over half my life before retiring, I can look back and say all airline people should join a union. The only people who were treated well after the Biedenhorns left and deregulation, was the pilots, and only cause they had a union.

If you look at the US today, the backbone of it, the worker, has been screwed so bad he can hardly function. The CEOs and their cronies of most companies, have swilled the money out of them as the workers look on helplessly. Unions have been the check and ballance. Everytime their has been a 'trust me' by the CEO, the worker has been screwed. There is no 'trust me'. I doubt Delta workers will ever organise, they are not strong enough. CEOs choose their victim pool well.

Look at the loan companies today. Country Wide etc...the credit card compaines. Endentured slavery is alive and well. Who let this happen? Our government. I have watched as presidental elections have come to picking 'the lesser of the evils'. You have only to look back at the electon of Bush versus Kerry. Kerry, in my eyes was the lesser of the evils, at least he WENT to war and didn't get his father to get him in the US COAST GUARD during our war with Vientam.

Unions, at least you would have some say, right or wrong. The era of someone looking out of the American worker is gone.

The big handicap that all unions have in this industry is the Railroad Labor Act. It severely limits the use of labor's most potent weapon - work stoppage.

Now the pilot group does carry considerable clout which in part is due to the skill-sets and training that is required initially plus the mandated training while in service. No other work group has that requirement or for that matter clout. This is all mandated by the federal government. The bottom line is without them you don't fly.

Yes, I know that there are other important work groups within an air carrier that are needed. But, from a bargaining perspective, they are at the apex of bargaining food chain. The other required government certificated (licensed) groups at an air carrier are flight dispatchers and mechanics. But due to government regulations, extensive and re-current training to the same level as pilots is not required. This places this work group a very distant second behind the pilots. All other employee groups are way down the food chain. I don't like this but, you know what, I knew this when I started in the business.

Now about unions, I was with the IAM and Teamsters and was on both sides of labor and management. Yes, unions do sometimes help to settle local or small issues. But for the bigger global issues such as benefits, scope, and pay a look at where airlines are right now will reveal that unions can't protect those items.

As for myself, the little Lorenzo exercised at Continental Airlines in '83 reinforced my believe that when you work hard and become an important asset to the company you stand a far better chance of making it. I'll go without a union.

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The Sissy And The Word Defined

It always pays to know about the industry that one works in. It allows you to think for yourself.
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Not because of the merger plans or even the bankruptcy - instead it will be because of my neighbors - yep, Delta union pilots. Or, if not them, the Northwest pilots.

So, what you have is the bus drivers driving the train.

Fire them all and start over.

Mudcat, G'Day. I hate to tell you this, but we, as pilots, are very limited in the impact we will have on this or any other deal at Delta. When is the last time a pilot group successfully exercised a work stoppage? How about any employee group? Remember the Northwest mechanics? Replaced by guys bussed in like school kids?

At any rate, if you "fire" us "bus drivers," where exactly are you going to find 9,000 new ones with an average of 6,000 hours each driving these big busses? I hope you are their first passenger

Cheers,

Kevin "Hack" King
(anyone want two dogs???)

When is the last time a pilot group successfully exercised a work stoppage?

The Railroad Labor Act prevents this unless released from mediation and after the "cooling off period".
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Think that all of the pilots should think back to the early 90's. In 1985, who would have ever thought Eastern would have folded..... and then, what happened to the pilots and the rest of the airline???

and then, what happened to the pilots and the rest of the airline???

All those formerly well paid airlines folk became landscapers, lawn mowing dudes, pressure washer, washer peoples, and Home Depot employees.

Any time I meet a former Eastern employee I congratulate them on doing their part in bringing down a once viable airline.

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The Sissy And The Word Defined

because of an inefficient business model that bled them dry and allowed "old Frankie" to come in and buy them on pennies-on-the-dollar. After which he stripped the remaining assets and feed them to Texas Air Corporation. And why did they let their business model become inefficient? Because everyone, both management and labor, did not keep their eye(s) on the ball.
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But even Borman could not have killed off the airline until the stupid unions decided to play hardball. At that point Borman just sat back and did virtually nothing and let Eastern self destruct.

It did start with the unions, but there is no indication that the pilot union at Delta is going to be that stupid and kill the merger. After all, they can operate with 2 seniority lists just like some other merged airline has been doing for 3 or 4 years.

but they pale in comparison to Borman and Delta's Dream team. I was there for it all folks! I retired from Delta after 34 years. I was there when Lorenzo ruined Continental. I was there when the government later told Lorenzo he was incompetent to run an airline and banned him from ever running a US one again. Too late, he made his money and couldn't care less about the wreckage he left behind.

But, I was there in the good times, the times you hear stories about. I quit college in my 4th year to go to work for them because...where I was from, what they paid was a lot of money. More than my friends who were out practicing law and more than my friends doing their medical residency, way more.

Delta was mostly owned by the Biedenhorns from Monroe, La, back then. They also had a big amount of Coke. They were wonderful people and we got 2 raises my 1st year plus a bonus at Christmas. Every time Mr Bienhorn came to ATL for a board meeting, he couldn't resist telling RL in Monroe how much our raise was as soon as he stepped off the plane. RL then told everyone. We loved the Biedenhorns and were paid so well we would do hand flips for the customer.

Enter Deregulation and Wall Street, telling the Biendenhorns they were backward and should let the big guys handle things. If you like deregulation or not, it ruined the small towns as well as the airlines. We use to fly into Gainesville, Columbus and many more small towns in Ga. When deregulation came along, we couldn't do that any more. The way government regulation worked was that you flew into the small towns, lost money on it, but the towns prospered. You made money off your longer routes. The government took all the figures from the loss on the short halls vs the long halls and told them what they could charge in the markets. They leveled out the price. With deregulation, letting upstarts come in and fly the 'gravy routes' NYC to FLL etc. left the little towns out. Everyone pulled out of the small towns and protected their good routes. There were fair wars over them. But the little guys in Georgia small towns lost out for good.

Next came Lorezo and the rest of the slugs. The man that owned started either Co or Texas air, committed suicide, he was just that much into his airline and his people.

Eastern was not a bad airline and the unions didn't kill it. Bad management did. I was working the group cruise desk in LA when Borman finally put the nail in the coffin. He ran his mouth one time too many about the unions....'if they didn't do XYZ...he was just gonna close it down.' The cruise companies had been victimized one time too many by his mouth. We charged almost double to the cruise companies cause Borman never bothered to see what it cost to carry these groups. He wanted the prestige. Eastern had all the buss till that point, cause we couldn't make any money off them. The cruise co said...we will pay..we can't keep having all these people calling wanting to know if they have a flight...and so it went.

I was here in ATL working the front counters when EA went under. They gave no warning, and I had crews/pilots standing there with tears in their eyes, lost jobs and no way home. I will never forget that day.

Enter Ron Allen...there are a lot of stories on how he got there...only one on how he left. He ran off Hollis Harris, a man everyone loved and respected cause he was jealous. He then went on a macho trip that Conan the Barbarian would have been envious of. Long story short, we bought PA. on a shake hands deal which was stupid and we lost our butts. One year later, we had gotten rid of most of what we bought PA for, and Allen had married his PA flight attendant!

"I retired from Delta and the pilots aren't my favorite."

Definitely wrong layovers, wrong times of year, wrong Delta Pilots. Heck, there are flight crews that I still exchange Christmas cards with My goal when I go to work is to end the trip having made someone's day better. Sometimes that's harder than others, but never impossible. I find the folks that show up to work open to avoiding the slam click can end up having a heck of a time. Do you S3 around at all?

Cheers

Kevin "Hack" King
(anyone want two dogs???)

enough votes and money to shed Allen, we hired the 'dream team'...Oh. My God!

9/11...we were all there....they evaluated the 'dream teams's ' offices 2 miles away...and left us airport people there.. They seized the moment and congress by the .... and convinced them THEY/we need money for our tragedy. The strangest thing about the government bailout was...the public/employees, and airline, got left out. Out dream team bailed with most of the money.

What government didn't give them, God help them, they found in the most unusual places. It seems that our pensions were protected...but one industrious person, some say was Michelle Burns in charge of finance, found that ...THE PENSIONS FOR WIDOWS AND ORPHANS... was not protected. Something like 42 million came out of the pension. Meanwhile, that money went into the bankruptcy proof pension for 'the dream team' I kid you know.

The old ones like me, and thousands others, climbed aboard the leaky teaky life boats that were left and took early retirement. About 2 years after we left they took our Delta paid insurance away from us. The Johnny come lately dream team with no more than 3 years seniority...kept all their millions of ill earned severance! I reallyl understand how they French got out the guillotine!

The man that owned started either Co or Texas air, committed suicide, he was just that much into his airline and his people.

His name was Al Feldman and he came from Frontier Airlines. Robert F. Six was the father of Continental. When did you work for CAL?
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who cared for their employees and CO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Six

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9CO2E0D9143Bf933a2575bCOA967948260

I went to La the same year Elvis died...I have already been with DL many years...I came back hear in the mid 80s

I graduated from the Frank Lorenzo school class of '83. Went to Western.
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then we merged with Western. We got some of the people that Frankie screwed.

I lost 8 years thanks to "ole Frankie". Oh, well it's not all bad. I would much rather be here than LA.
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was a business model that was stuck in a rut.

BTW, The "Frankie" I'm referring to was Frank Lorenzo.
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Caution - The Surgeon General has determined that constant blogging is an addiction that can cause a sedentary life style.