The Rittenhouse Review

A Philadelphia Journal of Politics, Finance, Ethics, and Culture


Thursday, August 17, 2006  

IS THIS ANY WAY TO RUN AN AIRLINE?
Will Sling Baggage for Leftovers

US Airways finds itself having difficulties maintaining an adequate staff of baggage handlers, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports in an article today by Tom Belden.

Sure, the company offers health-care and retirement benefits and free or reduced-rate travel, but the starting wage can be as low at $7.52 an hour ($9.59 for those working outdoors) and tops out at $17 an hour, weekend work is required, shift assignments change every couple of months, the work is grueling, and the technology in place to guide the process is woefully inadequate ("The main bag-sorting conveyor system now misreads up to 30 percent of the luggage tags it scans, which means workers sort bags one at a time.").

Why is anyone surprised?

Meanwhile, Northwest Airlines recently offered involuntarily departed employees a helpful little handbook, "101 Ways to Save Money," which suggested, among other things, patronizing pawnshops and junkyards, taking shorter showers, making homemade gifts, asking doctors for samples of prescription drugs, and shrugging off the shame associated with forays into trash cans.

This advice may be true, if not good, of course, but "adding insult to injury" barely begins to describe it, though a baggage handler grossing $7.52 an hour might as well have been offered similar counsel.

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