Name one rank and file who is happy with these payouts.....you won't find any. You Hopeful, just happen to be on a public forum venting your anger...the same anger everyone else has. This is corporate America at it's best (or worst for a better word). I agree with the TWU's stance at this juncture (no surprise). Albeit, could have been done weeks ago but I believe is the right way to handle this. What will displaying faces on national tv do? TWU has moved on to Capital Hill. Did the FAs...NO...the pilots....NO! There are more ways to handle things then a few photo opps.
TWU Tries to Join the Fray
- Thread starter Hopeful
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ch53D
Senior
- Jan 21, 2007
- 260
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Bill, I don’t see many signatures from Oklahoma on the petition. I guess everyone is happy or the TWU just hasn’t got the word out yet.
Bill, I'm trying real hard to agree with the "take to the the Hill" stance. But I have some questions: What exactly are we going there for? Will the union be paying, or at least assisting all who want to go, or just a select few?
eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
- 15,959
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Who exactly is defending it? I've seen one or two people comment on how AMR isn't being as greedy as other CEO's, but I haven't seen a single person on these boards come out and say that the execs deserve these bonuses.
Perhaps, but it's still too late, Bill. The Board has already presumably signed their concurrence this morning, and the checks are in the mail.
And when AMR's stock outperforms the peer group again in 2007, they'll be issued more options next year.
Perhaps a few people believe profit sharing will be triggered for 2007, which will make it OK.
I'm not as convinced, especially after this morning's earnings release.
Read thru the chaff, and you see domestic RASM is only up 1%, compared to 20% to Asia, and approx 10% to Europe and Latin America. Costs including fuel are expected to rise by 2%, pretty much wiping out the domestic RASM gains.
More than one analyst called the 1Q numbers discouraging, and I don't expect it to get any better.
Don't get me wrong -- $81M in 1Q is fairly good performance, but AMR will need to bring in at least $400M during the next two quarters if profit sharing is to be triggered, and hope for at least $20M in 4Q.
As a point of reference, 4Q is usually the worst: in 4Q06, a $17M profit, 4Q05 was a $604M loss, and 4Q04 was a $387m loss.
Last year, 2Q and 3Q were approx. $300M in profit. 2005 was a combined $100M loss, 2004 was a combined $208M loss.
Is it possible that profit sharing will trigger? Perhaps. But as 2005 shows, it only takes an event like Katrina to wipe out two quarters worth of progress.
So... what are you going to do next April when bonus checks are handed out, and profit sharing checks aren't?
Probably referring to me.
Not only have I pointed out how AMR's execs are being somewhat reasonable compared to the execs of the bankrupt peer group, I had the audacity to remind them that the non-management employees received options on 35 million shares currently worth $945 million (at today's closing price). Especially when they complain that they got "nothing" while the execs loot the place.
Nearly a billion ain't "nothing" where I come from. And it's still 8.5 times more than CO's recently announced profit sharing payments to its employees. It's not as much as everyone would like, but it's still nearly a billion dollars.
I have no idea whether the AMR execs "deserve" their PUP/PSP shares. I do know that these agreements were public knowledge and that anyone could see huge potential payouts if AMR's stock outperformed.
Most of the vocal posters here were certain that AMR would file for Ch 11 protection anyeay. Check out some of the posts from 2003-04. And many posted that they sold their options on the first day they vested - since they were again certain that it wasn't going any higher. Well, AMR doesn't file for Ch 11 protection after all and the stock hit $41 three months ago. Even today, with oil much higher than in January, it's still at $32.
And all of a sudden, those same posters are angry/livid/hopping mad that the execs intend to take their variable compensation; compensation that was obviously gonna happen given a lack of Ch 11 filing by AMR, bankruptcy filings by others in the peer group, and lackluster stock performance by B6 and WN.
As I posted yesterday - AA management certainly screwed up. Instead of designing these convoluted PUP/PSP incentive plans, they should have simply distributed an additional 10 million options to themselves in April, 2003, in the same proportions as the PUP/PSP plan percentages. The rank and file wouldn't have had a clue and the management would have the same $260 million of value from the shareholders' pockets as they have with the PUP/PSP plan payouts today.
It's not like the execs woke up last spring and said "Let's loot the treasury by awarding ourselves outrageous bonuses."
All they did was dust off their existing plans and compute what they already had comin' to them.
Maybe Arpey should have filed for Ch 11 protection anyway. Could have terminated the pensions (which would really have impacted only the pilots, since everyone else's pension is completely guaranteed by the PBGC), closed the maintenance bases (shipped all of it offshore or to AL or to the MROs that would have eventually taken over the bases), rejected the leases on (or returned to the lenders the owned) 350 or so fuel hog airplanes and petitioned the court to throw out the labor contracts unless the unions agreed to even bigger givebacks. That's just for starters.
Maybe that would have satisfied the complainers.
But instead, they complain about how much stock the execs print for themselves. Stock the complainers say they don't want and wouldn't take if offered to them.
It's old news. Stupid greedy bastard management isn't some new thing Arpey and his friends just invented.
The unions failed their membership by not demanding half or two thirds (or more) of AMR's outstanding stock in exchange for such huge concessions. But the unions' collective failure isn't Arpey's problem. It's not management's job to negotiate on behalf of the unionized workforce. They pay plenty of their paycheck in dues to their union leaders, and that's where the anger should be directed.
OP
Hopeful
Veteran
- Dec 21, 2002
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- Thread Starter
- Thread starter
- #27
I love how you and the company throw the 35 million shares number around. It is a lot of shares, but when divided by 80000 or so employees it is 437 shares average per employee..
I received 446 shares which at todays price is about $14,272 and about $12,042 after the $5 a share payback.
Now you may say that $12,000 is a nice chunk of change. Not to me when I lost $20,000 a year for a six year total of $120,000.
So, you see, FWAAA, don't insult us by throwing around a monumental number like 35 million shares and make it sound like it changed our lives. Arpey received $7.5 million today.
Between this and what he got last year, he more than recouped
what he lost as did the other 870 or so managers under him have.
Keep in mind that there are probably a great deal of employees who sold their stock just to survive a little.
Now, for the unions' roles in the concessions. The TWU is a company union who would have us work for minimum wage to keep the company happy and keep TULSA open. They care more about union dues and drop to the knees if Arpey as so much as BREATHES the word Bankruptcy.
I received 446 shares which at todays price is about $14,272 and about $12,042 after the $5 a share payback.
Now you may say that $12,000 is a nice chunk of change. Not to me when I lost $20,000 a year for a six year total of $120,000.
So, you see, FWAAA, don't insult us by throwing around a monumental number like 35 million shares and make it sound like it changed our lives. Arpey received $7.5 million today.
Between this and what he got last year, he more than recouped
what he lost as did the other 870 or so managers under him have.
Keep in mind that there are probably a great deal of employees who sold their stock just to survive a little.
Now, for the unions' roles in the concessions. The TWU is a company union who would have us work for minimum wage to keep the company happy and keep TULSA open. They care more about union dues and drop to the knees if Arpey as so much as BREATHES the word Bankruptcy.
jetmechjer
Advanced
- Aug 8, 2004
- 168
- 50
THAT IS A FACT!!! I WAS THERE UP IN FRONT BOOING AS LOUD AS I COULD!! HE CAME OVER AND SPOKE TO ME AND FEW OTHERS AFTER HE LEFT THE STAGE. HE SAID WE WERE ENTITLED TO OUR OPINIONS BUT THIS WAS NOT THE PLACE FOR IT. I TOLD HIM HE WAS AS BIG OF A CROOK AS OUR CEO MR. OURPAY AND ASKED HIM WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT FULL REVOTE HE PROMISED US..................HE HAD NOTHING TO SAY ON THAT SUBJECT!!! EMAGINE THAT!!!I am told that company stooge/phoney degree holder/twu pres Jim Little was booed off the stage at the APA rally today before he finished his speech.
- Dec 21, 2002
- 321
- 77
The only way to get their attention is to bring the operation to a SCREECHING HALT!!!!Those of you unwilling to do so can leave right now, you are no use to your fellow employee.
