MR. GORMAN: THANKS A MILLION
FOR COMING ON BOARD!

…OR 2 MILLION!?
NEWEST EXEC RECEIVES 100,000 SHARES


Wow, the doughnut business sure must produce talented executives or is it something to do with Greyhound's recent resurgence? Whatever the case, luring Stephen Gorman away from these past enterprises to come and work for us at Delta Air Lines has cost a pretty penny.

On Dec. 1st our newest Executive Vice-President of Airport Customer Service, Mr. Stephen Gorman was given 100,000 shares of Delta stock just for hiring on with us. At the time of the transaction, this package was worth just under 2 million dollars.

He must be one talented executive. All of us will be curious to see him in action and watch what his initial moves in ACS will entail.

Quite frankly, some of us just don’t get it. What is it about today’s breed of executives that require the market place to compensate them even before they make one decision within their newest assignments? They act like rock stars or high priced athletes. They probably travel with entourages and have unseemly demands about personal perks and obscure tastes as well!

Since these executives act like over bearing athletes perhaps one should be able to check out their ‘stats’ from last season and analyze what kind of year our Delta team is going to have. With the kind of bonuses that our current set of Delta Company Officers have awarded themselves we should be finishing in the top of our airline division and going to the playoffs, metaphorically speaking of course. Anything less will be viewed as failure.

You might remember that after exiting bankruptcy, all employees received a modest amount of equity shares. What you might not know or remember is that a significant amount of stock was set aside for future awards and ‘performance bonuses’ to be paid out exclusively to management. This sum was in the form of stock and at that time was worth approximately $140 million dollars.

You see it pays to have a contract. All superstars have contracts. Whether they are movie stars or rock stars, whether they are athletes jacking baseballs out of the park, throwing touchdowns or slam-dunking their way to the playoffs, these people don’t step on the field without an iron-clad contract. They don’t risk their families’ futures without having a signature on the dotted line. You know what happens to them if they get hurt or have a bad year and are not under contract; they lose all.

All of our current management team has contracts. Even the ones who got ‘cut’ from the squad walked away with money (Whitehurst). Why should we be different? Why are we willing to allow them to have so much while we short-change ourselves? Part of the reason these managers are compensated so well is because of their ability to sell employees a line of believable garbage that keeps us waiting for the endless unfulfilled promises to bear fruit. What do you think the VRT was all about?


As a matter of fact, they act exactly like super stars under contract. What they demand, they get. We, on the other hand, sit and languish in our own world of worry and uncertainty, not knowing if we will be able to pay our current set of monthly bills or even afford to provide a decent Christmas experience for our Families.

We deserve better and with a contract, we might not be able to afford an entourage or demand outrageous perks and amenities but we will have stability, dignity, a reliable, constant source of income and a more sure knowledge that we will still be here in 5 years.

Come on people! When are we going to value ourselves as much as our Management team seems to value themselves? Let’s sign those IAM authorization cards.