Change at United Airlines
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The world economic map is changing at a rate faster than ever before in history (Drucker). As it evolves, so does the United States' economy and, by extension, the American workplace - for better and worse (Bernstein). No part of the U.S. economy illustrates the contemporary situation better than the airline industry. Since the late 1970s, the American airline industry has been in the throes of deregulation, a period of intense competition, management-labor strife, and fallen giants such as Pan American Airlines. Those surviving have had to find new definitions of themselves and their industry (Labich, May 2). Among the survivors is United Airlines, whose stockholders agreed to an employee buyout this past July (Annin), becoming America's largest employee-owned company (Labich, August 22). Now comes the difficult part: in the ever-evolving business environment of the '90s, change is necessary - for United Airlines, it is inevitable. The questions this paper will ask all revolve around the issue of change in the United Airlines workplace. Is it desirable? Can it be made a positive? How will it affect management-employee attitudes? Will changing the work environment and internal attitude effect positive changes in United Airlines' industry standing (i.e. productivity)?The short-term answer to the last question is already a positive. With the first announcement of the union-financed buyout, United's advertising campaign shifted into gear, providing a focal point f
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e the rapid growth of an adversarial union movement (Herrick). It was only the post-World War II economic boom that forestalled the inevitable. A tradeoff - high wages for weakened individual autonomy - allowed management and labor to ignore their dissatisfaction and the inherent inefficiency of such systematic "Above-Below" divisions (Lawler). The 1970s saw the U.S. steel industry spiral downwards for failing to correct the problem.
The 1980s till today find the airline industry in the throes of this convulsion, United being one of the hardest hit (Chandler & Kelly). In order to survive, airlines needed to cut operating costs: in an hierarchical system, management sees labor as the most easily slashed expenditure. In such an environment of negative stability and disrespect, employee productivity fell. As productivity worsened and profits dived, layoffs increased. Not surprisingly, airline unions fought back with strikes as their major defensive weapon. Despite being dependent upon knowledge workers, not unskilled labor, the airline industry by and large has chose adversarial "down-sizing," rather than efficiency-oriented restructuring, as its response to change (Hammonds).
It was only the prospect of a yet another cr
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Approximate Word count = 2051
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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