Authors libby rittenberg 772

International Federation of Flight Attendants (IFFA) declared a strike
against TWA. The airline followed a strategy similar to Continental’s and
was able to break the strike by hiring replacement employees. After 10
weeks, the IFFA declared an unconditional end to the strike and sought to
have its members rehired. It was not until three and a half years later that
all 6,000 got their jobs back. Ultimately, TWA went out of business.
Not all airlines have had the same unhappy relationships with unions.
Southwest Airlines, which started as a nonunion airline, now operates with
a largely unionized labor force. It has continued its strategy of paying high
wages and including employees in management decisions. The result has
been one of the highest profit margins in the industry together with high
productivity of both workers and aircraft.
Continental has also emerged as a “different” airline. More recently, it
hired a new Chief Executive Officer who quickly returned the airline to
profitability and established a new workplace culture in which employees
were given a role in managerial decisions and were hired based in part on
their teamwork skills. Continental has been able to shed its old reputation
as a union suppressor and has established itself as an airline that works
well with unions and has a minimal degree of conflict.
Another approach to dealing with airline employees has been to include
them in ownership. United employees, for example, own the airline. Other
airlines in which employees have had a substantial ownership role include
Western Airlines, Eastern Airlines, Northwest, Delta Airlines, and United.
In each case, employees exchanged equity for wage concessions. Each of
these airlines implemented an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). In
each case, the program began with great optimism on the part of
Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen
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