That's an interesting story that I saw fairly close-up as I flew for Horizon at the time. Alaska made a snap decision to fire all 472 unionized rampers in Seattle in 2005, and replaced them with minimum-wage outsourced rampers from Menzies Aviation. It was a bloody abortion from the first day. Tons of late flights, lost bags, misrouted cargo. Several tons of Alaska salmon were left to rot on the ramp for a couple days before anybody figured out where it was. A new ramper hit an MD80 and didn't tell anyone, and the plane subsequently suffered a rapid decompression. It became quite common to find graffiti tags in the planes' baggage holds, and at least one major gang brawl broke out on the ramp.

I'm sure a few people in AAG management made nice bonuses, though.