SKY WEST IS GOING, GOING…..

GONE?…GOOD!

GIL WEST TELLS HALF THE TRUTH AGAIN!

We’ve all had time to digest the news out of SLC about a change in one of our Regional partners and the news that part of their operation will be transferred back into Delta’s control. This is an event that needed to happen almost since the unraveling of our SLC hub began over a decade ago.

Delta employees need to be totally responsible for Delta passengers. The employees involved in the union effort have been advocating for this sane approach for far too long and we rejoice in our management team finally coming to their senses. We hope that not too much water has passed under the bridge of competency and understanding; we hope that all the dedicated Delta professionals that have left will not impede us in making this transition smooth and seamless; we are quietly confident that the professionals still left in SLC will step up to the challenge of added work and burden.

Gil West was quick to trumpet this change (a change pushed by union supporters!) and he told the Delta world that 50 full time shifts would go out on E- BID soon to cover this event. What he didn’t mention was that 300 Sky West jobs would be cut.

Guess what else he didn’t share with the press? 50 full-time shifts won’t be enough to do the job. Delta will quietly offer many Sky West employees Ready Reserve positions to about 100 of their displaced employees. Good news? Will it depends on how desperate one is to have insurance coverage in these trying economic times.

Sky West employees enjoy fairly good medical coverage; practically all of them. The positions that Delta will offer these displaced employees will not include any benefits at all except some limited flying benefits.

We don’t believe in the Ready Reserve program and we think that it is nothing more than a thinly veiled substitute for outsider contractual firms such as DGS and RHS.

Gil, how many people are you really going to hire in SLC and how many of these shifts are actually dead end RR shifts that offer little or no hope for advancement?

We know of dozens of SLC ready reserve agents who have worked for years who cannot find a way to be advanced to part-time associate positions. Are you going to tell these fresh faces who have families and insurance needs the truth about the long, endless wait for insurance status or are you going to feed the press more of the same obscure pabulum that you shovel out by the bucket loads to your own employees?

Which is it Gil? The truth or more of the same?

Here’s the real truth folks; something the press doesn’t even know yet. This is just a first step in the complete departure away from Sky West and probably the rest of our regional partners. We are leaving them because the grand experiment with Regional Jets just didn’t pane out. These planes were never very fuel efficient and the ‘completion contracts’ were not in our best interest. This is a good thing; having new employees who are little more than serfs and chattel is a bad thing. Workers deserve dignity and fair compensation.

Time to unionize to obtain both!