United Replaces Unionized Baggage Handlers With Min. Wage Contractors, Things Instantly Fall Apart

[Quixote1818]

“Free Market” hardliners may not like to hear it, but the old adage is true: “You get what you pay for,” and paying people next-to-nothing to do an extremely labor-intensive job won’t get you many willing applicants.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in Denver right now, where travel-wary passengers getting off their flights are discovering that their checked bags won’t be coming out in a timely fashion, if at all.

One survivor told the Denver Post that the situation was so bad in baggage claim that people were on the cusp of rioting.

“Ed Tonini of Louisville, Ky., flew to Denver on a United Express flight this week. His small bag, which he checked at the gate, took about 30 minutes to retrieve. But nothing could have prepared him for the baggage claim area, which he said was utter chaos.

‘It was a comedy. People were ready to riot — there were children crying and hundreds of people that were very testy, sitting on the floor, waiting, and no United people there to tell us what was going on,’ he said. ‘Our flight was a little over two hours, and it took more than two hours to get our bags.’



More: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/09/united-replaces-unionized-baggage-handlers-with-minimum-wage-contractors-things-instantly-fall-apart/

[Omaha Steve]

1. DUH

K&R!

OS

[Quixote1818]

2. What gets me is they charge $25 per bag

So by just loading 1 bag most workers have paid for their wage for 1 to 2 hours and they probably load around 100 or more bags per hour. WTF?

[tblue]

11. And $100 for a second bag.

Airlines are awful. Very few exceptions. I just took a trip on United and boy am I glad I didn't have to go through this. I was out of the country and it could have been a disaster.

[randys1]

54. Only ASSHOLES would be against unions...unless it is police unions...maybe I have to

change my position again on police unions, I mean they are gonna kill who they want union or no union...

I am back in favor of police unions

[hatrack]

3. Wish I was smart enough to get an MBA and figure out a genius business plan like THIS!

Last edited Sat Jan 10, 2015, 06:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Seriously, do these butt-munchers understand anything about human nature, or even about what $8.00/hour means in 2015?

How could they BE that fucking stupid?

[Populist_Prole]

4. I wonder if another unsaid dynamic is part of it

Class. At that level, those butt-munchers may understand but can't bring themselves to on account of the fact they just can't wrap their minds around paying those in the engine room of a business ( so to speak ) a living wage. In their minds, they simply don't deserve it.

There's such contempt for the working class in some circles it's now almost, kinda' structural.

[NewDeal_Dem]

14. +100. Contempt indeed. They don't think those jobs are worth anything either.

Not important. "Anyone can do it" Until things go to hell.

I'm here to tell you, anyone can do most jobs if you organize them to be done that way. Capitalists have been organizing work to dumb it down for a long time.

[Populist_Prole]

25. Taylorism

" Capitalists have been organizing work to dumb it down for a long time"

That's pretty much what it is. It was developed over a hundred years ago to more or less "de-skill" a craft, skill or task; and divide it into multiple menial tasks. Aka: Make them "Anyone can do it" jobs.

[RobertEarl]

8. Here's the business plan

If the executive can save $100 an hour on labor, times 24 hours a day, that comes to $2400 a day, which is what is costs the executive for an Aspen ski lodge each day. That way, while in Aspen, the executive can relax and figure out how to cut even more labor costs

[CrispyQ]

21. This: ^^^

Businesses used to have things that were categorized under 'cost of doing business,' but now, as many of those expenses as possible are passed onto the customer.

Money is the only language those at the top understand. Americans need to stop buying.

[Adrahil]

33. Just to be clear.... ALL costs are passed onto the customer...

That's how for-profit businesses work.

The part the idiot MBAs don't get is that even in a laborer job, the quality of worker matters.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. I don't think Skywest below wing was unionized

But they did have benefits and as employees of Skywest, a real airline, and they had travel privileges.

[TheBlackAdder]

6. Hopefully, those minimum wage employees won't supplement income by swiping luggage contents. nt

[jberryhill]

12. Damn, if United hears this, they'll cut wages even more

And call it the "help yourself" plan

[Warren DeMontague]

53. ...

No shit.

[TheBlackAdder]

7. Minimum wage = higher probability of damaged or scuffed luggage. Enjoy.

Leave your good luggage at home.

Borrow the ratty 30-year-old luggage from your mother or aunt.

[NaturalHigh]

9. Gee, who could have predicted this?

[SoapBox]

10. Management doesn't give a shit...

They want their bonus, bonus, bonus money...passengers can just suck it.

[Tommymac]

46. The Airlines now suck up to the 1%.

The rest of us can go to hell as far as they are concerned.

Just wait until they implement economy minus later this year. Seriously.

Give us bigger seats! Fatter profits might follow

Christopher Elliott , Special for USA TODAY 6:02 p.m. EST November 23, 2014

"One of the most troubling travel stories of 2014 was a report that airlines are considering a new class of service — and I use the term "class" loosely — called economy "minus."
These seats would have even less legroom and fewer amenities than those found in a standard coach cabin. JetBlue gave everyone a little scare last week when it announced plans to move its seats closer together and start charging for the first checked bag, so we know it's not an abstract idea.

If "minus" isn't already here, it's coming.

But ask passengers what they want, and they'll tell you that while they love cheap tickets, they have no desire to be wedged into a seat with 28 inches of "pitch" (that's a rough measure of legroom) or to have to pay extra for everything. It's dehumanizing.
"I don't want to be tortured," says Judy Greene, a musician who lives in New York. Durnford King, a TV writer based in Santa Monica, Calif., wonders, "What's next, rolling passengers up in bubble wrap and packing them in like sausages?"

Here's a better idea: Instead of adding economy "minus," why not expand economy "plus" — the so-called "premium" economy class section that's almost identical to coach sections before airlines were carelessly deregulated by the federal government in the 1970s? Consumers support the idea, and airline experts say it just might work. Passengers would welcome a more spacious cabin.

"I want it to go back to the way it was," says Willa Mathison, who remembers flying before airline deregulation and is now retired in Renton, Wash. Flying in economy class, she says, is almost unbearable, and she can't imagine it getting any worse. "We have cut back on our travel just because it has become such a miserable experience to be crammed in an airplane," she says."

[dflprincess]

64. Remember how deregulation was sold by saying it would make things better for the consumer?

Increased competition and all that?

You would think, after what it did to the airline and banking industries the public would learn. I'd love to go back to the days when all the airlines and banks had to sell was service.

[Hekate]

13. New airline business model: take away everything a ticket used to pay for, make flying a misery...

....and make customers pay incrementally for every scrap of comfort (luggage, leg room, seat width, food). Then push that model until it breaks.

It just broke. Or at least another part just broke.

However it's been coming on for about two decades now, and since I have to fly from one coast to the other if I want to see my sister, and used to have to fly across several states for our Mom's medical emergencies, I can testify to the precipitous decline in the passenger experience.

Unless Senator Elizabeth Warren comes to our rescue, we are stuck. The airline CEOs are genuine assholes.

If you want a laugh, though, go to You Tube and look up "Cheap Flights" by Fascinating Aida.

[NewDeal_Dem]

15. More than two decades. Carter deregulated the airlines.

[CrispyQ]

22. I don't see people cutting back on flying, though

My sister takes 3 vacations a year, with her friends, & every trip is a flight somewhere.

[dixiegrrrrl]

27. Exactly...people put up with it.

A week long boycott of air lines would be instructional.

I realize not everyone can stop flying, as I have done.
But for a week, if the majority of flights were not taken....

[kiva]

16. And DIA is getting worried:

United Airlines' baggage-handling issues at Denver International Airport have gotten so out of hand that airport CEO Kim Day has personally reached out to the airline to offer assistance.

<snip>

Several passengers say they will try never to travel through Denver again, including tourist Jonathan Huckabay, whose luggage went missing when he connected through DIA on Saturday. "I will definitely avoid going through Denver if I can help it," he said. "I was looking forward to seeing the airport and perhaps visiting the city as I hadn't passed through that hub before, but the experience has soured me on this particular city's airport."

<snip>

United remains tight-lipped about the situation, saying again Tuesday it is "putting every available resource into this to help support our vendor."

DIA, meanwhile, is left with disgruntled customers and a somewhat-tarnished reputation. "This is a unique and unfortunate situation, and we don't want anyone to be discouraged about choosing to fly though DIA as this is not the normal level of service provided by our airlines," DIA spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_27270086/uniteds-baggage-woes-start-affect-denver-airports-reputation

[Ruby the Liberal]

19. Thats the only thing that will get their attention

Threaten DIA and the Denver Chamber of Commerce's interests and MAYBE something will be done.

How far we have fallen.

[kiva]

24. I live in a tourist city.

Sometimes it's a pain, but our airport runs smoothly because everyone knows where the money comes from to make the city function.

And yes, it's sad that United needs this sort of pressure to do what they are supposed to be doing as part of their job.

[Cha]

17. Damn the Cheapskates.. from Waltons on down

[demigoddess]

63. amen

[malaise]

18. Well my flight took less than two hours last November

but just clearing immigration at MIA took more than two hours.

[mnhtnbb]

37. I think Miami has about the worst Immigration clearing I've experienced.

And the walk to get there? OMG. Takes forever.

[IdaBriggs]

20. I though everyone knew "United Breaks Guitars"?

[Paladin]

23. And here I didn't think that United's "service" could get any shittier...... (nt)

[Jackpine Radical]

26. Fly United…

[cloudbase]

28. I live in Houston, which was a Continental hub

and home to corporate headquarters. They were actually a pretty decent airline post Frank Lorenzo. The "merger" with United turned them into crap. Instead of lifting United's level of service, United brought down Continental's.

[The Shredder]

29. I got home to Denver on last Wednesday morning at 12:00 am at a frigid -13 degree weather..

after a small delay in Dallas, TX - we didn't retrieve ALL of our luggages until about 2:15am, and didn't get home till 2:30am

Even with a skeleton crew, our luggage came in after about an hour and half's delay, plus another half an hour delay on waiting for a box.

ETA: Not with United, but with American

[GoneOffShore]

30. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

[gratuitous]

32. That's the free market

As sure as day follows night, it's obvious that paying lousy wages will attract lousy workers, or desperate workers, who can't make ends meet. When it comes to the CEOs, the free marketeers seem to understand that they have to pay top dollar to get top talent. But they suddenly lose their minds when it comes to everyone else, particularly employees on the lower rungs of the corporate ladder.

[valerief]

31. Rich people don't fly commercial. They all have their own jets and pilots. So bullshit the average

person needs to endure doesn't matter, doesn't matter a whit. The rich are doing just fine, and that's all that matters.

[MineralMan]

34. I have learned to pack a carry-on for a week's stay.

That's my solution. And the carry-on I use is guaranteed to fit into any overhead bin. I do not check luggage.

[mnhtnbb]

39. I do the same. I've done 2 weeks in Europe with only carry-on. OTOH I've had Delta

take away my carry-on for lack of overhead bin space and then lose the bag--for 4 days!

[hatrack]

47. Meaning that it's just a matter of time before they charge for carry-ons . . .

.

[MineralMan]

50. Some already do.

[Half-Century Man]

35. I have always said.

When you pay top dollar, you might not be getting top quality. However when you pay the least possible, you get exactly that.

[mnhtnbb]

36. Interesting how there's nothing in mainstream media reporting this.

I googled Denver baggage handling problems and only comes up with old info about
the attempt to automate the system in Denver years ago--which was a huge failure.

[Locrian]

38. typical Capitalism: Provide the WORST service possible at the highest PROFIT

[Stonepounder]

40. I was a road warrior back in the 80's.

I still have my frequent flyer card, which is embossed with a 2,000,000 mile stamp. I haven't flown in about 15 years now and the above is the reason why. When I was flying we got good and efficient service. When there was a screw up, the airline scrambled to make things right. Now they don't give a damn. There are only a few majors left, they have cut down on their flights, cram you into flying sardine tins, give you a packet of stale peanuts, leave late, lose you bags, and expect you to say 'thank you'. If I can't drive to where I a going, I don't go. When my dad celebrated his 90th birthday a couple of years ago, we drove the 2500 miles from Ky to Or rather than fly. I'll keep my money thank you.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

42. Not to mention the potentially aggressive TSA agents. I won't fly anymore either.

Can't afford it anyway.

[Sherman A1]

57. Same here

I haven't been on a plane in over 10 years and have no plans to do so.

I used to love to fly, but I got over it.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

41. This trend toward crappy service so the higher ups can acquire yet more wealth is so frustrating.

Unless one goes off the grid, or avoids many products and services, one is often stuck with this because there are no alternative that aren't also crappy. So, the companies gamble that the bottom line won't suffer--just the people at the bottom--and they usually win. They don't think long term, just take the money and run.

[7962]

43. Sounds like the guys that run Pitney Bowes nt

[rurallib]

44. republican congress takes over and all goes to shit in a week.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

45. Where did you get the information that

the previous baggage handlers were unionized? I've found nothing that states that at all, and I was under the impression that SkyWest wasn't unionized.

[BumRushDaShow]

48. The article indicated they originally used the airport's unionized baggage handlers

with assistance from SkyWest's hourly workers (no mention of union for the SkyWest in the article). United Express decided to end their agreement with the airport's workers and chose to use their own contracted barely-over-minimum-wage workers.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

49. If you click through to the other articles

It states that SkyWest had the contract for United at DIA since 2005, and that they let 650 people go when United switched to the new contractor. This is totally different than the 630 people referenced in one of the links from the article in the OP.

Yeah, they're paying crap wages, but they didn't replace unionized workers, at least not according to the USA Today article that is linked in.

[BumRushDaShow]

55. I think the article is only referring to what happened at *this particular airport*

(Denver) not the rest of airports where they fly. I.e., per this - http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_27270086/uniteds-baggage-woes-start-affect-denver-airports-reputation

And yes, the Denver International Airport's own baggage handlers who previously supported them ARE unionized, and these are the folks who they broke relations with to bring in their own contract employees.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

61. Nothing in your aricle discusses unionized workers being let go

Simplicity took over the contract, which was previously held by SkyWest Airlines, on Dec. 4. The contract change resulted in 650 job losses for Denver workers.

From the article you linked to.

The 650 workers that were let go were SkyWest workers, not unionized United workers.

Not going to argue the point any further, as it's obvious that we won't agree.

[BumRushDaShow]

62. The Denver Post article indicated that this was a shared responsibility

Per the Denver Post article -

But the problem can't be pinned solely on Simplicity. Luggage handling at DIA is a duty shared by Simplicity and United Airlines employees, depending on the flight and bag destination.

According to an internal e-mail to SkyWest employees dated Oct. 15, United took over many of SkyWest's bag transfer responsibilities Oct. 19.

United baggage handlers also are responsible for delivering bags in a timely matter for United Express and United mainline flights, according to employees who asked not to be identified because of fears of disciplinary action, including termination.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_27270086/uniteds-baggage-woes-start-affect-denver-airports-reputation

The United handlers are not the SkyWest group but are their own unionized staff who apparently also went on strike back in September per the other article linked - http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=118738

Some more on this and United's strategy -

United Continental Holdings Inc. UAL -1.95% said Monday it will outsource jobs at 12 U.S. airports in cities including Buffalo, N.Y., Charlotte, N.C., and Detroit on Oct. 1 to vendors who will perform the duties at lower cost. The jobs currently employ about 635 workers in areas including check-in, baggage-handling, and customer service.

<...>

United declined to comment on the expected savings. The airline pays such workers from $12 to $24 an hour, while some vendors start workers at $9 an hour—$1.75 more than the federal minimum wage—and don't offer health coverage or travel benefits.

According to Rich Delaney, president of the International Association of Machinists union district that represents the United airport agents and baggage handlers, outsourcing the work at the dozen airports will save United $1.6 million to $3.5 million per airport a year, depending on the size and the worker population.

"It does make economic sense," said Michael Boyd, a consultant at Boyd Group International. "It's not a $40,000 job to load bags. Cleaning planes is not a $20-an-hour job." But the outsourced work offers "no career path, no loyalty. By its nature, it's temporary, until the next bid comes up," he said. "When you replace employees with Air Fred, you'll see the bottom line improve, but you'll get more lost bags."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/united-to-outsource-jobs-at-12-u-s-airports-1404765449

I.e., SkyWest were not unionized but other United Baggage Handlers who worked with them are and were apparently hit with this outsourcing (although some were "in-sourced" and remain according to the article.

[sulphurdunn]

51. Remember when the Trucker

was the motorists friend? You know, when trucks would pull onto the shoulder to help motorists in distress, rather than blow them off the road to meet just in time deliveries? If you don't, you were probably born after Ronald Regan deregulated the trucking industry. He did the same thing for the airlines. In fact, Ronnie set the precedent for labor busting in general. Things have been fucked up ever sense. The solution is simple: Re-regulate these and all other essential industries as public utilities. It will sure as hell cost more, but it will be well worth it to everyone save corporate management and investors who expect double digit returns every goddamn year at the expense of the working class and the public.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. I normally get mad at entitled yuppies who refuse to check their bags and instead cram them into the

bins...

but with this sort of shit, it's understandable.

[Turbineguy]

56. Some MBA figured out

some new way to lose customers. People go to college for that, you know.

[another_liberal]

58. Stupid bean-counting nitwits . . .

Just throw away all of the experience gained over decades and employ minimum wage workers to save a few bucks?

I hope the Union-busting, Reagan-loving genius who dreamed this one up has already been fired.

[kimbutgar]

59. My husband works for United and they are jerking the union workers by not negotiating

A new contract because the airline is making a lot of money. They only want to do contracts when United is struggling to screw over the union workers.

[ReRe]

60. It'll be a nightmare scenerio...

... in Phoenix, AZ for the Super Bowl too, if the owners of the bussing company doesn't settle the contract with the employee's union.

[blkmusclmachine]

65. ,

,

[czarjak]

66. Always a good idea...

Replace trained professionals proud of their work with amateurs.

[AllyCat]

67. We take the train for almost any longer trip.

With fracking, that has come with its own challenges, but you get your luggage free, friendly staff, and I can stretch out my 34" inseam with room to spare. No problem bringing your own food, placing a phone call, or retrieving my luggage at the end of the trip. Don't have to take off shoes at the start of your trip.

If you are in a hurry, this is not a great option.

I think they are Union still.