Northwest Furloughs

[ironspud]

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I read also that NW wanted to furlough about 5600 stews and replace them on the Asian routes with cheap labor from Asia. That is amazing too.


As far as the NW pilots go, I see the senior ones selling out the juniors because they still have anuity style pensions. If NW were to drop the pensions, all of their senior guys would get about $2000 a month, when they were planning on $12000. They will use that as a bargaining chip. Scary.


Bye Bye--General Lee

General:

You don't know how true this is.

During the great AA/TWA debate we (TWA) had a team we now call the "GLORRP" Team that was secretly negotiating as many TWA furloughs as they could in order to secure their own seniority. (No - they weren't all elected ALPA).

Really deep furloughs - that didn't have to happen.

These types are out there - and they pretend to "be your friend" and "on your side".

Trouble is, you might not be able to stop this very special kind of vermin.

I'm not much of a union person, but have learned the hard way what damage sellout citizens can do to you - most of them are your "union buds". Whew! It is truly awesome. Especially when they have the power (read union) to protect themselves.

Good luck.

PS: If you ever come across names that begin with letters like G-L-O-R-R-P - go hug your family. That's all you will have left.

PSS: Matter of fact, they are so capable, we think that they will be able to negotiate an even faster furlough of the 1181 from NW than management even wants. Management just needs to get this former TWA GLORRP team to MSP soon.

 

[Deli Guy]

Hey Networ King, General Lee and Ironspud.
The senior guys are the big hurdle. I hope there is some fairness in this process, but all I can do is talk up my opinions, tell the other junior guys to do the same, and keep our eye on our rights. If they bone us after that, shame on them.
I think the pension issue is resolving itself and I think it is apparent to the older guys that there is safety in numbers. I think scope is becoming more important to them because they know that if their numbers get dwindled to a replacable number, they will be replaced. I think that is where our mgmt team has made a mistake. They are so overboard with their threats that the herd is circling, ass facing out and starting to kick.
Who knows?

 

[doh]

I hope that is true!

 

[dbrownie]

Hey Networ King, General Lee and Ironspud.
The senior guys are the big hurdle. I hope there is some fairness in this process, but all I can do is talk up my opinions, tell the other junior guys to do the same, and keep our eye on our rights. If they bone us after that, shame on them.

The "senior guys" are a small percentage of the pilot group at NWA. Don't quote me on the exact numbers but somthing like 3/4 or 2/3 of the pilots are narrow body pilots. We have over 150 dc-9 (for now) and more 320/319s.

The wide body group might think their votes are worth more than the narrowbody votes but they are not. Of course we do not get to vote on every issue ( ie. the amfa sympathy strike) so we may get shafted any way.
in my opinion...

Dave B

 

[Deli Guy]

Ditto

 

[ElectricBlue]

Pinnacle - Mesaba

Why not get the NWA unions to beat the corporate raider boys at their own game.

The airline service agreements (i.e. selling fuel at .78 a gallon to Pinnacle) have been allowing record profits at Northwest airlinks for years - Steeland is now back on BOD at Mesaba and you just know under some shell Wilson and Checchi (who bailed on NWA stock were/are looking to drive Northwest to bankruptcy to dump pension and old DC9s) are just waiting to pick up where they left off with with Wings Holding/Skyteam acquisitions.

Why not take control of airlink stock via brokerage accounts in 401k's and privately - profit from the bankruptcy they are driving - try to beat them at their own game?

Wonder why Delta lowered their ticket prices? ? ? What better way to drive cash reserves so low there would be no choice other than to file bankruptcy prior to 17OCT - when the laws change. See Northwest doing the same thing - just got a feeling that there will ultimately be a "Skyteam" in some fashion - even though it looks like DOT doesn't approve of the current antitrust request.