FlyerTalker01565

I would've advised management to just fire them without warning (they are well within their rights to do this at this point). However, there's still hope they get rid of them, then!

UltraRant

Given that the strike is now considered illegal by court rule, this might actually be a fantastic opportunity for SK management to prove it has some guts after all (but then, why noon tomorrow?)

I hope they keep their word. It wouldn't be very Scandinavian to really do so, but still... I also hope it will be the beginning of a change of work culture at SAS.

GUWonder

Per terminated employee, severance costs would amount to what on average?

What if they call in sick instead tomorrow? Norovirus infections or something.

FlyerTalker01565

As this isn't America, it probably wouldn't amount to much when they're fired for literally not showing up to work. The strike is illegal and absence from work without legal reason is a valid reason to fire someone with their normal termination periods (3-6 months)- in which you have to work - or to even expel them (bortvisning).

Actual marginal costs would be training new staff, but total cost of this would be lower if employed in the more modern agreement framework from Cimber.

FT Guest xyzpdq

They can even do a case for which not to pay anything. The employee has knowingly and willingly misheld the contract - even with fair warning. That is jyst cause for NO payment.

Wonder how my Chicago flight on Thursday will behave?

GUWonder

It seems SK has been looking at summary dismissal which won't come with severance pay and doesn't even require formal warning/notice -- although they have provided the notice in some way. If it was an ordinary (not summary) dismissal, the severance could be up to three months of pay for the most senior employees.

FlyerTalker01565

This is standard Danish practice. Funktionćrloven regulates the area next to the agreements and most senior employees covered by the former has up to six months' pay.

In a business setting, this isn't a huge cost considering the no. of FAs involved - that's also pretty standard managerial accounting.

FlyingMoose

No it doesn't, in a healthy relationship both parties need each other just as much. If either party is on the loosing end there is a need for firing or finding other employment. Striking is never the answer or the solution, nobody wins. A competent and valued employee should be able to have a new job tomorrow if they where to quit today, if they do not then there is a need for improvement on the employee's end. In most cases just a realisation of the situation that person really is in.

Since this strike is officially illegal, I had really wished SK would have just fired everyone that was on strike. It is completely absurd they go with the notice and give people another chance. This was THE opportunity for them to get rid of expensive staff and replace them with people that work for realistic market rates.

SK2751

This does not work that well. It only works reasonably well at moderate unemployment levels. If the unemployment rate is high the employers rule the system (and we, as humanity, has experienced this in 19th century). If the unemployment rate is low, then employers have little leverage. Perhaps it would make sense to link the right to strike and the flexibility of firing to unemployment indicators in the country.

GreatDane

Lots of numbers have been circulated as to what CAs make:
Here it is according to the CAU: http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/samfu...rdesse/5464350
I.E: DKK 19400/mth starting salary. That ain't a hell of a lot....

FlyerTalker01565

The same article quotes DKK 527.000 as the average pay. There aren't that many senior pilots to take that average up and the boys in ground handling aren't rolling in it, either.

oliver2002

The OS/VO model mentioned earlier was a nice way to rectify the disparity between contracts signed when SK was essentially a state run airline and the more recent hires: all employees were offered a new contract with the other airline at equal terms, taking into account qualification and years with the firm. The others could take a termination contract with a decent compensation.

Surprisingly the majority opted for the new contract, despite the fact that the ME3 offered better pay, especially for the 777 pilots (and to some extent 767 flight deck crew) who would have gotten better pay and better rank since the ME3 are desperately searching for experienced widebody captains and FOs.

The local austrian unions went ballistic on this activity, not so much because Austrian needed a rework, but because this paved the way for most former state companies to go for this model. Eventually they won in court, which didn't affect LH/OS, because they did some minor modifications and all crew kept the new contract and former employees were not re-hired.

GUWonder

Was that 527k amount the annual average pay, or was that the annual average cost? Does it line up with the published financial reports that SK releases?

That 527k amount was in 2012 -- that is before the pay cuts SAS management pushed into place by terrorizing employees that the company would otherwise be shut down in short order if they didn't agree to substantially surrender to SK management at that point.

240k annually for average new SK hires seems in the range of how they live their lives. They would pad their bank accounts better by working for say QR or EK; but people tend to be parochial/provincial or regress toward those kind of nativist tendencies over time, and thus shifting to the unfamiliar (for longer periods) tends to not be for most.

About OS employees opting for the new contracts instead of shifting to the ME3, many do have family or other personal reasons to not want to shift from a local employer to a relatively far-off foreign employer for the remainder of their career.

FlyerTalker01565

I take it you're not in a business job ...

GUWonder

The above response doesn't answer the question asked, and I'm not the topic. Do you not know the answer to the question to which you responded?

Average total labor costs per employee and average pay per employee are not one and the same thing -- as anyone with any business management sense should know.