My ridiculously bad travel experience with American Airlines was magnified a thousand fold for those travelling via United, it seems. Over the holiday weekend, baggage handlers and flight attendants decided to call out sick in an apparent job action, which, despite the action having all the earmarks of a deliberate organized tactic (the picking of the heaviest travel weekend of the year, the apparent unison in which everyone called out, the known bad blood among employees and management over United’s bankrupcty) both sides deny it was a sanctioned labor protest.
Right. Despite the employees of United being annoyed and feeling betrayed over their pension situation, despite the financial troubles United is having, despite the threat of pay cuts, the employees are really, really happy to do their jobs and they just happened to all get the flu on Christmas Eve. Sure, I can buy that.
There’s a particular quote from the Kansas City Star that makes my point quite succintly:
“I understand where they are coming from, but this might kill the airline. This airline cannot afford a lot of bad publicity or passengers booking away.” – Michael Boyd, Aviation Industry Consultant
Exactly right. I can thoroughly sympathize with organized labor wanting to take job actions, and many times I can see justification for it when the complaints are legitimate and management is clearly giving them a raw deal and will not budge when they are perfectly capable of compromising. However, strikes and sickouts only work when the company is financially sound, and can recover from the actions taken once an agreement is reached. United is clearly not sound, and I’m not sure a recovery will occur, considering this is very bad publicity for them. The only people this job action hurt were the passengers, who aren’t at fault for United’s woes and shouldn’t be stranded over something that is not their doing, and the employees, who may not have a job to call sick to in the long run.
United presents a different dynamic, and in conditions like these, employees are faced with a hard choice: either concede to something you’re not happy with, or hasten the date that your paycheck begins to bounce. This was clearly malicious behavior, and I don’t see what the baggage handlers expected to come out of this, except for a much quicker final pay date from United, and a reduced likelhood that dusting the ol’ resume will not let them find work quickly elswhere.
