"My Story Will Tell You The Sky's The Limit At Our Company [UAL]."

Say What? That's the last line on a Wall Street Journal executive website posting declaring "Women Take Flight In Airline Operations."

NEW YORK - Equality on all levels; Wall Street Journal staff writer Susan Carey’s recent article, aimed at lofty women executives, takes off on a high note. But, “The Sky’s The Limit” at United Airlines?
Who knew... hell has skies. Out comes Sister McBitter with her response.

Dear Ms. Carey,

What a well written and researched, warm and fuzzy crock of shit.

With or without women in executive roles at UAL Corporation, here's an emerging truth for all corporations: UAL is primarily concerned with consolidating more money into fewer hands at lower cost. The true costs of doing so have yet to be tallied, but the subtotal's on the wall: Shrinking capacity; Customer Service rankings tanking at number 18 alongside US Airways; Aging, dirty airplanes crowded to shoulder-bending 89.1 per cent load factors; more than fifty thousand well paying middle class jobs outsourced or eliminated, and the list goes on. As a nation obsessed with business matrices, we've yet to measure the effect of disabling our middle class ... an odd oversight by any measure.

It's not that it isn't nice that women are executives. 

The real issue is, can either gender (anywhere, in any corporation) make a difference by delivering a new vision, counter-intuitive to prevailing executive mentality at United Airlines. Herb Kelleher, former CEO Southwest Airlines, pins Southwest financial success to this priority, in this order: 1) Employees 2) Passengers 3) Shareholders. With its greedy executives as major shareholders in UAL Corporation, United Airlines has it unsurprisingly backwards. What if women at UAL Corporation began to execute around four "rights" of workers: 1) A job in the U.S.A. 2) Decent pay 3) Affordable health care 4) Secure retirement with pension.

The world might end.

On the other hand, it hasn't ended at companies with visionary leaders of either gender.

With Best Regards,
Sister McBitter

United Employee Offers Exemplary Service

NEW YORK - In another Wall Street Journal article, a United captain takes center stage for going extra miles in creative ways, when it comes to passenger service. It’s something we do in Customer Service. And it’s in spite of UAL Corporations maniacal insistence on “standard work by Glenn Tilton” - in other words going by the book. Intuitively, Customer Service Agents know Sister McBitter is right and UAL Corp is full of shit. Rand Golletz, a leadership consultant and Wall Street Journal contributing writer, backs up Sister McBitter’s teachings with this advice to executive managers of United Airlines.

Golletz asks, “What can you learn from this story, how can you leverage that lesson and will you have the courage and smarts to come to terms with the fact that, ultimately, your best bets are the ones you place on the right people? There are more Denny Flanagans [the employee featured in the W.S.J. article].

“Find Them And Turn Them Loose!” Golletz concludes.

Are You Holding The Bag For UAL Corp Screw Ups?

Ralph Nader calls upon the uniquely titled "Vice President of Customer Experience." After reporting a half hour of barriers, rejection, and transfer calls, he finally gets through.
Now that UAL Corporation no longer prints its “Comment” cards, an ominous omission if you think about it, we can use Nader’s digging to put dirt where it belongs:

Barbara Higgins, P.O. 66100, 14th Floor, Chicago, Illinois, 60666
Tel: 312-997-8120.

Nader’s article notes, “Companies sure want you to notice them. But many make it very difficult for you to make them notice you. United Airlines service, in contrast to its safety record, would make a fertile case study by a business school entitled "How to Stiff Your Customers and Still Stay in Business." Sad, but true thanks to executive morons.

Southwest Bumping AA For Top Spot?

WASHINGTON - According to Associated Press, Southwest is close to unseating American this year as the world's largest airline, measured by passenger traffic.
A.P. sites a U.S. government report showing Southwest carried 40.3 million passengers in the first five months of the year, up more than four percent over last year.
During the same period, American carried 40 million passengers - on both international and domestic routes - down nearly two percent from last year's levels.

New Service on United Airlines between Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City

United will add a second direct flight from the U.S. Mainland to SGN by the end of October, 2007. United currently flies a daily one-stopper to Ho Chi Minh City from San Francisco.

United Airlines Pays One Lobbyist $100,000 To Attack Pensions

WASHINGTON - Not satisfied with havoc reeked in Glenn Tilton’s bankruptcy court, United Airlines paid Covington & Burling $100,000 to lobby against employee pensions, and the right to fly to China.

The firm lobbied the federal government in the first half of 2007, according to a federal disclosure form posted online by the Senate's public records office.

In other legal wrangling, airlines sued by victims of September 11 attacks are seeking testimony from FBI and CIA agents. The maneuvering aims to make government more “culpable” (to blame) for not preventing the attacks.

U.S. Workers Are Most Productive By Far

But What Good Does It Do Us?

The chart below lists dollar amounts published on B.B.C. (British Broadcasting Company) by the ILO, The International Labour Organisation. The B.B.C. explains the dollar figures represent a country’s total output in a year divided by the number of people employed. It goes on to say that East Asia has made the greatest gains in productivity, while the Middle East has declined.

But the article does not note that East Asia productivity increases is fueled by U.S. CEO’s outsourcing greed coupled with communist slave labor control over worker’s lives. And it leaves the implications up for grabs.

Also, look at the U.S productivity figure. It’s about three times the global average, and about five times greater than that of slave labor. This still isn’t good enough for UAL Corporation’s Glenn Tilton. He wants more employee give-backs, more outsourcing, and more money for himself and hand picked cronies.

The question isn’t what do these figure mean. The question is, “What will it take - from you and me - to radically change the way global business does business in the U.S.A. and elsewhere?”

• USA $63,885
• Middle East $21,910
• Global average $19,834
• LatAm & Caribbean $18,908
• North Africa $12,967
• East Asia $12,591
• SE Asia & Pacific $9,419
• South Asia $7,998
• Sub-Saharan Africa $5,062

Hillary, Huckabee Win IAM Endorsements

Senator Hillary Clinton talks with CBS News Correspondent Erin Moriarty during the IAM's 'Conversations with the Candidates'

IAM representatives at the National Staff Conference today endorsed New York Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton for President. The delegates also took the unusual step of endorsing a Republican candidate for the primaries, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

The decision to endorse a candidate for the Democratic and Republican primaries follows extensive polling of IAM members and a ‘Conversation with the Candidates’ event in Orlando, Florida, where candidates from both parties discussed their vision for the country and the role of the U.S. labor movement.

“Hillary Clinton earned the IAM’s endorsement by focusing on jobs, health care, education and trade – the bread and butter issues of the American middle class,” said IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. “She is the only candidate of either party to come forward with a comprehensive manufacturing policy and the only candidate to connect with millions of Americans who feel invisible to the current administration.”

Buffenbarger also praised the former Arkansas Republican Governor, who addressed the IAM National Staff Conference this week. “Mike Huckabee was the only Republican candidate with the guts to meet with our members and the only one willing to figure out where and how we might work together,” said Buffenbarger. “He is entitled to serious consideration from our members voting in the upcoming Republican primaries.” 

According to a recent survey of Machinists Union members, one-third votes Republican and two-thirds vote Democratic. “The dual endorsement is intended to involve all IAM members in the upcoming election,” said Buffenbarger.

Summer Of Sulky Writers

It’s Over. Labor Day Has Passed. The Season’s Bitchy Articles Have Been Written, And Written, And... . Here Are The Crabbiest

Condé Naste - The Axis of Airline Excess

“Service has taken a nosedive, but the sky is still the limit for the perks and payoffs of airline C.E.O.'s,” Conde Naste begins. You guessed it, UAL Corporation’s Glenn Tilton is in the slime light at this top travel magazine which continues:

“United Airlines chairman, president, and C.E.O. Glenn Tilton earns 1,000 times what a United flight attendant at the top of the scale takes home. Tilton’s total compensation package for 2006 was estimated at $39 million. After United flight attendants made several rounds of concessions during the company’s bankruptcy, they now earn an average salary of about $31,000. New hires make about half that, which means Tilton earns 2,000 times what newbies do.”

It’s not just your Sister McBitter and her brothers and sisters who notice. Wake up, UAL Corporation.

Blacklisted: 4 Travel Companies People Avoid - by syndicated columnist Christopher Elliott

“You've probably heard of the controversial "no-fly" list kept by the government. Maybe you know some who's on it. Maybe you're on it. Today I'm talking about a different kind of "no-fly" list: yours. Why are U.S. airlines so bad?”

This article is interesting in a twisted way, because of it’s corporate viewpoint. It blames “hiring constraints, salaries, age issues, and unions” for the plight of Middle Class Americans who work for airlines. Unlike other articles, executive greed flies under Mr. Elliot’s radar.

Speaking of “radar,” David Castelveter, spokesman for Air Transport Association, an airline trade group points out the U.S. uses antiquated radar-based air-traffic control, and it will be decades before the U.S catches up. Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom are using next-generation, precise satellite systems that permit much less than the normal 3 miles of separation between planes. Our Congress has yet to provide funding for the satellite system, although we do have tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest families.

USA Today - Summer of Pain

Reporter Marilyn Adams of USA Today gave UAL Corporation a fair shake at saying what United is doing to ease the “summer of pain.”

United: The airline said it had added extra, more sophisticated self-service kiosks beyond TSA security at O'Hare and other airports so passengers whose trips were disrupted could see whether they were rebooked, or could rebook themselves, forgoing the need to stand in line at a customer service counter. The carrier also is working on a system to inform employees and customers of flight problems accurately and quickly.”

Sister McBitter: Adding more kiosks is another word for “Outsourcing,” to a machine in this case, when passengers are screaming for personal attention. “Working on a system to inform” is what computers have been doing for forty years. That’s not proactive or visionary. That’s the least a business is EXPECTED to do.

Writer and business website author Joe Brancatelli was even less kind than Sister McBitter. "Airlines will tell you that they have added more check-in kiosks. But they don't say that they have reduced staff by a cumulative 17 percent since 2003," he said, citing government statistics. Airlines "have scheduled perhaps 20 to 30 percent more flights than the system can handle in good weather," he said. "So we get a little bad weather, and on-time drops to 50 percent."

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Representative Robert Filner, not pictured, shoves a United Airline’s agent, denies it, admits it, regrets it. Idaho Senator Larry Craig, an apparently gay, anti-gay lawmaker, pleads guilty to a men’s restroom sex scandal, denies it, admits it, and then retracts his admission. It was the luckiest day in Michael Vick’s life of recent when Larry Craig’s story broke. Vick criminally tortures dogs, denies it, admits it, and turns his life over to Jesus while a Slammermobile warms up outside his pressroom. Before that, Paris Hilton, who is known for little more than being known, gets busted for drunk driving, denies it, admits it, and rushes off to rehab which lasts considerably longer than her jail sentence.

That’s the news for August, 2007.

How can Labor issues possible muscle in on big busted blondes in rehab, dog killing born again Christians, homophobic Senators who themselves are gay, and citizen-slapping Congressmen?

It’s the news corporate America wants you to hear, in between commercial breaks. Is it any wonder that Labor Issues, admittedly dull by comparison, are crowded out of corporate slime light? Our four little issues are the rights to a 1) U.S. Job, 2) Decent Pay, 3) Affordable Health Care, and 4) Secure Retirement With Pension.

Sister McBitter offeres herself in ceremonial self-sacrifice to anyone who can make Labor issues more compelling than “news” issues.

Happy Labor Day, Every Day.

Number of Americans Without Health Insurance Escalates

The IAM recently cited a U.S. Census Bureau figure showing Americans without health insurance rose to 47 million in 2006, up from 44.9 million in 2005. Lack of access to private health insurance, including employer-provided coverage, is a major cause for rising rates of uninsured persons.

Wal-Mart Pays $4 Million to California Workers

An IAM eMail says, “Corporate behemoth Wal-Mart agreed last week to pay nearly $4 million in back pay to roughly 50,000 current and former California employees who were denied proper overtime and other wages. Wal-Mart also agreed to pay nearly $200,000 in civil penalties to the state. The announcement is the latest example of Wal-Mart’s questionable employment practices, which has included union-busting, sexual discrimination and low wages.”

Meanwhile, Wal-mart’s chief supplier, China, threatens to sell off U.S. reserves. If China were to sell off U.S. assets, the U.S. economy and the Middle Class will suffer. But for years, the Bush administration, Congress, and greedy corporations like Wal-mart have stood by idly while China’s currency manipulation and unfair trade practices have led to massive jobs loss and a record $230 billion trade deficit.