Originally Posted by
seoulmanjr
My gut feeling is that we'll be fine on NW this summer. I felt like things were really coming to a head last year and the CHAOS didn't amount to anything that affected me at all -- it was so isolated that my greater concern was having time to run to Jim Neely's in MEM for a BBQ sandwich before my next flight rather than the NW employees working a slowdown that would cause me to miss connections. As fed up as everyone is, I'm not convinced that this will become much more than a button campaign. I think that those great employees who haven't left NW are sadly getting inured to the crappy treatment they've been dealing with. While there is just as much dissatisfaction, if not more, there just doesn't seem to be as much fervor or excitement to do something about it collectively as in the past.
That's just my $0.02. YMMV. Here's to hoping we have a good summer...
Worst case scenario, getting a comp status match on another airline doens't really take much more time than a phone call, so if it looks like things start to fall apart you have a quick backup option.
peace,
~Ben~
Yes I had thought about last summer too. I was pretty concerned and it really fizzled out. This feels different though. The folks who are left are pretty good (My flight to LA was fantastic) and there is going to come a point where something has to happen. There is no contract in place and there needs to be. Now that BK is behind them I am sure the Union will push real hard. if NW can get in front of this with some creative, and lucrative profit sharing plans or some other way to make life at NW more "exciting" and rewarding (other than huge salary increases..that just is not gonna happen) then we could be ok. I am the first person to point out that the pay scale of an FA is not and should not be what it once was but there are other ways to reward employees that can be based on performance and delivering to the company’s bottom line. The time for getting this labor issue behind them is here. This will tell me a lot about the Mgmt. They have done a good job on the balance sheet and keeping customers, now they need their most important asset, their employees to feel like they can be proud to go to work every day. It is most definitely possible..I see it all the time.