Airlines -- Socialist Organizations!

[shon7]

This thread is going to be fun.

Overheard two guys talking at the airport lounge the other day. Am pretty sure they were managers at some airline or held a significant amount of stock in some airlines.

The talk centered on pilots & FA's and unions. One statement that was made about these two groups (pilots and FA's) went something like: "yeah. I heard....they live in a capitalist society and hope to work for a socialist organization!"

So I guess us aviators now have a new label: socialists!

 

[Huck]

A CAPITALIST RESPONDS:

Point 1: Since the mid-1980's, it has become fashionable in business schools to preach that The Basis of All Employer-Employee Relations is CONTRACTUAL. In other words, loyalty is crap; if it ain't in writing, it don't exist.

Point 2: One element in a valid contract is EQUAL STANDING. I can't write a valid, unregulated contract with the power company, for instance, because they are a monopoly and that contract would be coercive. Likewise, I can't slide on into the chief pilot's office and sign my own contract, because we don't have equal STANDING - he can lock me out, but I can't shut him down. Now, if ALL of his pilots go in together, we suddenly have equal standing.

There was a great scene in that old BBC comedy Fawlty Towers. The owner needed his chef to work overtime, and the chef talked him into time and a half. Owner said, "I pay you for two hours, you clear off after half an hour. That's socialism." Chef responds, "Oh no, Mr. Fawlty, that's the free market!"