What do you call planning 18 months for a forced strike (or lockout) finman? What do you call using insulting and inflammatory remarks during negotiations in the attempt to anger the employees? One example (I have many more); the demand by Scab Air management to the PFAA during negotiations language stating they would not pay to ship the body of a flight attendant home from a foriegn country, even if they died on duty. Man, that's really cold, that's the Scab Air your defending? Please finman, don't try to claim Scab Air management had any intention of "negotiating", the facts bear otherwise. This is reality sir, regardless of your management delusions to the contrary.
Your sadly hilarious statement the "at will" employees will be treated as fairly as the union employees is bad news for them. They are screwed, and they don't have a chance with anyone to at least try and defend them. The thought of Scab Air management suddenly turning legitimate and humane in respect to its workers makes one want to vomit in disgust. Incompetent management and exponentially increasing executive compensation is the glaring issue today. In 2004, the average executive made 431 times the average worker in 2004. This was up from a already insane 301 times the average worker wages in 2001. I would bet the number is 500 times or more in 2005. Quite a large problem I would say, seeing that everything you buy today is made in China. Not to forget, over $298 million is owed to the employees who gave once again to the Scab Air coffers in 1993, this after several years of high profits. Even with the New York judges ruling against management, the money still has not been paid. I presume its being appealed by greedy management, as they can never enrich themselves enough .
According to Neil "the butcher" Cohen, the scabs are being targeted for pay cuts. Scab Air management is determined to survive by driving the anti-labor agenda even further. In May, Northwest hired Neal Cohen as its top financial officer--the man who, in the same job at US Airways, terminated the pilots’ pensions and pushed other huge cuts before walking away with a $2.5 million severance package. What a guy.
Finman you can twist and turn the truth all you like. Fact is Scab Air is sinking, fast. With a failing business plan, no cash, more attacks on the beleaguered workers, and the looming January bankruptcy court hearing, it looks grim for Scab Air. Liquidation is could unfortunately (for the workers) be the end result. Good job Dougie and friends.
I realize that your hatred for NWA is not going to be swayed by anything, as you will certainly just come up with some off-the-wall example of something that NWA was alleged of doing to justify your position that NWA's attempt to become a profitable airline are somehow shrouded in evil intent. Someone with more time (and insight) than myself could lay out the entire business justification behind every decision and you'd still just keep repeating the rhetoric that you've committed yourself to.
A business in peril has to make unpopular decisions, that's just a fact of life. It's easy to sit back and hurl insults and accusations at the people making those decisions, but the question remains, what would you do in contrast to make NWA profitable? This board is supposed to be the informative exchange of ideas, not just a sounding board for "gotcha" obscure newspaper clips and bumper sticker one liners. If labor costs are the only cost that have not been aggressivily managed to date, and the company is still losing money, then there is really no option left but to bring those down to current market levels. It sucks for everyone, but the alternative is no airline at all, and most reasonable people would choose the former.
I'll just address a couple of your points, as many of them are just things that have no relevance to the issues, but are just the typical talking points from the leftist union newsletters.
1) Knowing what it knows today, do you think AMFA would have voted to save 2700 mechanic jobs and take a 25% pay cut? If the answer is yes, then obviously NWA bargained in good faith. (good faith doesn't mean you shoot yourself in the head by offering something that will lead to your own demise)
2) Planning for 18 months for a potential strike is not evidence of a forced strike, but common sense contingency planning and smart leveraging during negotiations. It may look like a cold calculated plan to run off AMFA, but NWA did what was best for NWA, which is what it is inherently obligated to do.
3) Executive pay is 500 times higher than the average worker blah, blah, blah. That is what is called a red herring. It is meant only to encite an emotional response, but has no real impact on the issue at hand. By the way, NWA VP executive level pay is maybe about 5-10 times what the average employee makes. Shocking, huh, I guess throwing around 400-500 is pretty much irrelevant when discussing the NWA issues. Of course, you are probably just using CEO pay at fortune 500 companies, which includes in it's calculation guys like Bill Gates and others that throw that average way out of whack. As you probably know, even Steenlands base salary is only about $500K, which is tiny compared to CEO's of other similarly sized companies.
4) When the $298M came due, NWA could not make that payout due to the financial situation NWA was in. Preferred stock, (which is what this stock was made up of) can not be repurchased when there are no profits. Obviously that sucks for those that held on to those stocks until recently, but NWA can't shirk it's fiduciary responsibility just to be nice.
5) You don't like Neil Cohen, we get it. He has extensive experience with the restructuring process, which is largerly why he was brought to NWA. The guy is just doing his job, which is to help NWA emerge from bankruptcy as a strong profitable company. He will earn every penny he gets here if he is able to accomplish that.
6) NWA is certainly not in a good position, but hopefully with a new business plan (which will result from a Ch.11 reorg) things will turn around. I'm glad to see that at least you're not rooting for a Ch. 7 liquidation as some on this board seem to be.
!!! That's an airline that is supposedly strapped for cash eh????
