Transatlantic Zeppelin

« Super-size me! | Main | Oh no! Paris porn is on TV! »

May 23, 2005

Complaints from the fox that killed the hens

I still read my hometown newspaper, the Gary (Ind.) Post-Tribune. Among the more brilliant letters to the editor is this one from a Valparaiso woman today:

Please explain to me why our government lets corporations file bankruptcy, taking away 25 percent of the workers’ savings while allowing the CEOs to collect record salaries and bonuses.

United Airlines paid its CEO a bonus of $366,000 last year while seeking salary and benefit concessions from the workers. CEO Glenn Tilton’s salary and bonuses were more than $1.1 million in 2004.

...

If a company is failing, the bosses who make all the crucial decisions should be fired, and all their bonuses and the majority of their salaries should have to be refunded.

The American workers should not have to pay, with their retirement, salaries, benefits and their jobs, because of the stupidity of management.

There should be laws passed to prevent things like this from happening.

The letter-writer conveniently forgets (or doesn't care) that United Airlines (UAL) entered bankruptcy court as an employee-owned corporation. After its last restructuring in the early 1990s, UAL was bought out by its employees in one of the world's greatest experiments in letting foxes into the henhouse. UAL's trade unions promptly milked the firm for all they could get and now complain that the firm was left so cash-starved that they cannot pay the union's generous pensions. What goes around comes around.

UPDATE: Holman Jenkins of the WSJ has a good column on this topic today (5/25):

Be mindful of how these vapor benefits came into being. Until bankruptcy wiped out its vaunted experiment in worker empowerment, United was 55% owned by its employees and virtually dominated by the pilots union and machinists union.

From 1994 on, they controlled two seats on the board, held sway over a majority of others, and effectively hired and fired the CEO. To boot, labor didn't hesitate to reinforce its clout by threatening strikes and engaging in illegal work slowdowns -- a process that eventually led to the highest wages in the industry. As Rick Dubinsky, head of the pilots union, told management in 2000: "We don't want to kill the golden goose. We just want to choke it by the neck until it gives us every last egg."

Well, the goose is on government life-support now. But labor could always have used its clout to steer more eggs to the pension basket rather than the paycheck basket. A dirty little secret, however, is that it would have been crazy to do so. Pension underfunding (really, benefit overpromising) is too good a bargain to pass up -- a cheap option on government-paid pension benefits in the event of bankruptcy.

Posted by adrianjo at May 23, 2005 12:22 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.innogize.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/171

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Complaints from the fox that killed the hens:

» business insurance from business insurance
facile hatefully modernly barbecued expedites car insurance http://www.take-insurance.com/ [Read More]

Tracked on February 28, 2006 05:01 PM

» bukkake facials from Jane
bukkake teen sex teen sex teen porn [Read More]

Tracked on March 9, 2006 10:50 PM

» nude wallpapers from nude wallpapers
nude wallpapers [Read More]

Tracked on March 14, 2006 03:43 PM

» free ringtones from free ringtones
free ringtones is a niceblogers. [Read More]

Tracked on March 14, 2006 03:53 PM

» Health Insurance from Health Insurance
Health Insurance is a niceblog. [Read More]

Tracked on March 18, 2006 08:17 AM

Comments

Post a comment