Originally Posted by
Bond
That assembly worker in Detroit with barely a GED deserves that 60K because it took him 20-30 years to get there, now companies want to flush him down the toilet, instead of finding ways to maintain a competitive edge. So are we the labor to pay for the sins of management? If the answer to that question is yes, then you're on the wrong side of the table, and I recommend you hurry on to the other side.
The largest shareholders in AMR are other investment firms. Vanguard, Fidelity, FMR LLC, etc. I checked Yahoo Finance to confirm my suspicions. No one really owns AMR. Lots of people probably have a piece of it and don't even know it. I looked at RJET. It is even worse. 99% of all shares are owned by investment firms. No one person is a real owner
Arpey probably holds the larger of any one person at a whooping .58% of the total of AMR shares. Bedford isn’t even mentioned as a holder of RJET. Arpey’s stake in the firm is worth nearly $7million, at the time of this post. His annual pay is $666,000, not including bonuses. He stands to lose the most volume if AMR goes belly up...i suppose. But I some how think he'll be fine. Maybe he'll have to settle working for a company worth fewer than a billion dollars. Or maybe he moves on before hand and his stock will get absorbed easily by some other investment firm. Bedford probably would have a much easier time moving on.
The entire point of this post is to point out that I sincerely doubt that any of the decision makers have any real emotional stake in these companies. When boards of directors get together, they meet with other firm’s managers. Not really the "owner's" of AMR/RJET. If AMR bites it, all of these people will be fine. They can write off their loses and move on. You might notice a slight decline in your 401k.
That’s why I come to the conclusion, the largest stake holders (not shareholders) in our companies are our employees. Rampers, FAs, Agents, Mechanics, Dispatchers, Schedulers, Pilots, etc...
The employees have the most to lose if the firms go bankrupt and the most to gain if things pick up. The employees have the most emotional stake in the company. Their entire lives pivot on these companies, driven by detached managers…not owners! If we flew planes but did not have to feel any real consequences of our actions, what kind of pilots would we be?
In my opinion, each and everyone of us should be trying to make our lives better. Getting an extra $20 or $30 an hour isn't gonna break the company bank. And safety issues shouldn't even enter into negotiation talks. If the airlines' negotiators even try, these issue should be deferred to either the FAA or an outside committee.