Millions of reasons to enjoy going to work
[SIZE=-1](Austin American-Statesman © 05/16/2006)[/SIZE]
EDITORIAL BOARD
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
While a jury in Houston gets ready to pass judgment on the former chairman and president of Enron Corp., whose spectacular collapse into financial ruin in 2001 destroyed thousands of jobs, it's good to be reminded that employees at some high-flying companies have prospered.
A New York Times story this week highlighted 17 employees who joined Dallas-based Southwest Airline at its founding in 1971 and remain on its payroll. Not only have they spent 35 years at the airline drawing a paycheck, they've also benefited enormously from a profit-sharing plan, which in the early years included company stock. The stock's value has soared since then, and the 17 each have become millionaires.
Only four of the 17 are executives. The rest are eight flight attendants and five operations workers — frontline workers dealing with passengers and aircraft daily. All 17 could quit or retire, but their work ethic, job satisfaction and even their loyalty to the company — there's something you don't hear much about anymore — keep them going each work day to the Boeing 737s, ticket counters, gates and luggage carts.
Remarkably, Southwest Airlines has managed to retain something of its outsider, taking-on-the-establishment image and corporate attitude even as it has grown into the airline industry's gold standard — all the airlines want to be as profitable and as well run as Southwest. There was a time when Southwest was dismissed as an airborne bus line. But in business there's nothing quite as glamorous as 32 straight years of profitability, as Southwest can boast.
Of course, Southwest is in better shape in part because it doesn't offer employees what used to be taken for granted — a defined benefit pension plan. The older airlines are struggling to meet those old pension obligations or to scale them down, at employee expense. Southwest, in contrast, provides employees a generous 401(k) investment plan and a profit-sharing benefit, both of which help limit the airline's exposure to future costs but also requires of employees much self-discipline in saving for their future.
In days of declining job security, it's good to see a major, high-profile corporation such as Southwest that manages both to satisfy customers and reward employees for long, hard work. The jury in Houston is getting a down-and-dirty look at the other end of the corporate spectrum.
[SIZE=-1](Austin American-Statesman © 05/16/2006)[/SIZE]
EDITORIAL BOARD
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
While a jury in Houston gets ready to pass judgment on the former chairman and president of Enron Corp., whose spectacular collapse into financial ruin in 2001 destroyed thousands of jobs, it's good to be reminded that employees at some high-flying companies have prospered.
A New York Times story this week highlighted 17 employees who joined Dallas-based Southwest Airline at its founding in 1971 and remain on its payroll. Not only have they spent 35 years at the airline drawing a paycheck, they've also benefited enormously from a profit-sharing plan, which in the early years included company stock. The stock's value has soared since then, and the 17 each have become millionaires.
Only four of the 17 are executives. The rest are eight flight attendants and five operations workers — frontline workers dealing with passengers and aircraft daily. All 17 could quit or retire, but their work ethic, job satisfaction and even their loyalty to the company — there's something you don't hear much about anymore — keep them going each work day to the Boeing 737s, ticket counters, gates and luggage carts.
Remarkably, Southwest Airlines has managed to retain something of its outsider, taking-on-the-establishment image and corporate attitude even as it has grown into the airline industry's gold standard — all the airlines want to be as profitable and as well run as Southwest. There was a time when Southwest was dismissed as an airborne bus line. But in business there's nothing quite as glamorous as 32 straight years of profitability, as Southwest can boast.
Of course, Southwest is in better shape in part because it doesn't offer employees what used to be taken for granted — a defined benefit pension plan. The older airlines are struggling to meet those old pension obligations or to scale them down, at employee expense. Southwest, in contrast, provides employees a generous 401(k) investment plan and a profit-sharing benefit, both of which help limit the airline's exposure to future costs but also requires of employees much self-discipline in saving for their future.
In days of declining job security, it's good to see a major, high-profile corporation such as Southwest that manages both to satisfy customers and reward employees for long, hard work. The jury in Houston is getting a down-and-dirty look at the other end of the corporate spectrum.
