IAM’s Unbroken Record of Theft, Lies and Deception
(and what do
Riverside, CA public transportation or Holisticgoals have to do with the flight
attendant profession?)
Plagiarize
transitive verb
: to steal and pass
off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production)
without crediting the source (source:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
By all reasonable measure and objective assessment, the
Delta IAM campaign is flailing about in a failed attempt to construct a clear
message or a cohesive campaign platform. A full year into this farcical
reenactment of the former disastrous AFA-CWA campaign, (the same broad
generalizations, same lack of union record, same failure to put out a contract
comparison, same attacks on flight attendants who don’t blindly subscribe to
their rigid tunnel-vision ideology, same ridiculous publicity-stunt letters
from out of touch union bureaucrats), IAM has yet to present one plan or one
goal or one substantive achievement.
If there is any notable difference between this campaign and
the last one, it is the audacity with which these staffers blatantly steal
ideas and content in a vain and frantic attempt to overcome their own
shortcomings in communications, strategy and policy. The IAM quickly removed
those pilfered slogans and taglines from their website after my April 24 blog
on the subject, but they haven’t stopped their underhanded behavior; they’ve
only become a little less obvious in their thievery.
Audacious Malarkey
If you were unfortunate enough to receive the June 1, 2013
IAM hotline message, you may have been baffled by its lack of focus and its
ambiguity. You may have noticed its random construction and its murky point.
There’s a reason for that.
They stole it outright.
Even worse, none of the original content had anything to do
with unions or contracts or flight attendants or airlines or corporations, but
hey, if you’re cherry –picking anyway, why not cherry-pick your cherry-picking?
This is a perfect measure of how delusional and out of touch this IAM campaign
is.
Two paragraphs in the IAM email:
“Fundamentally,
Quality of Life is an aggregate of both tangible and intangible components of
human well-being. Quality of Life measures will include economic health, access
to affordable health care, life expectancy, leisure time, self-reported
happiness, and equality as some of the significant factors.
Americans may have the
highest standard of living in the world, but we are suffering in the quality of
life department. We have shorter lives, filled with less leisure, more economic
insecurity and longer work hours than most of the rest of the civilized world.”
were pilfered from http://www.ridinginriverside.org.
Find the actual text on this page: http://www.ridinginriverside.org/2012/07/standard-of-living-vs-quality-of-life.html.
The author of this website is based in Riverside, California
and the main theme of the website is finding car-alternative transportation
methods.
The absolute nuttiest part of this story (although it’s
already a treasure trove for a scurry of squirrels) is that the original
author’s point is EXACTLY OPPOSITE the point the IAM email was trying to make.
The main theme of the original article is that quality of life can INCREASE,
even when standard of living DECREASES, which kind of blows the whole point of
the IAM email right out of the water.
Not only did IAM STEAL from this author, they stole from him
OUT OF CONTEXT.
Go. Read it. Look for yourself. The last paragraph of the
article says:
“We are all going to
have to find these trade-offs in the coming years. The future will be about
downsizing-- owning less, sharing more, living smaller, living closer. All of
us are going to suffer a decline in our standard of living. Done properly, however,
I think we could see a renaissance in our quality of life.” (Source: Justin
Nelson, www.ridinginriverside.org.
) . . . (BTW, this is how you credit your source, IAM genius(es).)
The second part of the IAM email is really and originally
part of a personal development tool developed by Allan Savory and called
Holisticgoal. It’s used primarily as a land management framework in the
agricultural field. Here is one application Holistigoal: http://www.umass.edu/umext/jgerber/hmpage/hmpage2/partone.htm.
Check it out and see if you can spot the questions that were in Saturday’s IAM
email. Once again, they were taken completely out of context.
Who’s in Charge?
There are questions that the Delta flight attendants should
be asking, but not the ones in that tragic, adolescent, inconsequential,
grasping IAM email. Here are the questions that any responsible potential voter
would ask before signing a card to call for an election:
1.
What is the IAM’s recent track record in
negotiations? When’s the last time they negotiated improvements into a flight
attendant contract?
2.
During the merger with Delta, why did IAM lose
every single election for every single group it had represented at Northwest
(including ACS, ground, reservations, etc.), by as much as a 70%-30% margin?
Isn’t it unusual for an incumbent to lose an election so often and so
consistently?
3.
Why did IAM allow outsourcing at 59 Northwest
stations for ground personnel during the last Northwest contract negotiations?
Do you think this strategy played a role in their overwhelming defeat in the
representational elections when Delta and Northwest merged?
4.
When will IAM provide Delta flight attendants a
line by line comparison of the IAM Continental contract with the Delta work
rules?
5.
Your website is “promising” the Delta flight
attendants an industry leading contract. What are some items that are currently
in an IAM “industry leading” contract that we don’t have at Delta? Please list
specific examples. Please explain how you will achieve those improvements at
Delta without giving up items in other sections of the contract?
6.
Isn’t it true that in the last Continental
contract, IAM gave away items in almost ALL OTHER CONTRACT SECTIONS, just to
preserve (and not raise) the hourly pay rate?
7.
Are there any items in the Delta work rules that
are superior to an IAM contract?
8.
Do you consider the IAM Continental contract
“industry leading” even though it has no trip credits/rigs/averages/minimums?
9.
Aren’t you the same people who told us AFA would
get us an industry leading contract? Why did you stop supporting AFA? Did the
“power” to achieve an industry leading contract somehow magically transfer over
to IAM and that’s why you decided to endorse them instead of AFA? If not that,
then was it just a whim to change your allegiance? Your campaign leaders
admitted to “learning” from their mistakes when supporting AFA. How do we know
that they are not still in their “learning from mistakes” process and just
trying to drag the Delta flight attendants along for the turbulent ride down a
slippery slope?
10. Why
did IAM allow rest at Continental to be reduced to as low as 7:45 from release
to report in some cases? Does IAM believe that is adequate or fair for the
Continental flight attendants after a 16 hour duty day?
11. Why
did IAM help Northwest management break the mechanic’s strike just prior to
Northwest’s bankruptcy?
12. If
the IAM thinks 14 hour scheduled/16 hour actual duty days are so arduous at
Delta, why did they allow it in the Continental contract, with even shorter
rest requirements and no behind the door guarantee?
13. If
IAM thinks the Delta crew meal policy is so bad, why did they write into a
legally-binding, black and white contract that Continental Airlines did not
have to provide ANY crew meals on ANY domestic flights, regardless of duty day
length?
14. Why
have contract negotiations at CommutAir (with only 100 flight attendants) taken
five years so far? Why was the last IAM negotiations update to its members put
out NINE (9) months ago (September 26, 2012)? http://www.iamdl142.org/fa/CommutAir/
15. If
IAM can’t write a single original email; if IAM can’t come up with an
innovative campaign slogan; if IAM can’t provide a unique thought or idea or
campaign platform, how are we supposed to believe that you will be able to
provide the work and intelligence and creativity and research and analysis to
give us the “industry leading contract” you keep promising us? Do you really
think it will be achieved just by stealing ideas and copying and pasting some
words from a bunch of random websites?
16. In
any legitimate organization with people of character and accountability,
someone would answer for plagiarizing work. Will the people responsible for
this last email be removed from their campaign positions? Will anyone at IAM be
held accountable?
17. Is
this last email an example of the type of communications we should expect if we
elect IAM to represent us? If not, why will they be different then?
18. Who’s
in charge of this IAM campaign? Where does the buck stop?
19. Who
will the IAM officers be if IAM is voted in?
20. What’s
the longest it’s ever taken the IAM to get a contract negotiated and ratified?
21. What
specific guarantees in improvements can you give the Delta flight attendants if
IAM is voted in?
22. Will
IAM promise us in writing that they will voluntarily de-certify themselves if
they can’t get us meaningful improvements in a reasonable time period (say two
years)?
23. Could
we face the same five-plus years of negotiations that the CommutAir flight
attendants are enduring (along with the freeze on improvements that go into
effect during union elections and contract negotiations)? Can you guarantee a
specific timeframe?
Shamelessness as a Strategy
While the IAM campaign obviously has no ideas and no vision
and no plan, with each passing day and with each delusional email, it’s become
painstakingly clear that this campaign is also void of character and
transparency and accountability and deference to the constituency that they are
attempting to represent.
It’s simply a rehash of all the bad elements of all the bad
campaigns that have come before it, and with this last email, it is clear that
the organizers and the authors don’t even respect the intelligence or the
integrity of the Delta flight attendants.
They believe that they can get away with as little as
copying some words from some random websites and pasting them into an absurd
and incoherent email. The IAM campaign and its supporters think that we are so
stupid or so complicit with their lack of honor that we won’t see through their
shameful sham and that we will somehow be convinced that they have the
intelligence and the integrity and the fortitude to represent us in something
as complex and as comprehensive as contract negotiations. Is there really
anyone left who believes that they can competently and honorably represent the
Delta flight attendants at a negotiations table?
“I will not let anyone walk through my
mind with their dirty feet.” – Mahatma Gandhi
I encourage you to get the facts for yourself and ask the
questions that deserve to be answered. In fact, if you are so inclined, take
the questions I posted above and send them to the Delta IAM campaign. See what
– if any – response you get from them. See how long it takes them to get back to
you (that’s a good indication of their future performance if they are ever
voted into office). See if they provide a factual reasonable response to the
questions in a respectful, professional manner (that’s a good predictor of how
they will behave towards their own union members). After all, if they can’t
answer the 23 simple questions posted above, how will they ever be able to
handle the very complex, very difficult questions that come up in contract
negotiations?
Remember: if IAM collects enough cards and calls for
elections, all pay raises and improvements in benefits, work rules and quality
of life will be frozen for the duration of the campaign and election and
contract negotiations. If you sign a card, you are saying that you are willing
to keep your pay, benefits and work rules exactly as they are today – with no
improvements, for the next five to seven years, based on comparable flight
attendant negotiations currently underway as well as historical averages.
Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra
