AN INDUSTRY IN TURMOIL

OTHER CARRIERS SHELVE MERGER PLANS
ECONOMY AND FUEL COSTS PUSH DOMESTIC CAPACITY CUTS


You can’t go a day anymore without reading another announcement from one of the legacy carriers about domestic growth cuts and job loss. Delta has recently announced that domestic capacity which was to be reduced by 10% in the fall will now be slashed additionally to 13%. Northwest has increased their cuts from 5% to nearly 10% and these figures are fluid and moving constantly. Looks like ‘consolidation’ is coming faster than first thought.

A barrel of oil is hovering around $135 with airline crude actually moving closer to $160 a barrel. Something more has to give and it would be nothing more than ‘pie in the sky’ not to point out the pitfalls facing all airline employees this fall.

We involved in the union effort at Delta want employees to brace themselves for severe layoffs later this year and think that the dialogue about merger should include some hard truths about manpower needs and cutback eventualities.

The L.A. press is reporting that flights in and out of Delta’s LAX mini-hub are going to be slashed by 13%. Not long ago this city was projected to be the future gateway to Asia for Delta. With the merger just around the corner, those plans have dissipated into thin air. Nobody seems to be talking about manpower needs or potential job loss and layoffs beyond the voluntary early-out programs that have already taken place.

Delta has pledged to honor all of Northwest’s union contracts until a vote can be held among the employees to determine if they survive. Until then, Northwest employees cannot be cut from cities that they domicile in currently, according to the terms of their contract. One of those cities is LAX. We Delta employees, on the other hand, have no such guarantees or written agreements. We can be leveled out of the city we are in quickly and with no means of appeal or review. We have no one to look after our welfare and no way to question decisions made by our superiors.

Our only ‘comfort’, if you can call it that, is the hollow promise being made through company mail and DeltaNet. Delta has repeatedly stated that: “Frontline employees of both airlines will be provided seniority protection through a fair and equitable seniority integration process, as the airlines are combined….The Company also expects no involuntary furloughs of U.S. frontline employees as a result of this transaction.”

There will come a time soon enough where a full time Delta agent can no longer hold a line in the city he or she lives in. In the past, leveling has taken place and the process by which people are allowed to move to other job openings has been implemented. Choices are limited and decisions are made by others concerning who is and is not allowed to take a position elsewhere. The process is not open or equitable and no independent oversight is permitted. Who knows whether or not one is treated fairly or bypassed because of decisions made by managers? This kind of process would never take place in a union environment. A system-wide seniority list would be available and manpower movement would be transparent and reviewable.

Do we really want to be left exposed with no protection other than the ‘goodwill' of some boss or station manager who gets to decide whether or not they want us working for them? A union contract would simplify the process and make the difficult experience of displacement above-board and open; fair and truly equitable. Not just a promise but a written guarantee of decent treatment. That’s not just the union way; that’s the American way of doing business. Fill out your IAM Authorization card before it’s too late!