Airlines fall, victors smugly smile

[afhercdriver]

What makes me mad is how the lawyers and managers manipulate the employees. Asking for consessions a little a time so the employees don't realize what is going on. While the whole time they have a already have a play called from their playbook in. Management does this all the time. Playing one union against another is a common practice and the employees never win. It's called "Union Busting" by management. There should be laws against paying a CEO millions of dollars while the rest of the employees take it in the shorts.

Jim

 

[Draginass]

You need to do what the execs do . . . . get as much as you can, as fast as you can. Leave NOTHING under anyone else's control unless you want them to steal it.

I'm sure Tilton and his henchmen are still laughing about how they snookered the workers about of everything.

Corp execs in this country are nothing but a bunch of theives.

 

[gnx99]

Good vid! The moral of the story; have the balls to strike. That is, if the courts will let you

 

[hoover]

As I watched this video, a few thoughts occurred to me

1) We now have an entire new industry dedicated to helping companies get out of the commitments they have made => bankruptcy lawyers. What the hell kind of value system is that?

2) In future contracts, unions need to negotiate a "superpriority" status so that if companies go into bankruptcy, the employees are the last place management looks instead of the first.

3) I don't understand why some people stay with the airlines. That flight attendant comes to mind. She took a several thousdand dollar pay cut and lost her pension. But her salary is hardly irreplaceable. There are many places where an intelligent person can make way more than that. Why doesn't she just go somethat pays more and offers better benefits?

4) I used to think that bankruptcy was ok if it meant saving the company and saving jobs. But these days I tend to think that if the only way a company can survive is to ignore its obligations, then it is better if it goes under. Everyone (including the employees) would ultimately be better off.

5) Are we now becoming a society that simply uses legal trickery to ignore our oblications to each other? If so I fear for our future.

 

[AA717driver]

What the hell kind of value system is that?

This is America. That IS our value system now.

5) Are we now becoming a society that simply uses legal trickery to ignore our oblications to each other? If so I fear for our future.

Yes and you should be scared to death for the future.

Until ALL of us are willing to lay it on the line and STMFD--everywhere, nothing will change. They own us and they know it. TC

 

[hoover]

It's not about STMFD. It's about people treating each other with little or no regard. Take the corporate world today. It is full of people who spend a few years at a company focusing all their energies on improving the quaraterly results, and gettng the stock price up. After a couple of years of doing that they've positioned the company in a horribly for the future. Good paying jobs get shipped overseas leaving only low paying service jobs here. They then bail out and go to the next company where they do it all over again.

Meanwhile the average person is finding it harder and harder to keep up. Prices keep spiraling out of control, making it even harder to make a life for oneself (i.e a home, raising a family that he can spend time with, planning for retirement).

It seems we are rapidly becoming a society where the rich, who already have plenty, feel the need to hurt people in order to get more. It's the middle class that makes this country work, but this individual greed is systematically destroying it. Where does it end?

I think the upshot of all this is that no one thinks about the future anymore. It is all about me, and the here and now.

 

[RiteSideUp]

...Calfo, while I applaud you for upping your 401K, the same corrupt people can take that away too.
...

How? If you know how they could do this please explain so we can fix it before it happens again.

 

[AC560]

How? If you know how they could do this please explain so we can fix it before it happens again.

See Enron.

 

[AC560]

Didn't UAL try that?

Was some sarcasm on my part. While the management clowns at UA certainly did their part, the employee owners share a bit of the blame as well.

 

[Lear70]

You're delusional if you think anything in this country is going to change by simply voting along different party lines.

There is a systematic breakdown of protection for the middle class in this country. It started almost 40 years ago, and it started at the TOP.

YOUR Congress, Senate, and President back in the 70's started this mess. It's now akin to trying to close the barn door after the horses are out, and there isn't a President or elected official in office right now who has the balls to start the difficult, painful, and expensive process of making things right. It would be political suicide to try.

The best thing you can do is save wisely, invest intelligently, make as much money as you can, and shift your cash, investments, and property slowly into international markets as you age.

This country isn't going to be worth living in 30 years from now.

If I were a single 20-something guy getting into the aviation industry now and dead-set on flying for a living, I'd be going Ex-Pat at the earliest possible opportunity.