Sun County Airlines will outsource 20% of its workforce, announcing it will layoff 350 ground workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP).
These positions include “below-wing” ground workers, ticket counter agents, sky caps and those who assist passengers with wheelchairs.
Here’s the sad thing. Sun Country will contract these (non-union) jobs to Global Aviation Services LLC. Global Aviation Services has announced everyone who currently is employed by Sun Country will have a “preferable access” to work for the new company….but there’s a catch.
Wages and benefits at Global Aviation Services LLC, a Canadian company, are far less than what Sun Country paid.
I know an airline is answerable to its shareholders. I also know that Sun County is business to make money, not provide employment. But I cannot think of a bigger slap in the face than telling loyal, long-term employees they can now do the same job for a few dollars less per hour and no healthcare.
And yet I don’t dismiss the economic reality of an era of “full employment” or that Global Aviation Services will have to pay up if the displaced Sun County workers band together and refuse to work for slave wages.
It merits mentions that Sun County is hardly the first airline to do this. In fact, it is one of the last. The legacy carriers and low-cost carriers contracted out these positions years ago. Sun Country itself has already done this outside of its MSP hub.
Sun Country President and CEO Jude Bricker defended the move as best possible, telling the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
We want to concentrate on flying airplanes and selling tickets. That doesn’t mean we change our view on customer service. It doesn’t. It just means that we want to bring in a company that specializes specifically on ground operations to run our Minneapolis ground operations.
CONCLUSION
Sun County is transforming itself into an ultra low-cost-carrier. I questioned recently whether the airline can survive and still question the carrier’s long-term viability if it is just going to mimic Spirit and Frontier.
> Read More: Can Sun Country Airlines Survive? I Doubt It.
> Read More: Sun Country First Class Los Angeles to Minneapolis Review
In addition to lower wages and no healthcare, I assume the workers had flying benefits and won’t any longer?
Likely.
“… I cannot think of a bigger slap in the face than telling loyal, long-term employees they can now do the same job for a few dollars less per hour and no healthcare.”
You can’t? I can. How about just firing them outright with no preferential consideration from the new contractor?
Your penchant for hyperbole betrays you.
Right on, you tell him Wes!
They did just fire them outright. The “preferential consideration” is an olive branch from the new company to try to woo in workers for a fraction of what they once made. That lowers training costs and is thereby self-serving. Who else are they going to hire? Don’t mistake hyperbole for fact. Fact is, Sun Country determined it wasn’t profitable enough and has acted accordingly.
Healthcare coverage being an employment benefit only workers in “good” jobs get is barbaric and ridiculous in 2018 in the richest country on the planet.
We have come to be a country of dumbing everything down to outsourcing to the lowest bidder. They just don’t care about quality at all. Customers will be dealing with uneducated, inexperienced, inarticulate third party, employees of which turnover will be common. The American consumer really needs to refuse to do business with the likes of this. Unfortunately they’ve always got the unsuspecting passengers by the short hairs, sometimes the only game in town, and they know it.
As a former union member, this doesn’t sit well with me either. Oh well, that’s life.
Preferential hiring doesn’t mean anything. These employees are fired outright. The new company needs employees so those employees are doing the subcontractor a favor. The fired employees already have airport badges and have had background checks. They already know what to do and need very little training. But instead of making $20+ an hour they’ll start out at $9 for the same job but little to no benefits.
Hopefully these employees will get other jobs at other airlines and not help out the airline that f—d them over by firing them and then pushing them to the subcontractor in order to insure a smooth transition.
Sounds like the baggage folk did a bit of a wildcat strike. Passengers should be glad the pilots didn’t don parachutes and do the same midflight.