Nice Op-Ed From a Former DAL Employee

[skirt]

There are a lot of comments on this board that highlight problems with airlines. What about solutions -- that is clear tangible solutions. For example: a better business plan and improving morale is NOT a solution. Lets have ideas on what is the better business plan (more international flying -- that's being done; raise fares on routes -- has been tried, not viable; renegotiate leases -- being done; improve morale -- how?) Anyone have any ideas.

Shon7,

I hate to say it, but the solutions HAVE been mentioned, you are just not seeing them. THE solution begins with leadership STYLE, not a business plan with routes, leases, pay cuts etc. None of those things mean anything, if you don't have the right type of leadership in place. You have to have servant leadership to lead an airline properly. The business plan, routes, pay, airplanes, of Southwest and JetBlue are quite different, but the leadership style is the same. If you want to learn more about what I am talking about go to this website: www.greenleaf.org

This type of leadership is not taught at Harvard, because it is not a leadership style that is driven by the all mighty dollar.

Skirt

 

[michael707767]

Soooooooo, things pretty quiet when you all sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, or do the cops have to come break it up ?

actually, things get very heated when it comes up, so we tend not to discuss it.

 

[FearlessFreep]

There will always be a lot of rhetoric thrown around about the way things "should" be done. The point of this matter is that the United States is a country full of individuals. Everyone works for their own distinct personal needs and desires. For the most part most people are not entirely interested the inner machinations of the companies that they may be employed at. Their biggest interest is in the frequency, size, and reliability of their paycheck and just how much that affords them the opportunity to purchase that new, big flat screen TV. The "common" man could care less about management, other than that they keep off their backs and require the least amount of labor and compliance to capture that fat paycheck. Greed, selfishness and laziness are the most promenient characteristics of the American worker.

Loyalty for companies like Southwest, Jetblue, Fedex (not inclusive of the pilot group as they are the only union in a non-union company) and others is in the most part developed by hiring relatively intelligent group of people that are easily manipulated and indoctrinated into a corporate culture of compliance and social acceptability. Individuality, independence, is squashed and drummed out with the use of social censure and intimidation. These companies work under the guise of giving their employees a pleasant, social, gung ho, rah rah, team working environment with the company and it's corporate culture being of iconic importance. Keeping the workforce docile and oppressed is the paramount goal of these companies management, they just utilize a different strategy to accomplish these goals.

The truth of the matter is that at this point in time in the United States it is relatively easy (for the most part) for people to meet their 3 basic needs - Food, Shelter, Clothing. At the beginning of the industrial revolution this was not the case and most of everyone's effort and time was involved in acquiring those basic subsistence level needs. Corporate management had the opportunity of exploiting a burgeoning population of workers from the influx of immigrants to the country. Conditions worse than slavery existed for these new factory workers who had no other way to meet their needs. That is when unions started to form to battle the absolute tyranny of the corporations, barons & monopolies.

Now once one meets their basic needs all they work on is acquiring a higher comfort level. The corporations have had to change their strategies but in essence they are the same - manipulate the workforce to attain the greatest amount of work for the least expenditure of money. The tools that they engage now to accomplish these goals are different than those early days of totaliarian management. Automation, outsourcing and "alternative" management techniques are used to deal with a a workforce that is that is thought of being less cooperative to the requirements of management. The backlash of all this is that if the companies continue outsourcing, cheapening the workforce and eliminating jobs it will once again become difficult for people to attain subsistence level needs and no one will be able to purchase the corporation's products or services.

In short there is a lot of talk about the oppression of government but in the truth of the matter what we really have to fear is the corporations - they are the ones that really run this country.

Well that's enough of my early morning rant.

Happy New Year!

Take Care & Good Luck To Us All!

 

[bafanguy]

actually, things get very heated when it comes up, so we tend not to discuss it.

Michael,

I'm surprised they even talk to you at all....you're a disgrace to the family...an airline pilot....what the he!! were you thinking ???