Northwest Airlines is in a pickle. They need to upgrade their fleet as the equipment is extremely old, but being in bankruptcy will mean that Northwest’s credit in the toilet. To get their financial house in order, Northwest will need to get significant cuts from employees to attain the BB credit rating to afford new aircraft.

So if you are Northwest’s management,  do you try to keep your employees happy and minimize pay cuts or make sure that you are set up for the future when you emerge from bankruptcy?