MORE WORDS FROM THE TARMAC

EARTH WEEK OR EARTH DAY? WHICH IS IT?
DELTA CELEBRATES BY TURNING WEBSITE GREEN


The one recurrent joke at Delta Air Lines over the years is how much paperwork is involved in almost every aspect of Delta life. Remember how many times you heard about another tree falling in the forest because of the redundancy of reports and follow-up assignments required by Delta management?

How about the irony of all ironies…Delta is celebrating Earth day by turning the ink color on their deltanet website green! Amazing. We have single handedly felled half of the rain forest through our overzealous paperwork requirements and Delta’s contribution to the environment is to colorize our website.

Don’t despair though; we at Delta Air Lines are going to save money by requiring Northwest’s CEO to stay all the way through this process of merger. If he stays, he gets $8.5 million. Now THAT’S A LOT OF GREEN! Why not just give him $2 million to leave now. That ought to give him carbon credits for spending less than he really needs.

Speaking of saving money. During Richard Anderson and Ed Bastian’s visit to SLC, a questioner asked about the possibility of any more out-sourcing of cities. The answer was interesting, but sadly, incomplete. Mr. Anderson said that we wouldn’t be out-sourcing but in-sourcing. He didn’t specify which cities would be re-opened. Perhaps he is talking about all the Western cities that have already been axed by Delta but were retained by Northwest (PHX, LAS, PDX, SFO, SAN, SEA, etc.?)

Have any of you noticed how nervous certain Delta managers are getting lately? Many of them are boning up their resumes and checking out the early out options. Maybe they can see the trends and have noticed how many ex-Northwest execs are moving into front office jobs all over the system.

Perhaps it has something to do with the devastating rise in fuel prices today that topped $119 a barrel and caused all airline stock to plummet. You can’t even get the equivalent of a value meal with a share of Delta stock anymore!

Why is it that so many mid-level management types have accepted the fact that no pay raises will be coming in July? Do you think maybe that they have been promised something that none of the rest of us has been offered? Just a thought!

So we have been assured that industry standard pay is coming in 2010. How comforting! Another promise with no backing or written guarantee. What is it worth? Just about the same as the July 1st pay ‘reimbursement’ that conveniently went away just after our top 7 executives received $4 million in stock awards for a job well done.

Here’s a thought; if all these promises and commitments for the near future are coming from sincere leaders who mean well; why not all of us just sit down and hammer out an agreement to solidify the veracity of our management’s good will?

Let’s sign a legally binding document, stipulating what industry standard pay is and which cities they are talking about when they promise no more out-sourcing. Why not the same kind of contract that got the ‘magnificent 7’ their $4 million in stock awards on the 3rd of April? Let’s have the same security and good feeling that our leaders enjoy. We all know that we deserve it.

Oh yeah, that’s right – we need a union to do that. The IAM is the way to provide these guaranteed benefits and pay. For answers to your concerns and questions contact us at www.goiamnow.org.