Just wow. Fighting to restore what was stolen and/or taken under duress during the past decade was simply theater, and unions just "don't get in the way," nothing positive, nothing of value. To quote Andy Dufresne, "how can you be so obtuse?" Without labor there IS no business. $14M doesn't buy what it used to. No wonder the JCBA took so long, it was just entertainment for them.

Q. Have the unions cooperated during the merger?

A. On some things, yes; on some things, no. There’s always going to be some tension getting to a contract. There’s a certain Kabuki. Ultimately, I don’t think unions get in the way of being a successful business.

Charlie Rose Talks to United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek - Businessweek

Leaders create opportunity, they build cohesion, they find ways to make organizations successful.

lawyers create billable hours.

Any questions on what Jeffy is?

For the ignorant ones like myself


Kabuki(歌舞伎?) is a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.
The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing (歌), dance (舞), and skill (伎). Kabuki is therefore sometimes translated as "the art of singing and dancing". These are, however, ateji characters which do not reflect actual etymology. The kanji of 'skill' generally refers to a performer in kabuki theatre. Since the word kabuki is believed to derive from the verb kabuku, meaning "to lean" or "to be out of the ordinary", kabuki can be interpreted as "avant-garde" or "bizarre" theatre.[1] The expression kabukimono (歌舞伎者) referred originally to those who were bizarrely dressed and swaggered on a street.

There is a great deal of Kabuki going on at many levels, but the fact is you can have the greatest union in the world and the best workers and if your business model stinks and you aren't making money it isn't going to work.

Business needs labor and labor needs a viable business, otherwise you have nothing and nothing is what we have seen a bunch of in the last two decades.

You almost confused it with the OTHER word didn't you Joey?

I always get my Ks and B's mixed up, lol

Come to think of it, the B word may be applied here too.

Unions obviously do not get in the way, just look at the most unionized airline and you will also see the most consistently profitable airline.

For that matter, the rise and fall of the middle class tracks perfectly the rise and fall of union membership from the '30s to the '90s. I think it was this organic redistribution of wealth that fueled the economy for decades. Unions got higher wages and benefits pushed into the middle class, who then spent this money on products and services, thereby sustaining business, and so on. Socialist propaganda I know, but it seems better than companies and Wall Street taking the workers' wages and pensions and then the government spending trillions to inefficiently prop everything up. A massive redistribution of wealth out of the middle class. The PATCO strike, although illegal, was the watermark for busting unions and since then CEO salary has gone from 20x employee salary to 400x employee salary and the middle class has plummeted.

I used to get yelled at in the Marine Corps by my attack helo instructor pilot for doing the Kabuki D*** dance on the rudders.