Here's the problem, unions are run by people who don't work for the employers, but are employed off the backs of the union membership themselves. These featherbedders are still earning a paycheck today unilike the union membership who they ordered to the picket lines. Mister O.V. whoever he is will still be able to make his mortgage payment next month. How about the guys who are walking in a circle holding a stick in the air? The unions are only interested in doing things that keep the DUES rolling in. Follow the money, kids. Here's something that few folks ever ponder and it tells you a world of information about unions: They HURT companies, ALWAYS. And the unions know this. Look on ANY union website and you will see that they make it clear that it is everybody's DUTY to organize EVERY workplace, regardless of situation. But why is it, if unions are so damn good, that unions fight to the death against any attempt by their office workers to join a union? They KNOW that it hurts the organization. So only evil corporations should have to tolerate a unionized workforce, its rigid work rules, its reluctance to terminate the incompetent...but unions themselves should not be inconvenienced by having to abide by the same rules and conditions that evil corporations do. Unions want the freedom to do exactly what the evil corporations are prohibited from doing by the union contracts.

The other thing that you MUST understand here is that unions are about two things and two things only: MONEY and POWER. They can insist that they are about working wages, membership, and workers rights or whatever other nonsense they spew, but they are only about money and power.

The airline has to cut costs. There is just no way around this. They cannot keep paying these exorbitant salaries (yes, EXORBITANT, based on the company's ability to pay them) but the union feels that they can get jobs kept and wages high by--here's the union logic--HURTING THE AIRLINE as badly as they can.

I have worked for struggling companies before, and when they came to me and said that they were in trouble, I tried to find ways to be more productive, spend less money to get the same work quality, eliminate as much waste as I could, to keep the company afloat and my paycheck rolling in. These birds do the exact opposite and think that they can get continued paychecks and all the present jobs by inflicting as much finacnial damage as they can.

I flew NWA out of Denver back home to Chicago last week. While filling up the car at the airport gas station, I noticed an airport work truck with a union bumper sticker on it. It said something like "Strength, Unity, Pride" or words very close to that. Ever notice how union rarah propaganda never says things like "Efficiency, profitability, productivity" or things that actually HELP a company. The union mentality is that by being big and mean, they can intimidate anyone to do anything.

Unions shops are adverserial by nature. The workers hate everything and are convinced that the company is out to get them. The company wants to make money for its owners. So instead of doing what needs to be done to make the place profitable, they do as little as possible for as much as possible. They claim that a union shop is the only way to higher pay. I have worked several union jobs and every time, EVERY SINGLE TIME I leave the union job for a nonunion job and get a HUGE pay increase. When you then add in the fact that my salary was even lower at the union shop because the union steals money from the membership through dues that are used in large part to support political causes that the membership may or may not agree with and to pay the inflated salaries of union bosses, the nonunion shops are far far more beneficial for my family. You want to know how I avoid getting fired? IM THE BEST AT WHAT I DO. In the real world, the most efficient employee who gets the most done and makes the company the most money gets the cherry work assignments and the best schedules. In the union world, it's who ever has been there the longest, regardles of if there is a new guy who outproduces them. Any system where seniority is more important than work quality and quantity is hopelessly doomed to failure. If I have to depend on a collective bargaining contract to have job security, I have a lot of job improvement to do. Then again, I blame my misfortunes on myself rather than on my employer. I realize that if I'm not the best in the shop, that I have some worrying and some improvement to do. A union worker takes the same situation and worries about who has seniority and takes no personal responsibility whatsoever.

Final thought: The union mind is so disconnected from reality that if they run across someone crossing their picket line to do replacement work, they actually believe that calling that person a "scab" will make them turn around and run home. They don't understand that this person needs the work and they can call them any name in the book and they are going to go on and earn the money that the union worker has voluntarily walked away from. Sometimes the union mind then says "unga-bunga, me beat up scab" and use violence to accomplish what namecalling couldn't.

GO NWA! I will be flying on you this upcoming week!!

--Paul