Popular NBC Drama, NUMB3RS, Features Violence Against Ceo

Now that's entertainment. Airing recently, NBC’s cops-and-robbers show depicts a wealthy globalist, with sweat shops everywhere. He is kidnapped and abused. What’s interesting is how long other violent subjects have been the object of Hollywood entertainment and video fun. Those “other” subjects are typically battered women, or shootouts at the neighborhood cathedral. Is violence for entertainment against ceo’s and executives a viable entertainment market? The market will answer with its pocket books. Sister McBitter, having seen her share of rape, lies and heresy, finds executive violence quite refreshing - strictly as an entertainment venue.

NLRB (National Labor Robber Barons) Spark Coordinated IAM Marches

A three-block long column of union members, religious leaders and civil rights activists marched on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington to protest a series of anti-worker, pro-business rulings by the federal board. Simultaneous rallies took place at NLRB offices in more than 20 cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Denver.

“The recent string of anti-worker decisions from the Republican-dominated NLRB are a blatant assault on the most basic worker rights,” said IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. “America would be better off with no NLRB than having to contend with one that is totally hostage to the Bush administration and its corporate agenda.”

“Under Bush, America’s labor board has so failed our nation’s workers that we must now turn to the world’s international watchdogs to monitor and intervene,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. “There is no historic precedent for such aggressive efforts by the board to curtail workers’ rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining.”

Chronic Ceo Greed Contributes To Worst On-Time Performance

Widely reported U.S. Department of Transportation figures underscore the worst on-time performance (8/07) since 2000, with only 71.1 percent of flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule. UAL corporation’s airline arrived in 19th place, with 66.2 percent on time. It wasn’t because IAM Members weren’t working their tails off. Conversely, IAM Members at Southwest finished with the best on-time record with 77.7 percent on time. Congratulations to Southwest IAM Members for excellent team work among themselves, and also with the Company. Congratulations as well to IAM Members at UAL for working hard and safely with each other, despite zero support from Glenn Tilton’s profitocracy.

Ironically, the same ceo greed that makes UAL corporation a disaster for employees and customers delights Wall Street. Every time Glenn Tilton finds a new way to stiff workers and passengers, Wall Street wets its custom-tailored pants in sheer pleasure, sending shares of Tilton’s stock skyward.

That raises the question, how difficult is it to tie financial performance to something other than financial performance itself?

Remember Kentucky Fried Chicken’s “Finger-Licking Good” ad campaign? It successfully turned a negative (greasy chicken) into a positive. Tilton is doing the same thing by turning short staffing into a marketable product. Welcome to the fried chicken world of UAL.

The Rags-To-Riches Reward Program of Mileage Plus

For those who haven’t been inundated with news of UAL corporation’s debacle of declaring Mileage Plus a liability during bankruptcy and then magically discovering it to be a multi-Billion dollar asset when convenient for Glenn Tilton to do so, check out the Motley Fool article entitled “United’s Flights of Financial Fancy.”

It’s a complicated story, but the bottom line is clear.

UAL’s corporation conducted itself legally, but immorally. Don’t expect this to end anytime soon. Before it does, anti-worker lawmakers and laws have to be replaced by pro-worker lawmakers and laws.

The IAM will make it difficult - but not impossible - for Tilton to ring his latest ka-ching scheme. District President Randy Canale put out an interesting read for members addressing IAM’s role in this divestiture. Unfortunately, pro-Tilton laws and lawmakers, coupled with indifferent voters, lend support to corporations and corporate law.

United Definitely Merging With Whoever, Except According To Everyone

Fresh rumors that Delta and United are merging formed this month’s most widely reported un-news. It even prompted a phone call from Glenn Tilton to the IAM, denying the whole thing. Of course that tends to validate the story instead.

Mergers are murky by intent. Here’s what is known about mergers:

• Always bad for employees
• Details available only after deal is done
• Ceo makes out like robber baron, again

UAL’s Tilton could give a rat’s ass about the welfare of United Airlines, United Promoters, or United-anything-else. What matters to UAL’s sociopathic ceo is his half million shares of UAUA stock. Those shares vest immediately in event of a merger. The value of this pigfest is $24 Million for doing nothing -- except packing platinum lined Prada bags. Not bad for a ceo who oversaw the decimation of his workers' and retirees' pensions and benefits.

Even billionaire Warren Buffett, hardly a labor loving liberal, doubts UAL corporation’s integrity. Buffet makes no bones that management should be trying to increase shareholder value, but who wouldn’t note the sheer number stock options available to executives of this once-bankrupt company. It appears that UAL’s excuses for ditching its employees' pension obligations on taxpayers are “more fantasy than reality.” What makes it worse? UAL’s lawyers wrote into the bankruptcy agreement that the PBGC shall give up its right to return the obligation to UAL under certain circumstances -- forever.

Let’s Hope UAL Needs No New Planes For Lucrative International Routes

Why? The order books are full at Boeing and Airbus for fuel efficient, next generation long haul vehicles like the Dreamliner. Most purchasers are foreign. Only 25 of the 710 Dreamliners on order are going to Continental, and another 18 to Northwest.

So, let’s get this straight: According to UAL’s corporation, it’s high value international fliers are objects of great concern. International routes generate tons of dough. So, Glenn Tilton’s logic goes, let’s not invest in them. Instead, let’s hoard the cash to make UAL more attractive as a merger partner (see reasons for that recurrent theme). Let’s also provide “differentiated service,” meaning that these high value international customers get someone like your Sister McBitter to use their name and apologize in person for degenerating service standards -- while low value customers get to stand in line forever with no information or comfort.

There’s potential for good, believe it or not.

Global Service and other company swells famously make up a minority of passengers. Conversely, the number of passengers adversely impacted by short staffing and ceo greed represent the larger mass -- in other words, a voting block. The solution to getting even with idiot corporations like UAL lies not in striking out as individuals, but rather, in changing the laws and lawmakers that create business environments in which the unethical UAL Tilton’s of the world flourish.

UAL Corporation’s Collapsing Bridge Program Goes Way Of Bridges Themselves: Down

After a double door passenger loading bridge collapsed on the wing and engine of an airplane in Denver, it sent a message to staff-cutting gurus: There’s a price to pay for replacing good Middle Class workers with flawed technology. As a result, UAL’s executives are collapsing the Collapsing Bridge program. The question is - even when beat over the head with a jet bridge - have UAL executives envisioned anything new?

UAL’s Corporation Unsurprisingly Embraces New Technology

At first blush, it sounds pretty cool -- Passengers may check in for flights using a bar code sent to their cell phones via e-mail or text message, making the process truly paperless. Jeff Kovick, a spokesman for United Airlines in Chicago, said the carrier had agreed to the bar code standard and is considering the option.

The brushed-aside issue is outsourcing. This technology takes away human jobs. It’s another form of outsourcing. There may be some benefits in the form of offsetting short staffing woes, and to address razor thin profit margins. But wait: What if we still had a viable Middle Class making decent wages? Let’s say some of that Middle Class was employed at an adequately staffed airline ticket counter. The headaches driving technology-to-replace-humans would be lessened or would disappear. If each of us in the Middle Class has more --not consistently LESS-- money to spend, then we probably wouldn’t be as hysterically price sensitive as we are today, collectively.

United Airlines Seeks New Plane for U.S. Domestic Flights

Bloomberg News reports United Airlines is asking Chicago-based Boeing, and Airbus, to develop a new narrow-body jet for its domestic fleet.

CFO Jake Brace said at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York that United wants "the narrow-body equivalent" of a Boeing 787, to use as 737 replacement aircraft. If ever built, it wouldn't be ready until 2015, Brace added.

Boeing said in New York that the timeline to replace its best-selling 737 plane with a new version depends on future engine development and customers' expectations for productivity improvements. "This is still very much a study," Boeing added. The planemaker’s next 737 incarnation will borrow engine, carbon-fiber-composite fuselage and production technology from the Dreamliner.

What A Teacher Makes, Compared To What A Ceo Makes

Guests around a dinner table were discussing life.  One man, a ceo like Glenn Tilton, decided to explain the problem with education.  He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"  To stress his point, he said to another guest, "You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?
 
Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You want to know what I make?  I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for five without an iPod, Game Cube or movie rental.
 
"You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.  I teach them to write, and then I make them write. I make them read, read, read.  I make them use their God-given brain, not the man-made calculator. I make my students stand, placing their hands over their hearts to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, because we live in the United States of America. 
 
"Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.
 
"Then, when people try to judge me by what I earn, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant.
 
"You want to know what I make? I make a difference. What do you make, Mr. ceo?"

Can Wal-Mart Make “Made In China” Mean Something Again?

Wal-Mart is the #1 importer of Chinese goods. These are the same goods that are as honorable and reliable as Glenn Tilton’s statements to employees. You may think, “logic and ethics will prompt Wal-Mart to use it’s market power to insist on basic safety guarantees.” In reality, Wal-Mart is putting profits over people - again - by blocking laws requiring disclosure of where food comes from. Instead of looking out for consumer safety, Wal-Mart is watching its own bottom line.

While Wal-Mart stunts are unrelated to difficulties we experience daily at UAL’s corporation, the underlying problem is identical. The Middle Class is a victim of decades old laws and lawmakers that favor corporations over profits. With the collapse of America’s Middle Class, the benefits of corporate friendly laws do not outweigh the damage.

Made In U.S.A. Furniture In Demand Outside U.S.A.

The New York Times reported this curiously twisted labor tale. The newly affluent in China, Russia, India and the United Arab Emirates have embraced a surprising status symbol: American furniture. It’s considered as prestigious “as porcelain from Limoges and Italian sports cars.”

Here’s the irony: Hard-fought efforts to keep manufacturing jobs in North Carolina, where the industry has been based for more than 100 years has largely failed in recent decades, because of anti-labor laws and lawmakers. Most "American" furniture sold by Thomasville, Broyhill and Hooker Furniture actually comes from China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The irony worsens. Even as this shift drops prices in the lower and middle ranges of the market, to record lows in some cases, American spending on furniture has declined more sharply this year than at any time since 1982. It’s time to get off of our recliners and head to the voting booth. Anti-labor laws and lawmakers must be replaced with a pro-Middle Class agenda.

Lost Without A Trace: 425,000 Workers

More than 425,000 Middle Class workers mysteriously disappeared from employment rolls in 15 states between March 2007 and July 2007. That’s roughly the equivalent of eight United Airlines disappearing. What accounts for 425,000 lives?

In reality, this army of Middle Class victims have simply dropped off the “official” employment figures. It’s a result of long periods of unemployment -and broken hopes- in an anti-worker, pro-corporation economy.

Even more disturbing are warnings of continued economic downturn or recession:

• Money available to Middle Class workers shrinking steadily for more than a year
• Price of oil being bid up by Wall Street, and NOT by supply-and-demand.
• Housing prices falling in response to lending meltdown; Unsold homes at record 18-year high, representing a 13 per cent drop in home sales.
• Weak U.S. Dollar and spike in foreign investors in U.S. property and businesses.
• Sister McBitter’s favorite - A devil-may-care government squarely on the side of corporations like UAL and its poster boy Glenn Tilton.

This must change.

It’s beyond United Airlines having gone to hell at the hands of a sociopath. The country itself is now more than two decades into a macroeconomic swing to the right. That swing proved disastrous for the Middle Class. Although it’s late to be doing it, each of us must, among many things, vote pro labor and anti-corporation; Put away some of that overtime money in case of a strike; And prepare to strike UAL if necessary.

Hillary Courting The Middle Class

Clinton says her proposals to rebuild the middle class include strengthening unions, making health care and college affordable, restoring fairness to the tax system and toughening U.S. trade policy – an issue sensitive to the labor movement.

“I think it is time that we assess trade agreements every five years to make sure they're meeting their goals or to make adjustments if they are not,” said the New York senator. "And we should start by doing that with NAFTA."

IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger said, “Senator Clinton understands how vital it is to grow the middle class and ensure all working men and women have the chance for a prosperous life. Her efforts over the past two days show she is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the middle class is the engine that drives this country.”

IAM Backs Massive Investment in Skills Training

IAM sources said the IAM is joining with the Workforce Alliance, a coalition of business, civic and labor leaders calling for the largest investment in workforce training since the G.I. Bill.

Members of the coalition this week announced the Skills2Compete campaign, a national effort to give every U.S. worker access to at least two years of technical education or training that would lead to a vocational credential or an industry-specific certification.

“America’s skills gap is not a crisis that lies over the horizon. It’s here right now,” said Machinists President Tom Buffenbarger. “Aerospace companies in Wichita, for example, are desperately looking for skilled workers to fill thousands of positions. It’s hard enough when workers are looking for jobs that don’t exist. It’s far worse when good jobs go unfilled because workers don’t have access to the training or education they need to qualify for those jobs.”

The Skills2Compete campaign is aimed at providing the kind of skill-specific education that will match America’s workers with the jobs that U.S. employers are trying so hard to fill. Thousands of production jobs in the U.S. go unfilled each year because workers lack the basic training to operate precision machinery. According to the Workforce Alliance, the demand for skilled workers will remain robust in the future.