WHy don't the unions ask the judge to suspend management payroll?

[CMRdvr]

Sounds like you're saying that the mismanagement of pension funds is somehow justified by "more money to the bottom line and the stockholders".

There's a fiduciary responsibility involved that has been intentionally violated. The fact that other businesses or government organizations violated their fiduciary responsibilities as well as airlines is hardly an excuse.

I'll bet if a brokerage or investment manager did the same thing to the money that belongs to the people responsible for the destruction of pension funds, those people would be screaming fraud, pressing criminal charges and filing lawsuits. Those that have destroyed pension funds should be held accountable and bankruptcy judges that premit a company to cancel a pension plan and leave a long term worker with little or no retirement should have their own featherbedding pensions canceled in turn and the executives creating the problem should be stripped of their severance packages and their own retirement. If those were the rules I'll bet ya they'd figure out how to protect those moneys and make good investments..

What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending what has happened just looking at some of the factors involved. Fiduciary responsibility may have been violated but good luck proving intent. The financial slight of hand being played is not against the law or GAAP. What is going on now was going on in the 90's only you didn't hear anybody complaining then, much like IPO's or mutual fund fees. I guess when things "look" good its ok to look the other way. I don't believe managements at companies make investment decisions for pensions, that is done by professional money managers. Where was ALPA on this before? Also it would probably not go to trial but to an arbitor and its very difficult to prove negligence or criminal intent. I agree with your position I just don't think going after these managements is practical or very useful at this time. That time would be better spent understanding what is going on(without all the drumbeating and hype) and positioning ourselves to look after our own best interests. By the way, I have no idea how to do this. If your rules were established I would bet you would be right, I just don't see it happening. This is nothing new, sad but true. Also shareholders have been getting just as much a screw job as the emloyees as they have to watch "their" money being pissed away on featherbedding and poor imvestment(company not pension) decisions by managements.

 

[Publishers]

In a free country, capitalists do only to employees what employees allow. The argument that capitalist are by nature greedy and exploitive is not one that I agree with although there are always going to be bad apples in every group.

The fact is that most of the creative capitalist I know do not even look at things from the same perspective that you do. They value the productivity and service of those that seek to join them on the quest to fill whatever market need they see.

To think that management sets out on a course to screw the workers of America is ludicrous. While many on these boards seem to think that management spends its days figuring out how to shaft the pilots, it does not happen that way.

The first two chairman's I worked for definitely had the attitude that if you were tied to incentives, they wanted you to make as much as you could because that would mean they had successful businesses. They made it a point to see that all non-union personnel got the same benefits and pay that the union did.

 

[surplus1]

CMRdvr - I agree with most of what you said in your last. I know we can't change what the powers that be have ordained, but it gives me something to whine about.

In a free country, capitalists do only to employees what employees allow. The argument that capitalist are by nature greedy and exploitive is not one that I agree with although there are always going to be bad apples in every group.

Yes, I suppose you're right and employees are more interested in their religious mythology than their economic welfare. How convenient for the pure capitalists. It's interesting that while we rush to the polls to protect the world from the horror of a possible "gay marriage" or from having all of life itself doomed by stem-cell research, we become the work units of those who champion our "values", while they steal our money and dupe us into selling our souls to the "company store"; all the while exporting our jobs to foreign lands where they can exploit even more. Yes, my friend Capitalism is indeed a greedy system and works well at making the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.

Were it not for the regulation imposed by former governments it would long since have imploded on itself, just as Communism did and we would be living much as they do in Bangladesh.

The fact is that most of the creative capitalist I know do not even look at things from the same perspective that you do. They value the productivity and service of those that seek to join them on the quest to fill whatever market need they see.

Your inference that creativity is somehow dependent on capitalism defies history. Creative minds, in most cases, only became capitalist AFTER they had been creative and many of them lost their creativity once they became embroiled in the pursuit of money, the root of most evil. Even the clerics have been caught up in the thrill of big business and are far more interested in the level of "donations" than the welfare of the flocks.

You are right that they and I do not see things from the same perspective. The true capitalist does not find and fill a market need, he creates a market need where none exists, mostly by the use of subterfuge and falsehood. A typical example is the pharmaceutical industry most of whose pills for imagined ailments create far more illness than they cure. As for their value of productivity, it has nothing to do with the welfare of those who seek to join them. but is focused on the creation of more wealth for themselves. Slave owners were not seeking to make fellow capitalists of their slaves as they lashed their backs with whips to improve their productivity. Modern capitalists would have no objection to the reinstution of slavery as long as their additional earnings were not taxed by their political bretheren.

To think that management sets out on a course to screw the workers of America is ludicrous. While many on these boards seem to think that management spends its days figuring out how to shaft the pilots, it does not happen that way.

I don't think that management sets out to screw workers, nor does management spend time figuring out how to shaft pilots. Management doesn't consider or give a da_n what happens to either one as long as it itself is not impaired in its pursuit of personal gain. As for the idea that it does what it does for the benefit of the shareholders, that's an even bigger myth than the idea you advance. The shareholders are just another nevessary evil, like the workers. As long as they don't get in the way of the thieves, they are mostly ignored. The stock market is a much bigger roulette wheel than all those in Vegas combined.

The first two chairman's I worked for definitely had the attitude that if you were tied to incentives, they wanted you to make as much as you could because that would mean they had successful businesses. They made it a point to see that all non-union personnel got the same benefits and pay that the union did.

Incentives are bribes much like I give my children to get them to mow the lawn, for nothing. Neither unions or incentives would be necessary if people were treated fairly and paid a fair wage for their labor. If the payment of a fair wage for labor were anywhere in the capitalist scheme, we would not need minimum wage laws, limits on the work week, payment of overtime or rules against child labor in sweat shops. All of those are tools used to control the limitless effort of the true Capitalist to exploit his fellow man. If a truly capitalist system existed in the United States, which it does not, you would have an opportunity to see how it really works. We've neutered it with laws, which are the only thing that have prevented it from destroying us. A few more of those laws in the right places would be helpful as there is still much room for improvement.

It's much like the concept of a "free market". In reality there is no such thing and if there were, our system would collapse on itself. A free market doesn't work and neither does a totally regulated market. The problem is to impose a balanced market. A true free-for-all would simply create anarchy.

However, if you want to believe all the myths about capitalism and free markets and the evils of organized labor, I reall don't have a problem with it. We all need a placebo of our own making, self included.