do we ?
you know in other countries , take south Africa for example , the workers there actually have the backbone to oppose their own government , the miners strike a few years ago were horribly violent , but it brought world wide attention and forced their government to sit down at the table ...
I'm not advocating violence , I'm just trying to illustrate that in MANY countries , when the workers actually speak up and take to the streets instead of passively just going along with it , things tend to work out for those who stand up for themselves .
Yea right, you are funny. They would fight to allow companies to merge, which in the end will reduce the total number of people working, reduce options for workers and help these two companies do to the travelling public what they have done to their workers. This isn't our fight, they got their concessions based upon what they needed as a stand alone company. Horton went on for months saying he did not need or want this merger, the company testified that without it they expect to earn around $3.5 billion a year in profits. What does US bring to the table that AA needs? PHL? PIT? CLT? Old workers and old planes? all this merger does is eliminate another competitor and provide fewer options for consumers and workers alike.
The DOJ is actually doing their job for a change, they can use the AA's own Press statements and testimony to crush the merger if they really want to. There is no doubt that the merger would cut competition, reduce overall capacity and increase the cost of traveling for consumers. Anyone who says different is a liar, that is the objective of consolidation and that is why those laws were written.
They took away our profit sharing anyway, do we really want to see them earn billions in profits by doing to the consumers what they did to us? Yes things tend to work out for those who stand up for themselves and the time to do that was last year when we should have stood up to AA and that quack judge Lane and told them both to go pound sand with a NO vote and the second they abrogated the contracts walked off the job. If we didn't stand up then why the hell would or should we "stand up" now? Nobody cares, most of us are not looking forward to all the problems this merger would create for us either. Management screwed us now you expect us to fight to make them even richer? Maybe Horton wont get to walk away with his $20 million after all, maybe the board will simply fire him for providing the DOJ with everything they needed to block this merger and the huge windfall everyone except the workers would have seen? Maybe their arrogant and flagrant disregard for the law limiting such windfalls helped sparked the governments objection? Looks like Lane, by failing to squash the request and admonish the company for even proposing such a payout may have inadvertently screwed all the people he was pandering to? These are the two worst employers in the industry, do you really think any of us are going to fight for them? Our jobs are no more at risk as a result of this action than they were before they sued, if anything our jobs are more secure because mergers don't increase overall employment, they almost always result in lower overall employment.
I say go ahead and block the merger and give me back my profit sharing. The only bad part is that with USAIR still in the game with their pathetic IAM in two years they will likely still be waiting for the company to talk to them and continue to drag down the industry average and drag down the increase we will see with the mid term wage adjustment.
Yea, fight the government to help make sure Horton gets his $20 million, you are funny.
