwest supposedly spent the last several months training replacement mechanics in anticipation of this strike. Ummm... why didn't they just give that money to the mechanics they already had, rather than ask wage concessions...?

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Short-term vs. long-term.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Because keeping organized labor disempowered is more important to Northwest than maximizing the bottom line.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Trainees will be easier to keep cowed and underpaid for the next several years, in theory providing a long-term financial gain. In practice, bits start falling off the planes in flight, the fleet gets grounded, and there's frantic flailing to hire trained mechanics again, which becomes expensive.

My bet is that whoever cooked up this plan is planning on retiring/leaving soon and they'll get a larger payout if the books say they're responsible for a huge (future) monetary saving and/or hardcore labor negotiations. By the time everything falls to pieces, they'll be out of the loop and counting the dosh. They might even get hired back as a consultant to fix the problem - again, easy. Reverse the policy, jack up the pay rates and conditions and hire a boatload of competant mechanics to overhaul the fleet. Fleet is approved for flight and stays in the air, consumer confidence in the company goes up again, consultant gets huge bonus and walks away.

Company promptly realises all its operating budget is disappearing into inflated salaries, foosball tables and 5-star chefs out at the hangars, panics, and slashes pay and conditions - and this is where we came in. Sounds like they'll need an expert on tough labor negotiation, and there's this consultant they know...

[natashasikorsky.livejournal.com]

So you've worked for a large corporation, haven't you? I'd only add that it isn't necessary to retire to make this scheme work. When you are promoted you lose all responsibility for past actions.

[roane.livejournal.com]

I think this is a different incident, but WDIV was just reporting that another NW plane just made an emergency landing with smoke either seen or noted in the cabin. That's just getting scary. :P

[billroper]

In the relatively short form:

United is bankrupt. Delta is quite likely to go bankrupt shortly. This has allowed United (and likely Delta, in the near future) to renegotiate their labor contracts and reduce costs to more closely approximate those of the newer, lower-cost carriers in the industry, which makes it possible for the older carriers to compete effectively.

Northwest wants to get its costs in line with United's.

Since the airline industry has overcapacity, something has to give. One possibility would be for some of the airlines to actually go out of business, putting their employees out of work, but making it possible for the remaining airlines to charge higher fares that would support the current wage structure. This would suck for the passengers (in the sense of higher fares) and for the employees who were out of work, but would be better for the employees who still had jobs.

The other option is to try to reduce wages so that you can make a profit despite low fares due to overcapacity and maybe even reduce fares further in the hope of luring travelers who would fill the planes.

Right now, they're trying the latter strategy. (Of course, they don't really have the option of trying the first strategy, because they can't force United to fold up operations.)

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

The odds of four tires going out at once are kinda slim. Smells like sabotage to me.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I refuse to even think that. It's too horrible to contemplate. And if it was sabotage, then heaven help the guy if they ever get their hands on him, because no one here will.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

I think they want to force more mechanics -like my Uncle who worked for them until strike talks started- to take early retirement and take smaller pensions as a result.

Here in Minneapolis, Northwest controls the international airport ... it's theirs. They really do act like petty Gods, doing what they can to squeeze more money out of the local and state governments, promise their unions pay increases and more jobs to the state, but after they get their tax concessions give their CEOs big bonuses and never come through on their vows.

Heck, the only reasons I fly this airline is out of respect for my late Grandfather (he was chief mechanic for years) and because -in the Twin Cities- Northwest manages to force the prices of everyone else sky-high with their "access rates".

Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)

[billroper]

Yeah, captive airports are another problem altogether. If you control essentially all of the gates, you can set your fares to whatever you want them to be.

[uplinktruck.livejournal.com]

Because they are trying to stay in business.

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

The people they were training are already qualified mechanics who were laid off of other carriers and willing to accept less money.

I don't know how much they were getting paid if anything while in anticipation of the strike. It's quite possible they were being trained without being paid. If nothing else, it kept their skills current.

Somehow I suspect the union mechanics wouldn not have trained replacement workers. I bet they were just sent home with manuals, or maybe were offered off-site classes or something.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

Of course, nobody _ever_ heard of organized labor stooping to sabotage...did they?

If any other entities did a lot of the shenanigans that unions have got up to over the years, their leaders'd be tossed so far back in prison that they'd have to pump in air.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Never ascribe to malice what simple stupidity can explain.

Somebody missed a warning sign; it might have been a replacement mechanic or one of the striking ones depending upon the inspection schedule for that part of the plane.