The enemy of our profession
 

... is people like the author of this article. Wow. I couldn't have written a bigger piece of labor-hatred if I tried.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrez...eadly-embrace/

Apparently everything that is wrong with the world, including American Airlines, is our fault.

http://kernonthecob.files.wordpress....gonna-hate.gif

Just another toolbag who kept throwing up in initial pilot training and never made it to solo.

The author is getting slapped pretty hard in the reader comments at the end of the article. My faith in humanity is somewhat renewed.

Just another clueless moron who sits at his computer and spews out tons of uninformed BS. Remember, it's always ok for management to break a promise or change the conditions of said promise. Lack of moral character among management is one of this country's biggest problems, Congress included.

Columns like this one are no accident or coincidence. It is a coordinated effort by those with BIG money. This country is bought and paid for. We are left to anguish. Yet they are able to convince millions of people that it is actually OUR fault as the working class.

I usually don't don the SP badge, but come on...

This should be posted to the "Tool" thread

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/cache...frezza_136.jpg

What a complete douche nozzle.

Guy is getting absolutely eviscerated in the comments....Someone needs to dig up his email.

He is on LinkedIn, Send him a message. DBag.

Twitter him

"Where is it written that being a flight attendant is a lifetime career? What’s wrong with a five-year, one renewal, and you’re out contract? Wouldn’t it be nice to be served by flight attendants that are actually excited to come to work? Yes, safety training is important. But there is no reason to believe that a fit and alert 29-year-old should perform less safely in an emergency than a weary, overweight 60-year-old."

I would not put my photo with a statement like this if I ever wanted to fly again. Too much Visene falling into the coffee, even in First Class.

"Did they have a choice? Remember when the Machinists union committed murder-suicide at Eastern Airlines? The “victory” achieved in 1991, which drove Eastern into the ground and all its former employees onto the unemployment rolls, made it clear to the other airlines that union leadership would rather destroy jobs altogether than allow non-union workers to have them."

umm, well, yeah, that's what unions do. What a dimwit.

What needs to be done is, Outsource these D-bags! Him and most Airline CEO's of the past 20 years could easily be replaced by some kid from India, at 10 cents (or less) on the dollar and zero stock options! And I'll bet the kid from India could run a better airline!

It doesn't take a whole lot of smarts or a Harvard MBA to come up with a "Business Plan" that consists only of slashing employee's pay and benefits and outsourcing to the lowest bidder.

And when employees put up a fight, simply file bankruptcy, wash, rinse, repeat. See how easy that was?

It's ALWAYS the employee's fault, ask any Wall Street Investment Banker or Harvard MBA (Tools). :rolleyes:

This guy works for CEI, or Competitive Enterprise Institute. CEI is literally a mouthpiece for uber right wing talking points. They are a non-profit company who gets donations (from guess who) to do everything from write OpEd pieces to appear as pundits on cable news shows to author articles that 'appear' as an expert opinion but is actually group written to rile up people. My guess is this guy hasn't put in a real day or work in his life, but sits at a cube collecting money and writing articles based on ideology.

No kidding! He is probably the same guy that won't get off his phone and will complain about his $200 JFK-LAX ticket:)

Bingo.

Somehow their class and craft has been able to hoodwink the BOD's and shareholders into thinking they are some elite group of uniquely talented specialists that can do what no one else in business can do, and they deserve perpetually record breaking compensation, regardless of results and certailly regardless of the long term sustainability of their strategies. That's true to some degree across many sectors of late, but especially in the airline industry.

This is true across the spectrum. From the legacy CEO's (and other upper management positions) that squeeze short term profits by shrinking to profitability today to canibalize their own revenue and marketshare tomorrow, gifting future capacity to new entrants as they go. Or those that outsource everything and make billion dollar mistake after billion dollar mistake, to the regional hacks that just sit there and gorge at the trough of uber eazy FFD money and when either messes it up they both squeal that were it not for their executive talents the company would have lost more and besides its labors fault now give me another raise.

And pretty much all of them salivate over thinking 9-11 was some kind of permanent new world order/high water mark in employee (except them) compensation reduction and from that baseline only partial inflation increases will ever be given, thus making crew costs cheaper than the lowest post 9-11 contract in real monetary value.

As a group, and with VERY few exceptions, they are so over paid and under performing in every respect we could literally do what you suggested and not do any worse, likely do much better and definately save a ton of money.

An undergrad business major could write a more insightful case study paper than this idiot.

An undergrad business major could run a company into the ground just as well as most of the bonus monger mercenaries doing it today. Especially where there is no downside from a plausibile deniability standpoint. Make money, even when the entire industry is, and its because of your genius level "executive talent" and you deserve a raise. Lose record levels of money, and were it not for your "executive talent" you theoretically could have lost more, so you deserve a raise. Push to outsource your core business while burning the furniture to heat the house, blame labor at all times and regardless of results get paid like a robber baron tycoon at levels that are well into generational wealth.

Thanks for the laugh.

Your logon... were you going for hilarious, or mildly disturbing?

Because you succeeded.

Well done!

That is funny, and a part of the dogma that many believe, the sooner you understand that both sides have sold you and your future generations down the river, the sooner you will come to your senses. There is no such thing as labor friendly, just reality:




Union Membership: Overall (1948-2004)
U.S. Union Membership, 1948-2004
(numbers in thousands)
Year %Workforce Total members
1948 31.8 14,271
1949 31.9 13,935
1950 31.6 14,294
1951 31.7 15,139
1952 32.0 15,632
1953 32.5 16,310
1954 32.3 15,808
1955 31.8 16,126
1956 31.4 16,446
1957 31.2 16,497
1958 30.3 15,570
1959 29.0 15,438
1960 28.6 15,516
1961 28.5 15,400
1962 30.4 16,893
1963 30.2 17,133
1964 30.2 17,597
1965 30.1 18,268
1966 29.6 18,922
1967 29.9 19,667
1968 29.5 20,017
1969 28.7 20,185
1970 29.6 20,990
1971 29.1 20,711
1972 28.8 21,205
1973 28.5 21,881
1974 28.3 22,165
1975 28.9 22,207
1976 27.9 22,153
1977 26.2 21,632
1978 25.1 21,756
1979 24.5 22,025
1980 23.2 20,968
1981 22.6 20,646
1982 21.9 19,571
1983 20.7 18,633
1984 18.8 17,340
1985 18.0 16,996
1986 17.5 16,975
1987 17.0 16,913
1988 16.8 17,002
1989 16.4 16,960
1990 16.1 16,740
1991 16.1 16,568
1992 15.8 16,390
1993 15.8 16,598
1994 15.5 16,748
1995 14.9 16,326
1996 14.5 16,269
1997 14.1 16,110
1998 13.9 16,211
1999 13.9 16,477
2000 13.5 16,258
2001 13.5 16,275
2002 13.3 16,146
2003 12.9 15,776
2004 12.5 15,472



Sources: Union Sourcebook 1947-1983; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics


The author talks about spineless managers making promises they can't keep, unfunded pensions-and we keep falling for that unfunded pension trap. A pension not funded every month into your account is merely an unsecured promise to pay, keep believing the fairy tales, but you can be sure that ALPA management salaries won't take a hit.

"For spineless managers, making false promises is the easy way to dodge such fatal strikes. After all, like Members of Congress who expect to retire before Social Security goes belly up, why should an executive pick a fight today that can be fobbed off onto a successor tomorrow?

That is what needs to be fixed, for tomorrow has arrived. But where to begin?"

He offers a partial solution, but we all should know that the 401k is just a bone, a crumb thrown our way, when the pensions should be fully funded in our name-not managed by a company or union.

"Pilots are a lot trickier. I don’t know about you, but I get nervous when the pilot is my kid’s age. I’m happy to pay extra for a decade or two of experience for the person sitting in the left hand seat. Work rules can always use a tune-up, respectful of critical rest intervals, but moving these more highly compensated employees into a 401(k) plan similar to the ones the rest of us live with shouldn’t be asking too much to help assure their employer’s survival. Plus with a 401(k) they will at least know that the money is theirs and not co-mingled in the bowels of a terminally ill pension plan whose fate will surely end up in the hands of a bankruptcy judge sooner or later. And where will they be then?"






So, you fell for it and you want to blame him for pointing it out? OK.

Unions and governments just facilitate greed and stupidity, they can't fix it.