The Transport Workers Union has put out a negotiations video for its members as the TWU continues contract talks with Southwest Airlines.
Called “Profits before People,” the video criticizes Southwest Airlines for the slow pace of contract talks and for not offering pay increases and for proposing to use more part-time employees, limiting benefits and other points, even as the airline was earning record profits.
TWU Local 555’s contract became amendable in June 2011. According to federal law, airline labor contracts never expire. They just have amendable dates.
The video comes out nearly six weeks after the heads of most of Southwest Airlines’ unions signed a letter to Southwest chairman and CEO Gary Kelly saying that “morale has dropped to an all-time low” and that the airline could remedy the problem with new contracts for all labor groups.
We’ve also seen a negotiations update Tuesday from the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which represents mechanics at Southwest, in which the union shared the airline’s concept for pay raises.
“In this Company scenario there would be NO FIXED RAISES for more than 80% of the topped-out Technicians,” the AMFA update stated “The Company explained that the rationale behind this proposed pay freeze was ‘to allow our competitors a chance to catch-up’ to the SWA thereafter rate.”
If that sounds familiar, that’s how American Airlines tried to hold down its labor costs after its major competitors, including Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways, filed for bankruptcy last decade and forced lower costs on their employees.
The American strategy was to avoid pay increases, to offset any increases in wages with cuts in other areas such as health care coverage and otherwise get contract changes that would lower its costs. The repeated message to Wall Street was that AA expected other carriers’ labor costs over time to come up to AA’s.
The American unions wouldn’t agree during years of labor talks. After its pilot union rejected the carrier’s proposal in November 2011, American filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 29, 2011, and lowered its labor costs through Chapter 11 proceedings.
Another interesting matter: The TWU video showed a chart that said Southwest carried 85 million checked and transferred bags in 2008 versus 95 million in 2013. The point was that the number of bags has increased significantly while resources devoted to handle those bags hasn’t, i.e., overworked, underpaid workers.
Here’s what’s strange. The number of bags is up 11.8 percent, based on the rounded-off numbers of 85 million and 95 million. But the number of revenue passengers is up 25.2 percent, the number of enplaned passengers is up 31.4 percent, the number of employees is up 29.1 percent and the number of flights is up 16.7 percent – all are up more than the increase in bags.
One would have thought the “bags fly free” policy at Southwest would have meant that a greater percentage of its customers would have checked bags. But that’s not what is indicated the bag stats, which TWU attributed to Southwest.
Of course, none of that speaks to the number of Southwest employees assigned to load and unload bags. The Southwest Airlines 10-K for 2013 says TWU Local 555 represents 9,500 ramp, operations, provisioning and freight agents. We don’t have a comparable number for 2008.
|