Whatever happened to the
notion of shared sacrifice, of workers and management both sharing in the pain and
hardship it takes to get a money-losing business back on track? Well, the concept
is a good one, but at Northwest Airlines, it seems to be at the core of all that
is wrong with the business right now.
Northwest has been canceling
flights at a pretty good clip—more than 1,000 in the past week. The ongoing bad
weather in the middle of the country is partly to blame, but the main culprit is
a coordinated move by Northwest’s pilots to only fly the 90 hours per month required
under their labor contract with the airline. Generally, pilots fly more—the FAA
allows 100 hours—but the pilots at Northwest have decided to stick to the letter
of the contract and do only what they are contractually obligated to do and not
any more.
The pilots, who took about
a big pay cut in their last contract and saw hundreds of their fellow pilots furloughed,
are upset that Northwest executives received large bonuses when the airline finally
came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy this spring. Last week, they passed a resolution
expressing "no confidence" in Northwest management. Pilots at other airlines, notably
United and American, are equally upset with management, and it’s possible the problems
at Northwest are just the beginning for summer travelers.
Contrast the Northwest
battle with what happened at Delta Air Lines when it came out of bankruptcy in March.
As I noted at the time in this blog (‘The Art of Management Spin and Positioning,"
March 8), Delta management gave numerous pay raises and stock when it emerged from
bankruptcy to reward rank-and-file workers for their efforts in helping to get the
carrier back on track.
Delta CEO Gerald Grinstein
understood, as all managers should, that workers are more than willing to sacrifice
for the good of the company as long as they are recognized for that sacrifice and
see some payback when things get better. Delta management gets this. Northwest clearly
doesn’t.
In addition, Northwest’s
management doesn’t seem to care about its best customers either. Get a load of this
post by a Northwest frequent flier on the Detroit Free Press Web site:
"My wife flew NWA to
Phoenix and was to return home two days ago. She has been stuck in a flea-bag hotel for
the past two days near the PHX airport because of a pilot shortage, and may finally
be able to get home sometime today. She is Platinum Elite with NWA and flies many,
many miles a year for business. Now we must re-assess her relationship with Northwest.
What would you do? Can anyone afford to be stuck someplace for days at a time? She
will be looking for other carriers in the future. I hate to say this, but NWA is
a major employer in the Detroit area … and they are shooting themselves in the foot with this foolishness. If they
go bust, they deserve it, but it will cost the area lots of jobs."
Have a comment on this?
I’d love to hear what you have to say. Until we get the comment posting function
on this blog operational, send me comments at
jhollon@workforce.com.
I will publish as many of them as I can.
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