Wheels Up: An Airline Changes Direction

By: Bill Whitaker
Topics: Field Notes

(CBS)

Change isn't easy. Just ask the workers and managers at American Airlines' sprawling maintenance facility in Tulsa. But faced with the choice -- change or lose their jobs to lower-cost plants overseas -- the Tulsa workers bit the bullet and changed the way they do business.

I spent a workday at the Tulsa facility, observing and talking to workers, executives and union leaders. I saw a vibrant workplace determined to succeed in this era of globalization. (You'll see just how determined they are on tonight's Evening News.) New ideas and new practices are invited from the worker on the line and the executive in the front office. One example: I saw a machine to re-sharpen tools that a worker designed and made with a motor from his daughter's science project. That one machine saves American Airlines tens-of-thousands of dollars annually.

We hear so often that U.S. industrial workers are on the losing end of globalization. The workers and managers at American's Tulsa plant seem determined to be winners.

3 Comments +

Add a Comment


by jtwaoz February 24, 2007 1:55 PM EST: Ask the Flight Attendants that have fallen of the recall list and the ones that are about to fall off, how wonderful AA is. Some of those F/A having 20-40 years of service. Some reciving NOTHING after working at a career for 20 some years. This story is totally without all the Facts.; Reply to this comment


by jasona300 February 23, 2007 10:16 PM EST: When was this story done? With AMR managers getting ready to line their pockets with millions of dollars made through employee concessions I'm betting you will get a different story if you talk to employees today. Mangement is about to reward themselves for the record turn-around created by the employees with no regard toward rewarding the people who made it possible. Talk to the unions today and see if they are still part of the %u201CPull Together/Win Together%u201D initiative and you will find them pulling out. This story needed up to date facts.; Reply to this comment


by cbelster February 23, 2007 2:16 PM EST: An innovative laborer can solve in an hour what it takes a boardroom to solve in 10%u2026 and often with far less collateral damage.; Reply to this comment