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My neighbor Anita, who works as a nurse in a Minneapolis hospital, was on strike for one day last week. She, along with every other nurse who works in a Twin Cities hospital, held a one-day work stoppage. Anita didn't want to go on strike, but she did. She is part of the union. In talking about the media coverage, however, Anita said something that I've heard from everyone that I've ever talked with who has been involved in a strike negotiation. The issues are complex and nuanced; they are rarely as simple as, "The pilots wanted a 40 percent increase; the airline offered 30 percent."
The media is not so good at complex and nuanced. They are good at simplifying issues and globbing onto a topic that everyone understands: salaries and stranded airline passengers. And so it goes with the coverage of the Spirit Airlines strike. There are the few bloggers and tweeters like John Stossel, of Fox Business News, that automatically takes the side of the airlines.
With the headline, Spirit Airlines Held Hostage, Stossel opines:
Spirit's relatively low pilot pay helps it offer cheap flights, which brings more customers –- which creates more jobs for pilots. I fail to understand how union demand for big pay raises helps the majority of pilots in the long run. It certainly doesn’t help passengers.
Saying this is just another example of "prideful, arrogant unions," Goodwrites blogs; the pilots are gluttonous for not accepting the 30 percent pay increase.
If Spirit Airlines goes under in the near future, it will be because of these pilots. I hope they enjoy the pay they receive on unemployment better than that 30 percent over five years they would have received in the Spirit Airlines proposal (not including other benefits increases also offered).
Tweeters don't seem too angry at the pilots, either. Just found two tweets slamming the pilots for their actions.
For the most part, the tweets have a Detective Joe Friday quality to them. Long on the facts. Short on the analysis:
What is striking (intentional pun) about this situation is that from a stranded passenger perspective, it's all quiet on the tweeter front. A virtual dearth of tweets from stranded passengers. The tweet silence is deafening. In the past 24 hours, just one lone Spirit passenger tweet.
For the most part, this is still a mainstream media story. And the story the mainstream media likes is the stranded passengers. Who can't identify and feel empathy for a family of 12 from Puerto Rico who is stuck at the Orlando airport? Elalimar Sabat shared her story:
It's a nightmare," she said.
She says it's been tough having to sleep and eat at the airport with five kids ages three to nine.
"We have to use the bathroom to take a shower, and it's very uncomfortable here," said Sabat.[...]
The airline did provide a refund for the cost of the family's tickets back to Puerto Rico. But Sabat says that money went to the travel agency they booked with on the island, and they've been closed all weekend. So the family has had nowhere to go since Saturday.
Whether you feel empathy or schadenfreude, there are plenty of stranded passenger stories. The Orlando SunNews.com has stories of several stranded passengers.
Reporter Alsy Acevedo of El Sentinel/Orlando Sentinel was on Twitter earlier today trying to connect with stranded passengers for a story she's working on. In an e-mail, she shared this
