Originally Posted by
Teamroper
I guess thats the risk of trying to communicate in writing.
My question is wouldn’t all of the employees be better off at the bargaining table if the staff was united, and the customer experience was better than the competition?
It has nothing to do with selling out. Quite the opposite. Its about bringing more to the table. Its a service business. Better experience = more fares = better pay.
Isn’t that what built the brand? The forum just reads as if the pilots, the FAs, the “rampers”, the marshalls, etc are all on different teams. That just seems disjointed, inefficient, and not a way to compete in the market or in contract negotiations.
Is that how it is in real life, or just a false impression from the forum?
Have you ever heard of "psychic wage"? Southwest Airlines has historically run on it. Herb said:
Years ago, business gurus used to apply the business school conundrum to me: ‘Who comes first? Your shareholders, your employees, or your customers?’ I said, ‘Well, that’s easy,’ but my response was heresy at that time. I said employees come first and if employees are treated right, they treat the outside world right, the outside world uses the company’s product again, and that makes the shareholders happy. That really is the way that it works, and it’s not a conundrum at all.
Our recent most CEO has changed this. Right now, at Southwest Airlines, it's the shareholders who come first. It is evident in almost every aspect of our operation, and it is very much felt primarily by the frontline employees. One of the selling points of our airline, according to the management anyway, is that we've never furloughed. I'll let one of the 1221 comment on that, but bottom line was that this was the company's opportunity to shine, and boy did they blow it...
So right now... it's FUPM. I want the industry-leading contract in every aspect, and I'm willing to go on a strike to achieve it.