Originally Posted by
YZF_Elite
I think it has more to do with the fact that they would rather fund people directly and not businesses. A different approach from the Conservatives in 2008, history will tell which was the better approach, I have no idea.
I would disagree I think the Emergency Wage Subsidy is all about keeping the Employer and Employee relationship. That money is paying salaries and the company is gaining the benefit of those resources. The government could have shifted everyone into an EI type system.
I am honestly surprised that with all the WS employees on the payroll that are not flying aircraft they have not shifted them into other roles within WS temporarily.
As an example, I am a frequent flyer at WS, I also have a WS Corporate Booking Tool account. I also have an AMEX travel oriented small business card. Within a few weeks of the shutdown I got a call from AMEX, to basically say were here for you. I did not get a call from WS saying "we are here for you when your ready to start traveling again". Despite the fact WS had thousands of customer facing employees they were paying for and not using.
WS could have shifted some of those people to their Cargo business and used it as an opportunity to build up that business potentially in new ways. With "free" labour for 6 months to a year they could have started our with most ineffective and labour intensive operation and over time build the SOP they would need for normal times. They instead paid people to stay at home.
Shifting inflight staff to being engineering is not viable but into other customer service roles is quite viable if the organization is nimble, entrepreneurial and has everyone pulling together around shared goals.