Well dad, why don't you explain your healthy companies theory to the UPS pilots on furlough, UPS management, or a high school economics teacher? They would tell you that the decision to furlough or not has to do with staffing, not profitability. Max profit is achieved when you create the highest revenue with the lowest expense. Carrying unneeded staff is an expense that comes right off the bottom line. If you don't have enough productive work for all your employees, you trim the head count through attrition, firing, and/or furoughs no matter how much money you're making to maximize your profits. The only exception is if the downturn will be short duration and replacing the staff you cut will in the long run be more expensive than letting them stay on. No one, so far, is arguing the point that we will be overstaffed once the transition is complete. How overstaffed and what will happen as a result of that overstaffing are the outstanding questions.
Now that being said if the company comes asking for concessions to avoid furloughs, which I STRONGLY believe they will, will SWAPA give or not? I don't know. In either case if the company follows through they win. If we give them concessions the company benfits from reduced expenses. If we don't, and they furlough, the company benefits from reduced expenses and it serves as a warning to the other employee groups.
