Cincinnati Enquirer -
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Pilots confront salary choices
Here's one to ponder over your pancakes this morning: Would you agree to freeze your salary to help your employer?
The responses come quickly, first from fear, then from self-interest, and finally, hopefully, from a cold, hard look at the big picture. For anyone who's ever thought they deserved a raise, then groused when they didn't get one, the lines come naturally: "I earned those raises, and I'm not giving them back. No way." "If I say no, I might have no job at all." "Do I have a choice?"
That's the problem facing about 1,900 pilots at Comair this weekend. They're voting on just such a proposal from their employer, the Erlanger-based airline that's facing the squeeze from its parent, Delta Air Lines.
It's a stark choice that a new Comair management has presented. As my colleague James Pilcher reported last week, in exchange for the freeze, managers will cut their salaries 10 percent as long as pilots' pay is frozen, the company will guarantee 35 new planes, and pilots will get back 89 days of seniority from their bitter 2001 strike. Give the company credit: It's not demanding something for nothing.
But without the freeze, president Fred Buttrell has warned, there's no guarantee of anything.
Keep in mind, the changes aren't designed to help Comair return to profitability. The airline already makes money, with operating profits of $25.7 million in the third quarter. But in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the 21st century corporation, that reality has blurred. Survival doesn't mean keeping the lights on and keeping gas in the planes. Survival means growth. And Buttrell knows that to grow, Comair needs those new planes and new routes.
So he puts the onus on employees. It's a powerful offer because it capitalizes on the fear it inevitably provokes. Many employees aren't thinking about their long-term interests or their career plans. They're thinking about their kids' parochial school tuition, or ballet lessons, or the mortgage payment due next month.
And Comair employees actually are lucky. At big-papa Delta, pilots reluctantly voted last year to accept a 32.5 percent pay cut. Of course, they make a lot more than Comair pilots, but Delta gave them the same choice. Accept the deal, and we can survive. Turn it down, and we'll have to file bankruptcy.
And thousands of other Delta employees took a 10 percent cut with no choice at all. So how does a Comair pilot evaluate the Comair offer?
It has to be tempting to vote no. With the strike still a bitter pill to swallow for some pilots, they might not want to give back one penny. Comair isn't about to close down here, they might think, with the hundreds of millions of dollars Delta has invested.
And when the economy recovers, the logic goes, they'll be right back, adding more routes and planes here to squeeze a little more milk from their cash cow.
But then reality has to kick in. A pilot might think, I really don't want to bet on a recovery in the airline industry right now. And Delta has other regional airlines that can use those planes and those routes.
In the end, it's not up to Comair's union to buy new planes. Even if they like working at Comair, even if they feel a sense of loyalty to their employer, they have to think of themselves. That's why Comair's union is talking - to protect those jobs.
The gut feeling here is that the pilots don't have much of a choice. They work for what was once a fine local company and is still better than most in a cruddy industry. Bailing out doesn't look real attractive right now. That mortgage payment is coming due.
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