I'm not flying Delta until the CEOs clean the planes for a t-shirt

[NotGivingUp]

Employees are being asked to work for NO PAY! Work a 4 or 8 hour shift and get a t-shirt. Sounds like a good deal, huh? This is after they'd already made huge concessions in salaries and benefits. It just keeps getting better. Read it in this morning's paper.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. Non-union,

and forever proud of it. That was the mantra of most Delta employees for decades. The "family" took care of them.

Now, the employees are seeing what "non-union" get them.

Sorry, but it's hard for me to whomp up much compassion for these folks who eschewed the things that other people embraced and needed while they were in Fat City. Now that the tables are turned, I guess it's kind of hard for them to look down on union folks, huh?

[Joe Fields]

2. In my lifetime, I have seen it work both ways.

I'm sure you have, also. It seems that the pendulum never stays in the middle. It either swings too far toward the unions, or it swings too far in the direction of the corporations.

I have seen unions cripple industries, and I have seen industries break the economic backs of hard working people.

Everyone that works deserves a fair shake, whether they belong to a union or not.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

5. Of course they do,

but I grew up in a home where both parents were union members, and I ended up working as a corporate attorney, bargaining with union reps. I believe that if you want to protection of a union, you should join and support one. That's what I learned growing up, and I've never stopped believing it. Either you're in or you're out.

Believe me, having seen it from both sides - and having lived through the nightmare that Frank Lorenzo and Ronald Reagan helped to rain down on the union movement in this country in the 1980-1981 era - I am convinced that unions are our salvation, and that the pendulum has never swung so far away from unions so as to maintain the protections that workers have always - always - needed from management and the corporations.

I truly do not believe that our current outsourcing situation would have come about to this degree had unions still been intact. Another reason to thank Mr. Reagan and pray that Frank Lorenzo, when he croaks, rots in an all-consuming eternal Hell somewhere underneath Texas.

That's not a pendulum, by the way. Look at it closely, and consider the past 26 years.

It's a scythe.

[cpamomfromtexas]

6. My brother says he'd be better paid if he worked for tips as a pilot

He says he'd rather stand at the front as people get off the flight with a tip can. He figures he'd make more money that way!

Good landing, great tips for pilots! HA

[Vinnie From Indy]

7. Great post!

I couldn't agree more. In a historical context, the rise of unions in America was a brief and fleeting affair. Their rise also brought incredible prosperity to vast numbers of people.

[Joe Fields]

13. I agree. Reagan and subsequent administrations....

are killing the unions. I have belonged to the teamsters, my brother belongs to the teamsters, and my older brother belongs to the UAW, who are in the fight of their lives right now. My older brother works at Delphi, and is getting the life squeezed out of him right now. Twenty one years with Delco/Delphi, and he may not see anything from it.

But to be honest, it is beginnig to look a lot like unions are a thing of the past.

[WinkyDink]

17. Unions have never made corporate decisions, and their contracts were

ALWAYS a two-party agreement.

So I'd like to hear those examples of unions' crippling companies. (Don't say Bethlehem Steel, e.g. It's my hometown corp., and was ruined by mismanagement and industries' turning to other metal, such as aluminum.)

[MADem]

8. Not entirely true--talk to the Delta FAs who came over from WESTERN

They don't buy into that robot theme. But hey, what could they do? Under Western, they had liveable wages, a great work environment, good benefits, regular raises as they gained seniority, and a sense of community. There are plenty of WESTERN denizens wearing the Delta uniform, and most of them are stuck and disgusted. They are also the hardest workers, FWIW...

[elehhhhna]

3. They should sue for back OT pay ASAP.

[DemoTex]

4. It is all for naught.

No airline in this country can sustain operations with $70/bbl oil. None. Not even Southwest or JetBlue. If labor was free, as we calculated at US Airways a few years back, it would make only a couple of cents difference per-seat-mile (not enough to make a difference in profitability at $70 oil) in the total cost equation. Watch for cabotage (foreign airlines flying US domestic routes) .. coming to an airport near you, soon. It will be the ultimate in outsourcing. Picture LOT or TAP from BUF to LGA.

[saigon68]

10. What happens when it goes to $80 or $90 ?

That should shake out ALL but LOT etc.

[DemoTex]

12. Only the strong survive.

And strong airline is the quintessential oxymoron. I guess the state-sponsored or subsidized airlines will prevail. Others will crash and burn, economically speaking.

[saigon68]

15. Aeroflot ---Yuk

Id rather fly a C-130 to Europe than in their stuff.

Although sturdy, they have had a lot of crashes over the years

[OldLeftieLawyer]

16. I helped write

the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. I was young, new at the firm and representing Frontier Airlines, and I did my job. Professor Kahn had everyone convinced that it was the only way to go. We even managed to slip in a few million bucks in unwarranted subsidies to our carrier before the bill became law.

It was the beginning of the end.

After that, by 1980, we had Frank Lorenzo, Satan's Spawn, starting up crap carriers like Texas Air and beating Eastern Air Lines to death, without regret. Along the way, he managed to eviscerate Continental Air Lines, as well, and cause more than one suicide. He is a real monster.

Then, in August 1981, Ronald Raygun, showing what a hardnose conservative law-and-order prick he was, fired the Air Traffic Controllers, doing terminal damage to the union movement that resonates to this day.

Reagan, Lorenzo, the guy who headed up the ATC union, they were all so cocky and uncaring about the consequences of their actions. Lives were ruined. Families shattered. Our country set on a course that, even today, is sending it hurtling towards disaster.

Republicans all.

[ShortnFiery]

9. Beyond the flight attendants -

No way I get on a plane with a PISSED OFF Pilot! :P

I feel no shame with insisting that pilots, air traffic controllers & flight attendants BE COMPENSATED well before the shareholders, executives and CEO. :patriot:

[MADem]

11. The GIULIANI GROUP was responsible for the restructuring of DELTA

They got millions for it, too.

Part of the problem was that DELTA had no money to hedge their fuel costs, like SWA and others did. Now, that hedge time has passed, and the playing field is leveled. But in the meantime, DELTA employees, and the FAs especially, took it up the wazoo. The FAs have been working at close to half pay for quite awhile....

[DemoTex]

14. More on pissed-off pilots ...

The FAA recognizes that labor unrest can cause distractions in the cockpit. So much so that extra FAA line checks are scheduled for an airline experiencing any labor conflicts involving pilots. ALPA, my union, goes all out to promote strict cockpit discipline .. especially during times of labor strife. I know. Been there and done that, believe me. In my cockpit, all talk of the problems with the company (and there were always problems with US Airways' management) were verboten below 10,000-feet (sterile cockpit rule) and during high work-load periods.