The bastards at American Airlines go to war

yes, they ARE bastards... amr wants to emasculate the unions and is relying on a business-friendly judicial environment to do it for them...

AMR Fires Opening Shot In Court Battle

American Airlines kicked off a week-long court hearing on its bid to abandon union contracts, telling a judge on Monday that its bankrupt parent, AMR, cannot survive without major concessions from its workforce. Hundreds of people, including lawyers and airline workers, filled the courtroom and two overflow rooms in US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan for the start of the hearing, as other unionised workers rallied outside the courthouse. Cordoned off by police, the workers held signs and chanted for fairer work terms and against AMR's plan to cut about 13,000 union jobs. AMR wants to convince Judge Sean Lane not only that it desperately needs labour concessions, but that its unions have unreasonably rejected prior attempts to negotiate those concessions. AMR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, citing uncompetitive labour costs. In opening statements, AMR lawyer Jack Gallagher said the company needs 20 percent across-the-board reductions in employee costs, half of which must come from medical benefits.

bankruptcy should be a chance to make things right, not a hunting license...

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The bastards at American Airlines - we KNEW this was coming

these pricks have telegraphed this move from day one...

AMR To Seek Termination Of Contracts

AMR, the bankrupt parent of American Airlines, will ask a US bankruptcy court to reject nine collective bargaining agreements with unions, after failing to secure cost-cutting concessions, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

Barring any last-minute agreement during ongoing negotiations with its unions, AMR will seek court approval to terminate the union contracts within a week in the Manhattan bankruptcy court, the report said, citing two sources it did not name.

AMR declined to confirm or deny the report, but spokesman Bruce Hicks said in a statement the company will update the court on the progress of its labor talks during a court hearing on Thursday.

"Our challenge remains the same: work quickly to restructure our contracts, achieve the targeted cost savings and begin implementing the changes so we can emerge from restructuring and return to a growing, profitable company," Hicks said.

yep... bankruptcy... the ultimate union-buster...

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The bastards at American Airlines say they want "consensual" agreements but I ain't buyin' it

the game they're playing is to make all the right noises but not to offer a damn thing and then when the unions call them on it, they blame the unions for not being "a collaborative part of the solution"... this just sets the stage for american management to seek a solution from the bankruptcy court which they have already figured out is sympathetic to management... this will ensure that contracts are eviscerated, wages slashed and a staggering number of employees kicked to the curb... you don't have to be a mind-reader to figure out this kind of bogus scenario...

American Airlines said time is running out for its unions to reach negotiated deals on cost savings targets and hinted it could ask the bankruptcy court to impose contracts on its union workers in order to win the savings the airline says it needs to exit Chapter 11.

"Every day that passes without new agreements introduces more risk to our situation," American's parent company, AMR, said in a negotiations update.

"Time is running out for union leaders to be a collaborative part of the solution," the airline said.

Earlier this week the standoff between the bankrupt carrier and its pilots' union grew increasingly tense, with the union saying the airline had little interest in reaching consensual deals with workers.

The carrier has said, however, that it prefers consensual deals to having terms imposed on workers by the court, as often happens in bankruptcy proceedings if the sides reach an impasse.

AMR repeated that position on Friday, saying company negotiators were prepared to meet at any time and that it would continue to be responsive to all union requests related to term sheets, savings targets, proposal valuations and the business plan.

But at least one union remained doubtful.

"It takes two to tango. We're not seeing a willingness to negotiate on management's side of the table," said Gregg Overman, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association.

what a load o'crap...

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Romney's Bain & Co., a job "cremator," now advising American Airlines on how to kill their unions, their pensions and their workforce

ain't this sweet...

As Mitt Romney campaigns in today’s Florida presidential primary, airline workers have been following him with a message about one of his old company’s newest clients: Airline giant AMR, the parent company of American Airlines and American Eagle. AMR, which filed for bankruptcy in November, last week announced plans to retain the advice of Bain & Co., the consulting firm where Romney worked before co-founding private equity firm Bain Capital in 1985.

“He’s talking about creating jobs,” says Transport Workers Union President James Little, but “he’s not a job creator. He’s a job cremator.” TWU represents 24,000 members at American Airlines and American Eagle whose jobs and benefits are threatened in the bankruptcy process.

AMR’s retention of Bain (for consulting on its American Eagle subsidiary) came out the same week as news that AMR had contributed less than $7 millionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif to its pension fund, out of a normally required $100 million, for the month of January. Days later, AMR increased its contribution. “I have a hard time sitting back,” says Little, “when the company is taking hard-earned money…to pay $525,00 a month to have this company come in and tell them how to cut heads.”

[...]

Reporter Terry Maxon predicted Sunday in the Dallas Morning News that AMR’s proposal tomorrow will include replacing all pensions with a 401(k), outsourcing thousands of jobs, and requiring employees to pay more of the cost of their health insurance. Maxon says those predictions were based on “conversations, management proposals in contract talks and what other airlines adopted” in their own bankruptcies.

this has all the makings of a deadly cocktail for romney, bain and american... unfortunately, american employees and retirees will still be the ones who get screwed...

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American Airlines bankruptcy - the desire “to get out of bankruptcy what you couldn’t get at the table”

no surprise here... bankruptcy hashttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif become the strategic tool of choice for negating labor contracts, jettisoning employees and kicking pension plans over to the pbgc...

here's some perspective on american airlines recent bankruptcy filing...

American Airlines’ parent company filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, throwing into question the fate of thousands of union members’ jobs, their contracts and an eight year-old partnership agreement under which they’ve made hefty sacrifices. “I was shocked that it happened when it happened…” says Transport Workers Union President James Little. “I thought we could have avoided it.”

Little, whose union represents 26,650 mechanics, technicians, and fleet service workers at American Airline and sibling airline American Eagle, believes “a major motivation” for management was the desire “to get out of bankruptcy what you couldn’t get at the table.”

Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, TWU had just reached tentative agreements with American for new contracts in some of its bargaining units that were awaiting ratification by members. Other union members at American were still working without a contract extension agreement four or more years since expiration. Although TWU has been preparing for the possibility of bankruptcy for two years, Little says management never indicated during negotiations that it could be imminent. “We didn’t get any advance notice, except perhaps five minutes before the media knew about it.”

Little suggested that the board of parent company AMR may have made the bankruptcy decision against the recommendation of CEO Gerald Arpey, whose retirement AMR also announced on Tuesday.

In a statement, Arpey’s replacement Thomas Horton said that despite a series of achievements, “as we have made clear with increasing urgency in recent weeks, we must address our cost structure, including labor costs, to enable us to capitalize on these foundational strengths and secure our future.” (An American Airlines spokesperson declined a request for comment.)

sigh...

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The Founding Fathers deeply feared popular democracy ... They rigged the system to favor the elite from the start

again, nothing we don't know but it never hurts to be reminded...

chris hedges...

The liberal class has busied itself with the toothless pursuits of inclusiveness, multiculturalism, identity politics and tolerance—a word Martin Luther King never used—and forgotten about justice. It naively sought to placate ideological and corporate forces bent on the destruction of the democratic state. The liberal class, like the misguided democrats in the former Yugoslavia or the hapless aristocrats in the Weimar Republic, invited the wolf into the henhouse. The liberal class forgot that, as Karl Popper wrote in “The Open Society and Its Enemies,” “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

[...]

American democracy arose because those consciously locked out of the system put their bodies on the line and demanded justice. The exclusion of the poor and the working class from the systems of power in this country was deliberate. The Founding Fathers deeply feared popular democracy. They rigged the system to favor the elite from the start, something that has been largely whitewashed in public schools and by a corporate media that has effectively substituted myth for history. Europe’s poor, fleeing to America from squalid slums and workhouses in the 17th and 18th centuries, were viewed by the privileged as commodities to exploit. Slaves, Native Americans, indentured servants, women, and men without property were not represented at the Constitutional Conventions. And American history, as Howard Zinn illustrated in “The People’s History of the United States,” is one long fight by the marginalized and disenfranchised for dignity and freedom. Those who fought understood the innate cruelty of capitalism.

in his article, hedges details the many instances in u.s. history where those who fought for workers' rights paid with their lives as their efforts were forcefully resisted by those serving the super-rich elites of the day... it's history worth reading - and remembering...

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The fate of democracy is at stake in Madison, Wis., no less than it is in Tahrir Square

money = power = money = power...

noam chomsky...

Concentration of income confers political power, which in turn leads to legislation that further enhances the privilege of the super-rich: tax policies, deregulation, rules of corporate governance and much else.

Alongside this vicious cycle, costs of campaigning sharply increased, driving both political parties to cater to the corporate sector – the Republicans reflexively, and the Democrats (now pretty much equivalent to the moderate Republicans of earlier years) following not far behind.

[...]

Popular anger must be diverted from the agents of the financial crisis, who are profiting from it; for example, Goldman Sachs, “on track to pay out $17.5 billion in compensation for last year,” the business press reports, with CEO Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6 million bonus while his base salary more than triples to $2 million.

Instead, propaganda must blame teachers and other public-sector workers with their fat salaries and exorbitant pensions – all a fabrication, on a model that is all too familiar. To Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker, to other Republicans and many Democrats, the slogan is that austerity must be shared – with some notable exceptions.

The propaganda has been fairly effective. Walker can count on at least a large minority to support his brazen effort to destroy the unions. Invoking the deficit as an excuse is pure farce.

In different ways, the fate of democracy is at stake in Madison, Wis., no less than it is in Tahrir Square.

for those of us who pay attention, chomsky's point has been abundantly clear for years... little to no daylight exists between republicans and democrats... both parties seek to be in power and getting that power, at least in our society as it's presently constructed, can only be accomplished with vast sums of money... where is the money...? concentrated in the hands of our super-rich elites... and there ya have it...

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Rachel Maddow | Michael Moore: The Rich and the GOP Are Destroying America's Working Class

via truthout...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

yep, that's what it's all about...

john nichols adds his thoughts...

Wisconsin State Representative Mark Pocan, the former co-chair of the legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee, says he is starting to feel as if he lives in a “third world junta.”
The crowd inside the State Capitol after
protesters stormed the building on Wednesday
night.
(MIKE DEVRIES — The Capital Times )

Wisconsin State Senator Bob Jauch, a senior Democrat, says that what he is witnessing feels like “a coup.”

Marty Beil, the head of the AFSCME Council 24, the state’s largest public employee union, said Wisconsin had been turned into “a banana republic.”

And thousands of Wisconsinites, men and women, adults and their children, public employees and private-sector workers, have poured into the state Capitol in Madison, shouting: “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

There were 7,000 people outside the Capitol at some points during night, and thousands inside.

At the close of one of the most remarkable days in American political history, a state once regarded as among the most enlightened and progressive in the nation finds itself ruled by rogue Republican operatives whose disregard for rules – and the popular will – is so extreme that the longest serving legislator in the nation, Wisconsin State Senator Fred Risser, a Madison Democrat, says: “They have not just bent the law. They have broken it.”

Risser is right. After weeks of intense debate inside and outside the Capitol, and at a point when most Wisconsinites thought a compromise was in the offering, Republican legislative leaders suddenly announced that they would pass the most draconian components of Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill – including a move to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights.

yes... shame, shame, shame...

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Using the economic crisis the super-rich elites created to further enrich and empower the super-rich elites

among other tactics, the possibility of privatizing municipalities by fiat...

from democracy now...

As a wave of anti-union bills are introduced across the country in the wake of Wall Street financial crisis, many analysts are picking up on the theory that award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein first argued in her 2007 best-selling book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." In the book, she reveals how those in power use times of crisis to push through undemocratic and extreme free market economic policies. Democracy Now! interviews Naomi Klein to discuss how the shock doctrine is being used by politicians pushing drastic cuts and reforms as a response to the financial crisis.

Naomi Klein on Anti-Union & Budget "Crisis" Bills and Shock Doctrine American-Style, Part 1



Naomi Klein on Anti-Union & Budget "Crisis" Bills and Shock Doctrine American-Style, Part 2



klein's point is very well-taken... this coup d'etat cannot be fought on a partisan basis... both the dems and the repubs are in cahoots here and it's clear that aligning with a party is only enabling the rape and pillage to continue...

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Michael Moore's view of Madison

looks like michael moore has a lot more three-dimensional, human perspective on what's taking place in wisconsin than we're getting via our esteemed news media...

first, his speech...



now, the background...

How I Got to Madison, Wisconsin ...a letter from Michael Moore

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

Friends,

Early yesterday morning, around 1:00 AM, I had finished work for the day on my current "project" (top secret for now -- sorry, no spoiler alerts!). Someone had sent me a link to a discussion Bill O'Reilly had had with Sarah Palin a few hours earlier about my belief that the money the 21st Century rich have absconded with really isn't theirs -- and that a vast chunk of it should be taken away from them.

They were referring to comments I had made earlier in the week on a small cable show called GRITtv (Part 1 and Part 2). I honestly didn't know this was going to air that night (I had been asked to stop by and say a few words of support for a nurses union video), but I spoke from my heart about the millions of our fellow Americans who have had their homes and jobs stolen from them by a criminal class of millionaires and billionaires. It was the morning after the Oscars, at which the winner of Best Documentary for "Inside Job" stood at the microphone and declared, "I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail. And that's wrong." And he was applauded for saying this. (When did they stop booing Oscar speeches? Damn!)

So GRITtv ran my comments -- and all week the right wingopoly has been upset over what I said: That the money that the rich have stolen (or not paid taxes on) belongs to the American people. Drudge/Limbaugh/Beck and even Donald Trump went nuts, calling me names and suggesting I move to Cuba.

So in the wee hours of yesterday morning I sat down to write an answer to them. By 3:00 AM, it had turned into more of a manifesto of class war -- or, I should say, a manifesto against the class war the rich have been conducting on the American people for the past 30 years. I read it aloud to myself to see how it sounded (trying not to wake anyone else in the apartment) and then -- and this is why no one should be up at 3:00 AM -- the crazy kicked in: I needed to get in the car and drive to Madison and give this speech.

I went online to get directions and saw that there was no official big rally planned like the one they had last Saturday and will have again next Saturday. Just the normal ongoing demonstration and occupation of the State Capitol that's been in process since February 12th (the day after Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt) to protest the Republican governor's move to kill the state's public unions.

So, it's three in the morning and I'm a thousand miles from Madison and I see that the open microphone for speakers starts at noon. Hmm. No time to drive from New York. I was off to the airport. I left a note on the kitchen table saying I'd be back at 9:00 PM. Called a friend and asked him if he wanted to meet me at the Delta counter. Called the guy who manages my website, woke him up, and asked him to track down the coordinators in Madison and tell them I'm on my way and would like to say a few words if possible -- "but tell them if they've got other plans or no room for me, I'll be happy just to stand there holding a sign and singing Solidarity Forever."

So I just showed up. The firefighters, hearing I'm there, ask me to lead their protest parade through downtown Madison. I march with them, along with John Nichols (who lives in Madison and writes for the Nation). Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and the great singer Michelle Shocked have also decided to show up.

The scene in Madison is nothing like what they are showing you on TV or in the newspaper. First, you notice that the whole town is behind this. Yard signs and signs in store windows are everywhere supporting public workers. There are thousands of people out just randomly lining the streets for the six blocks leading to the Capitol building carrying signs, shouting and cheering and cajoling. Then there are stages and friendly competing demos on all sides of the building (yesterday's total estimate of people was 50,000-70,000, the smallest one yet)! A big semi truck has been sent by James Hoffa of the Teamsters and is parked like a don't-even-think-of-effing-with-us Sherman tank on the street in front of the Capitol. There is a long line -- separate from these other demonstrations -- of 4,000 people, waiting their turn to get through the only open door to the Capitol so they can join the occupation inside.

And inside the Rotunda is ... well, it will bring tears to your eyes if you go there. It's like a shrine to working people -- to what America is and should be about -- packed with families and kids and so many senior citizens that it made me happy for science and its impact on life expectancy over the past century. There were grandmas and great-grandpas who remember FDR and Wisconsin's La Follette and the long view of this struggle. Standing in that Rotunda was like a religious experience. There had been nothing like it, for me, in decades.

And so it was in this setting, out of doors now on the steps of the Capitol, with so many people in front of me that I couldn't see where they ended, that I just "showed up" and gave a speech that felt unlike any other I had ever given. As I had just written it and had no time to memorize it, I read from the pages I brought with me. I wanted to make sure that the words I had chosen were clear and exact. I knew they had the potential to drive the haters into a rabid state (not a pretty sight) but I also feared that the Right's wealthy patrons would see a need to retaliate should these words be met with citizen action across the land. I was, after all, putting them on notice: We are coming after you, we are stopping you and we are going to return the money/jobs/homes you stole from the people. You have gone too far. It's too bad you couldn't have been satisfied with making millions, you had to have billions -- and now you want to strip us of our ability to talk and bargain and provide. This is your tipping point, Wall Street; your come-to-Jesus moment, Corporate America. And I'm glad I'm going to be able to be a witness to it.

You can find the written version of my speech on my website. Please read it and pass it around far and wide. You can also watch a video of me giving the spoken version from the Capitol steps by clicking here. I will be sending you a second email shortly with just the speech so you can forward a clean version of it without the above story of how I abandoned my family in the middle of the night to go to Wisconsin for the day.

I can't express enough the level of admiration I have for the people of Wisconsin who, for three weeks, have braved the brutal winter cold and taken over their state Capitol. All told, literally hundreds of thousands of people have made their way to Madison to make their voices heard. It all began with high school students cutting class and marching on the building (you can read their reports on my High School Newspaper site). Then their parents joined them. Then 14 brave Democratic state senators left the state so the governor wouldn't have his quorum.

And all this while the White House was trying to stop this movement (read this)!

But it didn't matter. The People's train had left the station. And now protests were springing up in all 50 states.

The media has done a poor job covering this (imagine a takeover of the government HQ in any other country, free or totalitarian -- our media would be all over it). But this one scares them and their masters -- as it should. The organizers told me this morning that my showing up got them more coverage yesterday than they would have had, "a shot in the arm that we needed to keep momentum going." Well, I'm glad I could help. But they need a lot more than just me -- and they need you doing similar things in your own states and towns.

How 'bout it? I know you know this: This is our moment. Let's seize it. Everyone can do something.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. This local Madison paper/blog captured best what happened yesterday, and got what I'm really up to. Someone please send this to O'Reilly and Palin so there's no mistaking my true intentions.

P.P.S. Full disclosure: I am a proud union member of four unions: the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA (the last two have passed resolutions supporting the workers in Wisconsin). My production company has signed union contracts with five unions (and soon to be a 6th). All my full-time employees have full medical and dental insurance with NO DEDUCTIBLE. So, yes, I'm biased.

yes, EVERYONE can do something...

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Now, HERE'S a speech...!

california congressional representative george miller offers a damning indictment of those who seek to destroy the u.s. middle class along with most of the values our country stands for...



from the transcript (thanks to daily kos)...

How do you build a strong middle class community on the back of lower-wage workers? You can't do it. Many years ago in America we wanted to add a strong, vibrant middle class and we did that by forming the union and giving people the right to have a say at work. Study after study where workers have a say in the workplace, they work harder, more productive, more open to new ideas.

But what do we say to workers with the governors of Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana? Do what we tell you to do, do it for less pay, do it for less benefit, and do it because we told you so. That doesn't sound like America to me. It doesn't sound like a powerful country that has the best and most productive workers in the history of the world. That sounds like something that we are not familiar with in this country.

That sounds like an autocratic system that just demands and takes but never gives.

wow...! an elected official who actually takes his duty to defend and represent the common good of his nation seriously...! who woulda thunk it...?

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AnonNews: David and Charles Koch have long attempted to usurp American Democracy

this is good...

Dear Citizens of the United States of America,

It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.

Koch Industries, and oligarchs like them, have most recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin. Governor Walker's union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process. The Koch's have helped to fuel the unrest in Wisconsin and the drive behind the bill to eliminate the collective bargaining power of unions in a bid to gain a monopoly over the state's power supplies.

The Koch brothers have made a science of fabricating 'grassroots' organizations and advertising campaigns to support them in an attempt to sway voters based on their falsehoods. Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United are just a few of these organizations. In a world where corporate money has become the lifeblood of political influence, the labor unions are one of the few ways citizens have to fight against corporate greed. Anonymous cannot ignore the plight of the citizen-workers of Wisconsin, or the opportunity to fight for the people in America's broken political system. For these reasons, we feel that the Koch brothers threaten the United States democratic system and, by extension, all freedom-loving individuals everywhere. As such, we have no choice but to spread the word of the Koch brothers' political manipulation, their single-minded intent and the insidious truth of their actions in Wisconsin, for all to witness.

it does my heart good to know there are folks like this operating out there... i'm energized to know there's an active resistance to the insidious, creeping takeover by our super-rich elites...

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"People here have acted lawfully and responsibly. There's no reason to consider arrests."

this is extremely cool...

The occupation of the Wisconsin Capitol by protesters fighting efforts to strip public workers of union bargaining rights carried on Sunday after police decided not to forcibly remove demonstrators and end a nearly two-week-long sit-in.

Roughly three hours after a deadline to vacate the building had passed and as police officers continued to look on quietly, protest coordinator Erika Wolf took to a microphone and announced: "There's really awesomely good news — that we're going to be able to stay here tonight."

A cheer went up from the several hundred protesters who had ignored a request from the state agency that oversees the Capitol to leave by 4 p.m. so that the normally immaculate building could get a thorough cleaning.

[...]

Wisconsin Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs said demonstrators who had occupied all three floors of the Capitol would have to relocate to the ground floor overnight. Anyone who left the building was barred from returning until Monday morning, although police did allow union officials to bring food into the building for the protesters.

No demonstrators would be arrested as long as they continue to obey the law, Tubbs said. By late evening, the air smelled of pizza and lemon-scented disinfectant as demonstrators quietly ate dinner and several janitors worked around them to clean the Capitol's marble floors.

"People here have acted lawfully and responsibly," Tubbs said. "There's no reason to consider arrests."

simple, quiet, peaceful determination... gives me goose-bumps...

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More from Wisconsin - "This is what democracy looks like"

john nichols writing in common dreams...

[T]he governor’s radical proposal went to such extremes in its anti-labor bias that it sparked a protest movement so large, so steady and so determined in its demands that it is now commonly compared with the protests that have rocked Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries.

paul krugman...

Last week, in the face of protest demonstrations against Wisconsin’s new union-busting governor, Scott Walker — demonstrations that continued through the weekend, with huge crowds on Saturday — Representative Paul Ryan made an unintentionally apt comparison: “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison.”

It wasn’t the smartest thing for Mr. Ryan to say, since he probably didn’t mean to compare Mr. Walker, a fellow Republican, to Hosni Mubarak. Or maybe he did — after all, quite a few prominent conservatives, including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, denounced the uprising in Egypt and insist that President Obama should have helped the Mubarak regime suppress it.

In any case, however, Mr. Ryan was more right than he knew. For what’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite Mr. Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.

it's an awakening, no doubt about it...

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After lobotomizing private sector unions and reducing American workers to slaves, public employees are next on the chopping block

it's the perfect set-up and the nyt is the perfect forum for showcasing it...

now that workers in the private sector have been demoted to being the slaves of our super-rich elites by having any collective power they might have wielded effectively neutralized by corporations, politicians and the judiciary working in tandem (remember bankruptcy as a union-busting technique?), the next logical targets are public employees who have so far been spared the ravages of our capitalist overlords... the beauty part is that support for emasculating public employees and their unions will come from those same private sector workers who will unthinkingly buy the argument that public employees should be required to make the same "sacrifices" they are being "called on" to make...

what an enormous load of grade "a" shit...

State officials from both parties are wrestling with ways to curb the salaries and pensions of government employees, which typically make up a significant percentage of state budgets. On Wednesday, for example, New York’s new Democratic governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, is expected to call for a one-year salary freeze for state workers, a move that would save $200 million to $400 million and challenge labor’s traditional clout in Albany.

But in some cases — mostly in states with Republican governors and Republican statehouse majorities — officials are seeking more far-reaching, structural changes that would weaken the bargaining power and political influence of unions, including private sector ones.

For example, Republican lawmakers in Indiana, Maine, Missouri and seven other states plan to introduce legislation that would bar private sector unions from forcing workers they represent to pay dues or fees, reducing the flow of funds into union treasuries. In Ohio, the new Republican governor, following the precedent of many other states, wants to ban strikes by public school teachers.

Some new governors, most notably Scott Walker of Wisconsin, are even threatening to take away government workers’ right to form unions and bargain contracts.

“We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots,” Mr. Walker, a Republican, said in a speech. “The bottom line is that we are going to look at every legal means we have to try to put that balance more on the side of taxpayers."

that last paragraph is the vile core of the set-up... is there anyone in our pathetic journalistic elite who can call b.s. on this stinking example of oligarchic manipulation...?

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Bush, Obama, McCain - what's the difference...? It's all manipulation by oligarchy...

chris hedges...

Obama, like Bush and McCain, funds and backs our unending and unwinnable wars. He does nothing to halt the accumulation of the largest deficits in human history. The drones murder thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as they did under Bush and would have done under McCain. The private military contractors, along with the predatory banks and investment houses, suck trillions out of the U.S. Treasury as efficiently under Obama. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus, have not been restored. The public option is dead. The continuation of the Bush tax cuts, adding some $900 billion to the deficit, along with the reduction of individual contributions to Social Security, furthers a debt peonage that will be the excuse to privatize Social Security, slash social services and break the back of public service unions. Obama does not intercede as tens of millions of impoverished Americans face foreclosures and bankruptcies. The Democrats provide better cover. But the corporate assault is the same.

in the article excerpted above, hedges is writing about a recent discussion he had with ralph nader... here's nader talking about the current assault on public employee unions that was the topic of my previous post...

And now wait till you see what they will do to the public employee unions. Part of it is their own fault. They are going to be crushed. Everybody is ganging up on them. You have new class warfare. It is non-unionized lower income and middle class taking it out on the unionized middle-income public employees. It is a classic example of oligarchic manipulation.

nader also points out how our super-rich elites have managed to virtually mute the justified outrage of liberals and progressives at what's happening to our country...

The banishment from the corporate media, Nader argues, has been one of the major contributors to the demoralization and weakening of the left. Protests by the left, which get little national or local coverage, have steadily dwindled in strength across the country. The first protest gets little or no coverage and this leads to movements, as well as the voices of activists, being diminished and finally suffocated.

nader makes what is, imho, an implied but arguable point, namely that protests require media coverage to be effective... while that may to a large extent be true, it seems to me that to not engage in protest and resistance because it won't make the news is just one more way we allow ourselves to be cowed into submission...

nader goes on to conclude with a thought that has been lurking in the back of my own mind for several years...

“The black swan question is whether something will erupt that is rare, extreme and unpredictable,” Nader said. “It is amazing that it hasn’t happened in any pockets of the country. How much more can the oppressed take before they revolt? And can they revolt without organizers? These are the two important questions. You have got to have organizers, and as of now we don’t.”

i think nader's belief in the need for "organizers" reflects his own history more than objective fact... however, i do see the real possibility for a "black swan"... in fact, i see a "black swan" event as more of an inevitability than a mere possibility...

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Welcome to the next pogrom - public employees

you can always tell when our super-rich elites have issued the latest instructions for talking points to their political and media puppets... it seems the catfood commission didn't do its job of trashing what's left of a social contract that's already shot full of holes... with unions in the private sector barely holding on in icu, next up are public employee unions... setting the stage is the quintessential stage-setter, george will, who never fails to shill for the super-rich elite agenda...

George Will joined a chorus of conservatives Sunday blaming unions for New York City's lackluster performance in the wake of a recent snow storm.

"In New York City, the issue is tangled up with the question -- and it's an open question -- whether the public employees union, to make a job action point, sabotaged street collection," Will told ABC's Jake Tapper.

"I believe -- and this is entirely tangled up with the state bankruptcy -- that the issue of public employees in their dominance of blue states, is going to be the biggest issue in this country for the next several years," he added.

but why don't we take a look behind the scenes...

from truthout...

The stage is set and the main actors in Congress and in the corporate establishment are ready to perform after rehearsing behind closed doors for the coming assault on organized labor's most powerful sector: public workers.

The final preparations were smoothed out in Obama's tax "compromise" with the Republicans, which gave details of the drama's first act. The tax plan purposely did not include a critical element for state funding, called the Build America Bonds program (BAB), which allows recession-sunk states to easily borrow money from the federal government. In the face of enormous deficits, the states would be left to drown. Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis explains:

Congressional Republicans [and Democrats] appear to be quietly but methodically executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy. This may be the biggest political battle in Washington, my Capitol Hill sources tell me, of 2011.

Public employee unions would be crippled by bankruptcy because union contracts are notoriously easy to shred in the court system, where "nonpartisan" judges always decide against unions.

To further ensure that states will become bankrupt, yet another law was recently proposed that, if approved, will keep money out of states' pockets by making it harder for states to sell public bonds. This law demands that states use overly strict accounting methods when reporting their debts to public workers' retirement accounts, so that the state's "credit worthiness" will shrivel. (Reagan used the same trick to destroy the pensions offered for private-sector workers.)

Two birds are killed with one stone: public employees will find their pensions under further attack, while states will be refused credit because of the new accounting methods. The New York Times explains:

The bill gives local governments a choice: they can report [pension obligations] the way the [Congressional] members want them to report, or they can give up the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds. That is, of course, no choice at all.

and:

In the end, I suspect ways will be found to abrogate some pension promises. But even if that does not happen, the trend away from defined-benefit pensions is likely to affect most younger public employees, as it already has their counterparts in the private sector. The retirement safety net will thus become a little more frayed.

In summary, pensions for state workers are on the cutting board, to be replaced by the 401(k) scam, while state bankruptcy will "abrogate" [abolish] union contracts. But as it stands now, states cannot legally declare bankruptcy. This minor obstacle is being handled quickly for showtime, as Pethokoukis explains:

Some Republicans hope the shock of the newly revealed [state] debt totals will grease the way towards explicitly permitting states to declare bankruptcy. Indeed, legislation amending federal bankruptcy law is currently being prepared by congressional Republicans.

The current Congress and President Obama are intentionally creating a nationwide anti-union atmosphere. The Democrats' silence over the above issues is, in fact, a signal of approval. In the same way that Obama announced a federal pay freeze for federal workers, federal actions towards labor quickly set the tone for how states deal with labor. Right-wing forces are consequently given the green light, and Democratic and Republican state representatives will do their best to implement their own anti-labor laws to ingratiate themselves to the feds in the hopes of promotion. The feds act as a music conductor and the states respond as an orchestra.

you can only imagine how much our greedy elites covet public employee pension plans... they drool over them in the same way they drool over social security and they're not going to quit until they've vacuumed up every last cent from the bottom of the pockets of the last working-class citizen left standing...

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Don't tell me this wasn't the plan all along

the plan was to break the union and this will effectively accomplish that end...

BA To Hire Lower-Paid Cabin Crew Amid Dispute

British Airways said it planned to recruit over one thousand new cabin crew on lower wages than current staff as it faces possible further strikes by existing flight attendants in August.

The Unite union, which represents 90 percent of BA's 12,000 cabin staff, criticized the move which would do nothing to end a bitter dispute which has resulted in a series of walkouts.

BA will recruit 1,250 new crew members this year and forecast that in 10 years, staff on the new terms will make up 40 percent of cabin staff.

The airline said it was making the move in light of the losses it has posted over the past two years.

"We have suffered back-to-back record financial losses and need to continue making permanent changes to our cost base to ensure our long-term survival," BA said on Thursday.

Existing cabin crew on short-haul flights from Heathrow earn an annual salary of GBP£25,700 (USD$38,490) while crew on long-haul flights from Heathrow earn GBP£35,000 on average. Those on short-haul routes out of Gatwick earn GBP£18,300.

A BA spokesman said the new recruits would work on both short- and long-haul flights and earn a salary "similar to current Gatwick crew."

an annual salary of USD$35-40K doesn't go very far in the uk, particularly if you're based in london, one of the world's most expensive cities... it wouldn't go very far in the u.s. either, for that matter... yes, there will be many who will blame this on the recalcitrance of the union and use it as an example of how unions can destroy a business... to those people i say, the adversarial, greed-driven, social-darwinian, capitalist profit model is destroying the very fabric of our society, forcing people into positions where they feel they have to fight to protect everything that means anything in their lives... that this isn't the way it should be is probably the understatement of the century...

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