I work for an airline (Delta) and it has been common knowledge among the employees for the last couple of months that we would be declaring Chapter 11 sometime soon. We finally declared today.
I’ve known this was coming, and I’ve told the wife and friends that I’m alright with it. If I lose my job, then I lose my job, I’ll find something else. I swear to Og that I believed that.
Yet now that it’s actually happened, I find myself crying. I don’t think it’s the lack of employment (that hasn’t happened, and probably won’t for quite a while). I think it’s just that I’ve had a big rug pulled out from under me. There was always something stable about Delta, a big family atmosphere for a long time. (I’ve been there almost 18 years). It’s all gone. It will never be the same, even if we pull out of this.
I think I’m in mourning. Mourning for a family that is gone, a company that will never be again, and friends I’ve known throughout the system for years that will lose their jobs.
I’m also unemployed - the victim of another growing phenomena - my job was outsourced to India. And another growing phenomena - using an “employee leasing” company so you can lay off your employees and never have to pay an unemployment claim.
We’ll survive. I’m working at a grocery store while I try to grow my own business I started before I was laid off. In the meantime my blessed son is living with me and paying my bills and his.
Just remember, there are two things you will NEVER find in the workplace: permanence and loyalty.
I’m sorry for the situation this puts you in, wally. Hope you recover quickly and if you must move on eventually, I hope it’s for the best in every way.
As an aside, interesting observation in the Yahoo article on the subject. Seems analyst believe that the lowered operating costs of Delta and NWA will put pressure on AA, the number one ranked carrier, to drop prices and possibly force them into a bad/risky financial situation as well.
What the fuck is wrong with the airlines? It’s not like ridership is going down. Yes the prices of fuel are up but they are up at the pumps and people continue to drive. A little less, sure, but Exxon and Sunoco are not going out of business. Are people going to stop flying in significant enough numbers if the ticket prices rise to account for higher fuel costs? Or is all this gross mismanagement and increasingly high unionized labour costs?
I’m actually okay with the idea of losing my job (as okay as one can be). I’ve been telling myself for a year or so that it could happen. I’ll find something else, or go back to school. It just surprised me with how emotional I got when I heard that we declared bankruptcy.
When you work for such a huge company, you don’t think that they are vulnerable, until you get a great combination of inept management, September 11, and high fuel prices. What a trifecta of business hell!
Now Wally, don’t forget the pilot’s union refusing to negotiate on their pay for the longest time while the company was having financial diffulcuties. That was an important factor too. Delta pilots were the highest paid in the industry, and when the company came and said that they were in financial trouble and needed some relief there, the union said “tough” for quite a while.
Say dave, just out of curiosity, while Delta management was pressuring its pilots to agree to wage cuts, was management cutting its wages? When the pilots did agree last year to $1 billion in wage concessions last year, did management cut its salaries then? Has Delta, which has asked the pilots for another round of wage concessions, announced cuts to the compensation of its managers?
Ah, I had googled to try to find some answers to my above questions before asking them but was unsuccessful. Changed a search term or two and I find that yes, Delta did cut managerial pay by 10% about a year ago. So good for them.
Of course if they’d have cut managers’ pay by the same 32.5% that the pilots agreed to two months later, better for them. And if they’d have cut their pay at the start of their negotiations with the pilots to achieve that one-third reduction in salary, then I’d have gone so far as to say bully for them.
And it of course goes without saying that management salaries should be cut in exactly the same percentage as any further concession the pilots make in this latest appeal from management.
So despite your well-documented hatred for all things union, it looks like maybe management could’ve done things a little differently to help keep the airline solvent.
So what was your point Otto? Did you rush in here with guns blazing because you were angry that management hadn’t taken a pay cut only to find out that they had? Is your point that they should have taken a bigger pay cut? If so, I tend to agree with you(surprised?). My point was that a lot of people blame everything on “corporate mismanagement”, however there is usually a responsibility up and down the line. Everyone wants to say “It’s their fault not mine” when usually(not always) it’s your fault too.
That being said, I think Delta as a corporation should come through this OK. They’ll probably shed some jobs and pare down some services, but they’ll survive. One of the few airlines that I know of that’s not in trouble right now is Continental, and I believe this is because they were able to reorganize under Chapter 11 protection about 10 years ago, putting them in a better position to weather the storm we’re in now.
You are massively uninformed on the topic. The pilots offered $800 million, Delta wanted $1 billion. Delta refused to take the pilots offer, all while bleeding even more money. Not a smart move at all (as usual).
Note that the $200 million difference doesn’t really matter when you’re bleeding billions.
And Delta management is notoriously corrupt, greedy and incompetent. Blaming the pilots is just one of their excuses for their own failures.
I’m assuming you mean as corrupt and greedy as the Pilot’s union? ALPA is one of the most powerful unions in the WORLD, and has always thrown its weight around to the detriment of others in the industry. I agree that our managers have been idiots, but I’m not about to let the pilots off the hook. (Actually their union is to blame, I know many pilots personally who despise ALPA).
My point was that I saw you standing there with a bruise on your face from where your union-blaming jerked knee hit it, and I genuinely wanted to know if, in your zeal to assign blame for Delta’s bankruptcy to greedy labor unionistas who refused to give up their salaries, you knew whether Delta management had tightened its own belt. I genuinely had no idea and, as I said in my second post, was initially unable to locate the information through Google.
I wasn’t angry at all and am still not angry. I am a little weary of your repeated union-bashing, but not angry. You made a statement about the culpability of organized labor in Delta’s current woes and I simply wanted to know whether you knew if management had pitched in to payroll savings to the same extent it got labor to or whether indeed management had contributed in that area at all. You brought up the debbil union, I couldn’t find the management information initially so I asked if you knew. If I’d happened to locate the information myself initially, my post would’ve been much diferent.
If you’re wanting to read more into it than that, that’s your damage. But I am heartened to hear that you agree that management should’ve been willing to sacrifice more than it did, and I hope you agree that if the pilots give another wage concession that management should match that concession percentage point for percentage point.
Let’s not forget that bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean that the company is going out of business. Lots of companies continue in business while bankrupt; bankruptcy gives them respite from their debts and the ability to unilaterally abrogate union contracts, thereby reducing their costs.
The problem is deregulation, and that is something that I never thought that I’d say. Back in the 1980s airlines complained about all the government interference in the industry and how it was stiffling growth and profits and whatnot. When deregulation came the airlines were happy but proceeded to embark on a plan to follow a business plan that was inefficient and just plain stupid. I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess that the model was based on 5-10% growth every year and fuel prices at mid 1980s levels. When the dynamics changed, even slightly, the bottom line suffered. Then of course 9/11 happens and all of a sudden a bad situation is made worse.
I don’t feel sorry for the airlines, because they are the ones who have made bad decisions for about 20 years. I do feel sorry for people like akwally1 who will likely lose jobs and pensions when the idiots making the decisions will still probably get their golden parachute.
I don’t feel sorry. They have a union. I’m sure that since it is capable of making constant demands for more money and taking a weekly skim (I mean, dues) from the working class, it will be ready for the natural consequence and find all of the workers new jobs in short order, or at least pay their salaries at the pre-termination, union negotiated level until they all find new work. After all, the union is all about the best interest of the worker.
I wasn’t aware that I was the one with a difficulty regarding bias and lack of grasp of facts in this thread. Wait, let me look back up a bit. Ahhhhh, there it is, yes, I do recall correctly. It is, however, funny that given your history here, you would accuse anyone else of a rabid “screeding” on this issue.
Beyond that, so what? I do not recall saying that there was more than a pilots’ union. Delta has a union. I’m sure that it is looking out for workers everywhere, just like unions do. You know, fight for the common man. It’s not at all about asking for as much money as you can squeeze, and to hell with everyone else (whether they are management or non-union). So I assume that besides taking care of the pilots, the pilots’ union will step in and help their brother “workers” out.
Incidentally, I feel bad for engaging in the union debate in akwally1’s reasonable enough thread expressing some remorse that his/her company died. So anymore discussion from me on the union issue will be elsewhere. And my sympathy to akwally1; it sucks to feel on shaky ground with respect to your company’s future, particularly if you enjoy working there.
Nice attempt at a save though. Of course you meant from the start that you were only talking about the pilots and not any other Delta employees. Slick shit like this will get you on the Supreme Court one day.
You act like there’s something wrong with workers trying to get the best salaries and benefits that they can. Are you similarly opposed to managers trying to squeeze every penny of profit they can for themselves and their shareholders?
Nice of you to have the semi-decency to almost apologize for telling wally how you don’t feel sorry for him because of his union membership, which apparently he doesn’t have.