Pour lemon juice in the wound. United Airlines now tries to cut pay

[Bluebear]

(AP) A day after getting the legal go-ahead to dump its employees' pensions, United Airlines returned to the negotiating table and the courtroom Wednesday in a high-stakes bid to expand its cost-cutting by rewriting two unions' contracts.

Angry labor unions continued to warn of possible strikes, although they said they were not taking any immediate actions pending the outcome of talks or bankruptcy court actions involving their contracts.

Underscoring the urgency of its effort was the carrier's announcement of its biggest quarterly loss in two years, a $1.1 billion deficit for the first three months of 2005. UAL Corp., United's parent, has now lost $5.8 billion since entering bankruptcy in December 2002.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced its members had voted by a 94 percent majority this month to authorize a strike if United succeeds in unilaterally imposing new contract terms, as the airline was attempting to do in a potentially lengthy court process beginning Wednesday afternoon.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/11/national/main694687.shtml

[ariellyn]

1. Wonder if ** will follow in Reagan's footsteps and fire UAL strikers? n/t

[Jensen]

2. You bet they will!

[sendero]

3. The reality is..

.... that the airline business sucks and companies cannot lose money forever.

Workers are going to have to take cuts. To be fair, management should take (larger, as a percentage) cuts.

If management cannot see their way clear to do that, it is quite possible that United won't be here at all in a mere few years.

[blondeatlast]

8. (for the hundredth time) The've ALREADY taken dozens of cuts.

How is Southwest making oodles of dough with happy employees and good union relations?

ThinK... think...

Could it be... hold on now...

EXCELLENT MANAGEMENT?!

[sendero]

9. Well...

... you have a point. But it isn't just UAL that is having trouble. I think SW might be the only airline making money right now.

Yes, it would be nice if the shareholders would demand massive changes in management, but is that likely to happen?

In any event, the idea of a strike against a company that is losing money hand over fist doesn't sound that useful to me.

[Dorian Gray]

10. Southwest making money

has to do with a lot of factors:

A smaller route selection, no frills, and fewer employees in the corporation is just the start of it. Management is better. There are a slew of reasons.

UAL, Continental, Delta, and American are all in danger of going under, particularly UAL and Delta. Cuts will have to be made across the board, and vast changes to the industry.

Is Jet Blue making money? I think they are, but they are also much smaller than those other airlines.

[elehhhhna]

4. No. A short strike would be a death-blow for the "airline"--sorta

like a murder-suicide. The employees probably figure they may as well take the whole thing down, anyway. Who the heck would book a ticket on UA now???? (Not I--tried them twice and NEVER AGAIN.)

[cap]

5. if the employees think the ship is going down anyhow

they might as well try and take all that they can get now.

[napi21]

6. Where's the plan to reduce the Exec. mgmt salaries and

eliminate any bonuses? It's always easy to say screw you but not ME!!!

[Toots]

7. What percentage of that loss was Administrative pay?

How much does the CEO and President make? I would venture they make more than a hundred fold what the average employee makes and yet it is obvious they have not done a good job or they would not be going bankrupt. It isn't the employees that drove them into bankruptcy, it is management and they all got bonuses.