The company’s pilots have been renegotiating their contract for three years.
Beleaguered Alaska Airlines has canceled over a 100 flights as it continues to deal with fallout from a labor dispute with its pilots, the company said Friday.
Labor issues have been increasingly pressuring the bottom lines of major Fortune 500 companies, and have even begun flustering large tech players like Amazon (AMZN) – Get Amazon.com, Inc. Report, where workers voted for their first union at the company ever on Friday.
Workers displaced during the pandemic have often opted not to come back to low-paying, no-benefit jobs.
The ones that have stayed in white collar positions have been looking for increasingly more life-friendly options, including higher pay and better benefits.
So What Do Alaska’s Pilots Want?
Alaska’s pilots have been renegotiating their contract with the company and are asking for more job security, better staffing, enhanced work rules and schedules that are reasonable and have some flexibility.
They have been attempting to nail down terms for three years.
But Alaska management says the airline is still recovering from massive losses during the pandemic, despite a major bailout from the federal government.
It also said in a statement that it pays its average pilot $341,000, in line with its competitors of a similar size.
Pilots counter that the airline never went back to normal staffing levels after the pandemic sidelined many of them, and that it hasn’t tried to recruit or retain new pilots recently. That has left many with burnout and the inability to have any flexibility in schedules.
Pandemic Eases, But Staffing Levels Stay the Same
That’s been a common refrain among labor leaders across the country, that management at companies has been attempting to get by with much leaners cheaper rosters of employees that they used as skeleton crews during the last two years of the pandemic.
Now, instead of restocking the ranks, they are looking to keep costs down and have drawn the attention of a labor movement that has successfully navigated even some of the most “union-unfriendly” workplaces in America, including Starbucks (SBUX) – Get Starbucks Corporation Report and Amazon.
This shortage of co-workers to help relieve pandemic-frazzled mainstays has been hampered by a labor shortage, as many workers hold out for better jobs with benefits, living wages and long-term career potential.
The pilots said they are picketing in San Francisco, Portland and Anchorage in an attempt to force negotiators back to the bargaining table.
