TY - BOOK ID - 117252818 TI - Up in the Air AU - Bamber, Greg J., AU - Gittell, Jody Hoffer AU - Kochan, Thomas A PY - 2011 SN - 0801458331 9780801458330 PB - Ithaca, NY DB - UniCat KW - Airlines KW - Industrial relations KW - Industrial relations. KW - Capital and labor KW - Employee-employer relations KW - Employer-employee relations KW - Labor and capital KW - Labor-management relations KW - Labor relations KW - Employees KW - Management KW - Air carriers KW - Air lines KW - Air transportation industry KW - Airline industry KW - Aviation industry KW - Scheduled airlines KW - Aeronautics, Commercial KW - Airways KW - Employees. KW - Personnel management. KW - Labor unions KW - Labor unions. KW - Personnel management UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:117252818 AB - When both an industry's workers and its customers report high and rising frustration with the way they are being treated, something is fundamentally wrong. In response to these conditions, many of the world's airlines have made ever-deeper cuts in services and their workforces. Is it too much to expect airlines, or any other enterprise, to provide a fair return to investors, high-quality reliable service to their customers, and good jobs for their employees? Measured against these three expectations, the airline industry is failing. In the first five years of the twenty-first century alone, U.S. airlines lost a total of $30 billion while shedding 100,000 jobs, forcing the remaining workers to give up over $5 billion in wages and benefits. Combined with plummeting employee morale, shortages of air traffic controllers, and increased congestion and flight delays, a total collapse of the industry may be coming. Is this state of affairs inevitable? Or is it possible to design a more sustainable, less volatile industry that better balances the objectives of customers, investors, employees, and the wider society? Does deregulation imply total abrogation of government's responsibility to oversee an industry showing the clear signs of deterioration and increasing risk of a pending crisis? Greg J. Bamber, Jody Hoffer Gittell, Thomas A. Kochan, and Andrew von Nordenflycht explore such questions in a well-informed and engaging way, using a mix of quantitative evidence and qualitative studies of airlines from North America, Asia, Australia, and Europe. Up in the Air provides clear and realistic strategies for achieving a better, more equitable balance among the interests of customers, employees, and shareholders. Specifically, the authors recommend that firms learn from the innovations of companies like Southwest and Continental Airlines in order to build a positive workplace culture that fosters coordination and commitment to high-quality service, labor relations policies that avoid long drawn-out conflicts in negotiating new agreements, and business strategies that can sustain investor, employee, and customer support through the ups and downs of business cycles. ER -