Monday, April 6, 2015

Survey Says: Face-plant!

Survey Says: Face-plant!

C’mon you guys. It’s not funny . . .

For those of you who have read the latest communications disaster to come out of Machinists campaign headquarters, it’s time to stop laughing at the whiny absurdity of the message and to think critically about what the Machinists Union is really saying to the Delta flight attendants.

According to the IAM’s most recent missive (in a curiously shrinking number of updates), the mighty Machinist organization claims to have conducted an “exhaustive investigation” following the alleged “hacking” of their recent Delta flight attendant survey, and has discovered that “thousands of surveys were completed without one question answered – they were just clicked through and submitted fraudulently.”

Wait – what?!? The Machinists Union released their survey on February 13, 2015. And THIS is the first communication that we’re hearing from them? Seriously?!? Two months to get NO results from a survey and they are now “starting the process” to put out a “more secure” survey? How does this fiasco fit into their promise of “rapid contract negotiations” in the highly unlikely event that they win representation of the Delta flight attendants?

Seriously folks, we were supposed to read that update and not laugh, scratch our heads, or roll our eyes. It would have been great if they had sent the email out a few days earlier, but apparently this was not meant to be an April Fools joke; those were genuine, direct quotes from the IAM. The Machinists actually had to conduct an “exhaustive investigation” to determine that they had received “thousands” of incomplete surveys.

Of course, this prompts a number of serious and troubling questions that everyone should be asking the Machinists (and of course, as history has shown, we shouldn’t really expect any answers, because clearly they have no answers):
 
  • Is this what it’s going to look like when IAM conducts a survey and doesn’t like the results? Are the Machinists just going to fake fall down, play victim, and make some false claims about “fraud” and “hacking,” and then throw out the results?  
 
  • How did the Machinists get the names and Delta employee numbers for all the Delta flight attendants in the first place? According to Machinist campaigner Tammy Rustad, the IAM discovered most of your private information “from the internet.” But type your name in to any search engine and see if your Delta employee number comes up in the search results. Of course it doesn’t, so how did the Machinists get your private Delta employee number to put on their website? Tammy has also admitted that she’s not good with copying and pasting a web address into her browser address bar, so it’s easy to understand how she got duped by this IAM claim, but smarter people won’t be so easily fooled by the Machinists’ “web search” claim. 
 
  • What sort of slipshod, third- rate, dimwitted, backwater organization has to conduct an “exhaustive investigation” to determine that they received thousands of incomplete surveys? This is the “computer age,” isn’t it? Can’t they just push a button to see the survey results and realize that (as they claim) no survey questions were answered? What took them two months to “figure out”?
 
  • Can we really even believe the claim of “fraudulent results”? After all, this is the same organization that claims signed cards from 52%, no 53%, no 57%, no wait it’s 60%, no – hold on – 70% of Delta flight attendants calling for an election.
 
  • What exactly constitutes “fraud” when completing a survey? Is it not allowed to submit a survey without responding to any of the questions? Are the Machinists really just unable to accept a lack of interest and misconstruing it as “fraud” to try and save a little face? It’s also not “hacking” when someone uses legitimately accessed data to gain access.
 
  • What about all of those surveys the IAM reset? Why didn’t they release the results from the “thousands of flight attendants” that had their surveys “reset”? Wouldn’t that be enough of a sample group for them to publish the results? Why reset the surveys for thousands of people and have them spend the time to complete the survey in vain? Is there anyone else that is seeing through the mile-wide holes in this tall Machinist tale? I ask again: Really – how dumb do the Machinists think the Delta flight attendants are?
 
  • Why does the IAM refuse to take responsibility for their own utter incompetence? Why do they insist on blaming the Delta flight attendants for the Machinists’ epic failures? Is this blame gaming a foreshadowing of how the Machinists will communicate to us in the future?
   
  • What sorts of slapdash, fly-by-night technology does the IAM use to protect their systems? Does it involve vacuum tubes, reams of bubble sheets, flashing lights and masking tape?
 
  • Was the mysterious hacker group Anonymous involved – perhaps the Great IAM Survey Hacking of 2015 will make Wikipedia’s top 25 Most Popular Conspiracy Theories?

According to the IAM’s “exhaustive investigation,” the “only way to take the survey for another person was to know their last name and employee number.” Apparently, it didn’t occur to anyone at the IAM Brain Trust that, even though the IAM itself obtained the list of Delta flight attendant names and employee numbers in a dubious, illegal and unethical manner, that other people (including Delta flight attendants) have legitimate access to that information, although they shouldn’t be sharing that information with outsiders. (I’m looking at you, IAM campaigners).

Now, according to the Machinists email: “The IAM is currently in the process of developing a new survey in which every Delta Flight Attendant will be mailed their own personal identification number, so this will never happen again.” Wait – what?!? This is the same group that has been mailing information for Delta flight attendants to incorrect addresses, with names that don’t match the addresses, to relatives of flight attendants, to former flight attendants and worse!!! What could possibly go wrong now?

Considering that the very people who would negotiate on our behalf can’t even consign the simplest safeguards to protect a survey from tampering (if that’s even what really happened), what sort of results should we expect if we place our future in their hands? What other idiotic mistakes will they make and then dismiss with some flip flyer promising that some disaster will “never happen again”? Remember, this is the IAM on their “best behavior.” They are still courting our votes. If they ever win an election, the level of competence and service will only drop significantly. Just ask anyone the Machinists currently represent.

Think about it and remember, you’ve been warned.

PS: I already have a voice, IAM.

Please share this email and my blog with your friends and coworkers.

Sincerely,

Jose Arturo Ibarra

Ask others to submit their email via my BLOG: http://joseaibarra.blogspot.com/

Please find out additional factual information here: http://bedeltabedifferent.com/ & http://www.wearedeltafa.com/
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