TOPIC: Strike as a General Issue >> Your Thoughts
 

Okay. This is getting ridiculous. My mother-in-law's flight from SEA to MSP has been delayed tonight, because the plane had to return to the gate for maintenance. Bottom line, I don't buy it.

I work in IT for a large, fortune 50 company. Cut backs and budget cuts have been a way of life for my company since I joined in 1997. NW mechanics, pilots, FA's and baggage handlers -- you are not alone. NW mechanics: Don't expect all of your PAX to get out the violin or to pull up a chair while you're singin' the blues during this dispute. :td: Many of us have also been impacted in our careers by progress and by the world economy. I myself have been working away from my family for the last 18 months (which is why your company benefits, I fly back to MSP from SEA every other weekend to see my wife and children). Why? My Minnesota job was offshored. But, I have survived and have moved into a higher paying management position in my company, but at at a price. None the less, I am going to leave my company to get back to MSP and my family, but I will be able to come back and get a Director's position instead of a manager's position because of what happened.

NW Mechanics, you are caught up in the same game. The world has changed. Your industry has changed. Wake up and smell the coffee! If I were the head of NW, most of the major repair work would already be done in Singapore and by 3rd party vendors that have a better economy of scale. NW owes you nothing. You owe yourselves everything. Buck up, little campers! :rolleyes: Get trained in a different position at NW, or get out.


In the end, I am looking to (and blaming) the mechanics during these work slowdowns, not NW or NW management. :td: Capiche?

-Alan

P.S. To the Pilots Who Enable These Slowdowns: Shame on you too. You should be forced to give back any concessions you won over during your strike 7 years ago. I am shunning you as well... :td:

P.P.S. To the Head of the FA's: Shame on you as well, for not comitting to recommending that your rank and file cross the picket line if a mechanic strike occurs. :td:

This might have been legitimate. Or it might have been a "slowdown" or "work to rule" situation by the mechanics. We'll never know.

Similar problem at UAL lately. Ever since their idiot union started talking about CHAOS, flight delays due to crew issues are suspected of being CHAOS actions when maybe they are just crew issues due to weather/maintenance/canceled flights, whatever. We'll never know.

Poopdeck90210, I agree wholeheartedly (another IT guy here). Suck it up, buttercup (mechanics). Like it or not, the world economy has changed. Pretending that we're still living in the 70s and 80s doesn't make it so.

I agree also... Great post Poopdeck!!!

Couldn't agree more.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the average mechanics salary is $70,000. With overtime and various certification bonuses, it comes out to over $80,000 per mechanic. That's a whopping 60% greater than the average household income in the US.

The mechanics better start getting reasonable soon because its just not hard to find others willing to work for much less than that.

What don't you buy??? I guess in your world the pilot should have assumed it was a mechanics ploy and taken off?? NOT in my world.
Now if the repair takes 8 hours THEN you have a complaint, but I have been on LOTS of planes that had to return to the gate and none of them were during a labor dispute so it happens!

IMO, the rule of the new economy is:
You can be replaced*.

*99% of the time. So you'd better either find that 1% job or develop yourself to the 1% point where they can't replace you. Otherwise it's likely just a matter of time.

The voice of reason. Thank goodness there a few of you left who can see past their own situations.

Nice call, nwaflygirl. ^

I agree...I do not believe this is about pilot sympathy. Its the pilots life too that they have to think about. And the pilots have given back already.

See past OUR own situations? Um - pot, kettle, black, anyone?

The ual crew delays is not flight attendant CHAOS - it is mostly due to pilot shortage and weather. The weather delays combined with busy Summer season have the active pilots maxed out. Company doesn't want to bring back more furloughed pilots b/c the schedule will slow down in the Fall and pilot crew staffing will level out. Had a captain tell me the other day that they were selectively cancelling some flights in/out of ORD b/c they didn't have enough pilots.

God, I wish my mother-in-law's flight was cancelled. ;)

Unlike mechanics, IT folks have been overpaid for years. This is coming from a MCSE, RHCE, & CCNP. How could we pay a no experience junior college grad 50K in 1999? Then pay for MS, Compaq, IBM, or Born, tech support above - makes me want to yell. :mad:

:-: disclosue here: I did one router fix consultant job for NWA in 1998.

I agree with your points but not your (or the The Toliet Free Press) facts. One of the worse papers in America.

The average NWA mechanic makes about $54,500 according to NWA. The $70,000 is probaly top end of the scale.

According to US Census and taxes. The average Minnesota HH income was $50,157 and $53,265 in Michigan (2002 year numbers) where most of the mechanics work.

We have very similar alphabet soup...

While I agree wholeheartedly that we were once overpaid...the dot-com collapse IMO pretty much ended that. Salaries dropped, jobs were sent offshore. Which is pretty much exactly what's going on now with LCCs. The NW mechanics (and FAs soon) are going to go through the same thing that we IT people did 4-5 years ago. The only difference is that we weren't unionized.

The end result is the same...it's how you get there that's the rub. Mechanics, FAs, etc. can either accept that the world has changed, deal with reality and try to make the best of it...or they can whine, scream and complain. In the end, their pay, benefits, etc. will all be reduced regardless of which path they choose. But do they get there with grace, or do they make themselves a complete PITA for the flying public?