Originally Posted by LTRS
If you are foolish enough to "compete" in your industry by providing a product at less than it costs to provide it (which is exactly what the moron executives throughout the industry have done), then you deserve those troubles. And if you're a real sleaze you will make your workers pay the price for your stupidity while giving yourself a big fat raise as NW management did.
Can you please give a date to that article that you keep quoting as "proof." I believe there was an increase sometime in 2002 ("management retention bonuses"), but in this round of cuts, the pilots agreed to cuts as did salaried employees (which includes management).
And as a business owner, surely you understand the concepts of marginal costs and fixed costs. In the airline business, fixed costs are huge (you still pay your workers if you don't fly, you have gate rentals, planes, etc.) while variable costs are virtually zero. A profit maximizing business will price their product so that their marginal revenue exactly equals their marginal costs. Regardless of that, if your fixed cost structure is too high, you can still get your shorts handed to you. If NW had the exact same labor cost structure as CO or AA (the two of the big 6 who made money), NW would have also been in the black (or very close to it).
Oh, and I think you should cross Target off your list too. I used to work there in my teens. At one point, a union was trying to organize us, and they squashed that idea like a bug...