International Federation of Flight Attendants (IFFA) declared a strike against TWA The airline followed a strategy similar to Continental’s and was able to break the strike by hiring replacement employees After 10 weeks, the IFFA declared an unconditional end to the strike and sought to have its members rehired It was not until three and a half years later that all 6,000 got their jobs back Ultimately, TWA went out of business Not all airlines have had the same unhappy relationships with unions Southwest Airlines, which started as a nonunion airline, now operates with a largely unionized labor force It has continued its strategy of paying high wages and including employees in management decisions The result has been one of the highest profit margins in the industry together with high productivity of both workers and aircraft Continental has also emerged as a “different” airline More recently, it hired a new Chief Executive Officer who quickly returned the airline to profitability and established a new workplace culture in which employees were given a role in managerial decisions and were hired based in part on their teamwork skills Continental has been able to shed its old reputation as a union suppressor and has established itself as an airline that works well with unions and has a minimal degree of conflict Another approach to dealing with airline employees has been to include them in ownership United employees, for example, own the airline Other airlines in which employees have had a substantial ownership role include Western Airlines, Eastern Airlines, Northwest, Delta Airlines, and United In each case, employees exchanged equity for wage concessions Each of these airlines implemented an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) In each case, the program began with great optimism on the part of Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books/ Saylor.org 772