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  #81  
Old September 25th 05, 01:01 AM
Jon A
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On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:09:32 -0700, "Aluckyguess"
wrote:


"Jon A" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:09:19 -0700, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:


I can sympathize with your plight of 27 years, but you're evidently far
too
busy making excuses for your peers and yourself sitting on their brains
and
wanting it "both ways". This is a primary reason so many people have lost
an
affinity for unions that shoot themselves in the ass.

Grow up!

No, I don't think you can sympathize, unless you've lost everything
you have worked for your future. Again, they only have themselves to
blame for their plight. The fact that they trusted the word of a
bunch of scumbags that had no right to gamble the way they did got
them in trouble. Same could be said about marriage ;-)


The primary reasons that people are against unions is because the
general population has grown from tradesmen to management. As
managers, unions keep you honest and hence become the enemy. Get off
your ass and go down into a section of the country where there are
real workers and see what the thoughts of unions are there. Once
again, we have people claiming others talk out of their ass, when they
actually have no ass themselves.


There will always be a need for the real worker. Skilled labor is getting
very rare. I had to pay some of my machinists over 100k a year. It was tuff
to keep them they would get many job offers.


Damn, that's tough, but it's supply & demand! God bless you for
hanging in there with American workers and not sending it out to China
for 100 bucks a year. If you could have gotten them for $50K, would
you have done it? Would you have sacrificed a bit of quality for the
savings? Just curious. You say you had to pay some over 100K per
year. is that with or without the load?
  #82  
Old September 25th 05, 02:54 AM
Rich Lemert
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Aluckyguess wrote:

How can a business man screw is worker. All the worker has to do is quit and
get another job. Pretty simple.



And pretty naive! Company towns (they still exist). Blacklists. A poor
economy with high unemployment.

  #83  
Old September 25th 05, 04:13 AM
sfb
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Anybody stupid enough to blacklist would be out of business in an hour
and a half as the contingency fee lawyers would be taking numbers to sue
his ass.

"Rich Lemert" wrote in message
nk.net...
Aluckyguess wrote:

How can a business man screw is worker. All the worker has to do is
quit and get another job. Pretty simple.


And pretty naive! Company towns (they still exist). Blacklists. A
poor
economy with high unemployment.



  #84  
Old September 25th 05, 05:13 AM
George Patterson
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sfb wrote:

Anybody stupid enough to blacklist would be out of business in an hour
and a half as the contingency fee lawyers would be taking numbers to sue
his ass.


And how do you discover and prove that you're on a blacklist? Serious question,
here.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.
  #85  
Old September 25th 05, 05:14 PM
bowman
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sfb wrote:

Anybody stupid enough to blacklist would be out of business in an hour
and a half as the contingency fee lawyers would be taking numbers to sue
his ass.


Employers publish their blacklists in the legal notices section of the local
newspaper?

"Joe? Great worker, punctual, learned new skills well, and was really
conscientious. Poor guy had a lot of bad luck though, and had a couple of
work related injuries."

Translation: "the second time the dumb son of a bitch tried to run a
Workmen's Comp scam on us, we put him on light duty cleaning the crappers
with a toothbrush until he quit."



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  #86  
Old September 28th 05, 10:11 PM
Robert M. Gary
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http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs17.htm
Its likely that most of us live in states where the state law is more
restrictive.

  #87  
Old September 28th 05, 10:21 PM
Gig 601XL Builder
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"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs17.htm

Its likely that most of us live in states where the state law is more
restrictive.


And many of us don't.


  #88  
Old September 29th 05, 04:20 AM
westernskies westernskies is offline
Junior Member
 
First recorded activity by AviationBanter: Sep 2005
Posts: 1
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gig 601XL Builder
"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs17.htm
Its likely that most of us live in states where the state law is more
restrictive.


And many of us don't.
I just joined this forum, so excuse the timing of my response to the original UAL question.

As an American taxpayer, I am sick and tired of every company in financial trouble abusing the PBGC system to off-load underfunded pensions. In my view if it isn't 100% funded it isn't a pension, it is a fantasy. The unions in this country have all held the pension gun to managements head at every contract negotiation, with short-sighted management capitulating to their demands, knowing they would not be around to deal with the consequences.

Let me give you all an illustration that should make you sick- Over the last few years the US Steel industry has suffered significant losses due to antiquated resources and a "big steel" business mentality. The result is that 3 of the biggest players in the industry landed in bankruptcy. (Bethlehem, National, and J&L) All of them cited labor and pension costs as a major contibutory factor, in essence the problems were much deper than that. (Sounds like UAL doesn't it.) Anyway, to make a long story short, an investment firm out of Cleveland purchased these companies for pennies on the dollar, and immediately offloaded the pension obligations onto the US taxpayers. Then, they bundled up the three companies and sold the package (sans pensions) to Mittal Steel out of India for a tidy billion dollar profit. It is an outrage, and part of the reason why there is little or no sympathy on this post for the UAL (or Delta or Northwest, or USAir) pension woes. If you want to write letters to Congress, include this example on your list of grievances.

I do feel sorry for the UAl employees in this deal, but their union is the one who led them down the primrose path on this deal. What did the union do with the billions of dollars these people paid in union dues every month? If they were truly looking out for the best interests of these workers, they would have negotiated a fully funded pension plan with monthly contributions going into investment accounts. Instead the squeezed every cent they could out of these companies, completely ignored the issue of pension liabilities, and then blame the companies they helped bleed to death for the fact that they did nothing for these employees, either.

The entire airline industry is a house of cards (Alaska, Southwest, and maybe a couple of others excluded) and anyone with any concept of business can see this. Only a fool would rely on a company (or an industry) that is hemmoraghing billions of dollars of cash every year to fully fund your retirement 20 years later. Industry in this country is not a free ATM machine, and you can't have it both ways. You cannot expect to make $100k as a mechanic or 350K as a pilot and still expect the company to have the funds when you retire to pay your pensions, the math just doesn't work. Unless a company is consistently profitable, it will not be able to sustain high wage or pension costs, the party has to end sometime.

I know a bit about UAL, I flew well over a million miles on them between 1985-2000. I moved to PHX and switched to America West, which I can say has been very refreshing. UAL has a tired fleet and tired employees. There is no spark left, the service is abysmal, and customers sense it every time they fly. Why would you spend your money for this experience, when there are other choices available? That is the real reason UAL got into trouble, escalating labor/pension costs and declining revenues. This was a tightrope act for many years , until a third load factor (9-11, fuel costs, etc,) is applied. When the three meet, the results are predictable, (apparently to everyone but the employees, the unions, and airline management.)

As a businessman, I am also concerned about the unfair competitive advantage that these bailouts do for competition and fair trade in the industry. It is not fair for the US Government to allow UAL or any other airline to enhance it's competitive position against a Southwest or America West for example by cleaning up their balance sheet through the PBGC. It should be illegal, and it reeks of anti-trust when these companies all run for the bankruptcy courts with the same problem at the same time.

As I mentioned before, I feel bad for those employees whose pension are affected, but I don't feel responsible for picking up the tab for years of poor management and unrealistic labor contracts. Unless we tell Congress NO MORE on these bailouts then this crap will continue to escalate. If we need to let a UAl or Delta fail to get this changed, then so be it. The country and the industry wiill be stronger for it in the long run. As I said before, I feel bad for the employees affectred, but I don't feel financially responsible for the choices they made with regard to their employer, their union afilliation, or their pension.


My own pension plan is almost entirely self-funded through 401K contributions, and is augmented by sporadic company profit-sharing contributions. I chose not to rely on a pie-in-the-sky company pension plan or a corrupt union to provide for my future. Sure, it has involved sacrifices to make these contributions every year, but it was worth it. At least I won't have to make those same sacrifices in my golden years if my employer folds.
The old axiom 'pay me now or pay me later is appropriate here, unfortunately for a lot of the organized US workforce the axiom has been "pay me now AND pay me later" It can't and won't work.

My thoughts, for what they are worth.
  #89  
Old September 30th 05, 04:27 AM
George Patterson
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George Patterson wrote:
sfb wrote:

Anybody stupid enough to blacklist would be out of business in an hour
and a half as the contingency fee lawyers would be taking numbers to
sue his ass.


And how do you discover and prove that you're on a blacklist? Serious
question, here.


Well, since nobody seems to have an answer to this one, it appears that
blacklists are probably very much alive and well. At least, nobody on this group
seems to be aware of any means of detecting one. And if nobody can prove that
they're on a blacklist, I guess the lawyers are SOL.

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.
 




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