RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 10:55:44 -0700

I have remorse for what was done to others in the name of "progress."  I recognize the incomplete genocide of aboriginals just about everywhere.   What we do today and tomorrow has meaning.  We can't right the wrongs of the past through any amount of money or handwringing.

arthur

 

"Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults." (Thomas Szasz)

"All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are  running from, and to, and why." (James Thurber)

-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence deBivort [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 9:36 AM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; 'Salvador Sánchez'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

I would agree that generally all groups seem to have blood on their hands, but am surprised that you would cite Vonnegut to dismiss any remorse or compensatory action or obligation. You may not be ‘into’ guilt, but you and others benefit today from harm that your ancestors did to others, and you do not, morally, have the option of dismissing the matter.

 

I believe one of the key measures of the worth of a society is precisely how it goes about addressing its past wrongs.  And pointing to the wrongdoings of others is not a good way to begin.

 

Lawry

 

From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 7:00 PM
To: Lawrence deBivort; Salvador Sánchez; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

 

As Pres. Clinton might say "....it all depends on what you mean by 'clean up our history' "

 

I have just finished watching a programme on Afghanistan.  The madness was there before the Russians and before the Americans.  The racism toward the lower classes is so very sad.  The needless killing and exploitation and slavery ( the latter ending only in 1919) seems to be part of the human drama.

 

I don't have much to do with PC guilt.  The good guys become the bad guys and the bad guys later become the good guys.  And as Kurt Vonnegut might say, "and so it goes."

 

As I said in an earlier posting it seems that all groups, in all regions, have to some degree "blood on their hands."

 

arthur

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence deBivort [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 5:44 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; 'Salvador Sánchez'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

People HAVE done the math, and that is why outsourcing takes place.

 

I know from our previous discussions, Arthur, you put your country before others, but the fact remains that we are moving toward a unified world, and we should be equally concerned with the well-being of all, and not just that of those we look alike, or sound alike.  Morally, if not in practice, the days of racism and nationalism are over. Those who have personally benefited from being white, Christian, colonialist and European or neo-European need to look beyond that privilege, recognize the huge cost to the people of the world that Europeans have exacted over the last 500 years, and start to build a world that will work for everyone. True, it means a loss of that privilege -- and long overdue it is.  Just think, you and I have the opportunity to begin redressing a long-standing wrong.

 

I know you don’t like ‘going back into history’, but it is ungracious of you to so argue, as you are one of the beneficiaries of the wrongs that were committed, and continue to be committed.  So until we clean up our history, we will be subject to the accusations of and counter-actions by those who our ancestors exploited and ourselves today exploit.

 

Lawry

 

From: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 3:01 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; Lawrence deBivort; Salvador Sánchez; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

 

I would also add the foregone employment, taxes paid, good jobs, etc., when outsourcing goes to a country with lower labour, environmental,etc., standards.  While prices may be somewhat lower, and consumer welfare might be somewhat higher....the loss of good jobs and taxes paid at home (to me) might add up to a net loss to the country rather than a net gain.

 

Perhaps outsourcing as a strategy should be given a closer look.  Using "bizz-talk"....we should "do the math."

 

 

arthur

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Cordell, Arthur: ECOM
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 2:54 PM
To: Lawrence deBivort; Salvador Sánchez; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

I don't think anyone has mentioned 3rd world or skin colour but you.  As Dr. Freud might say:  Hmmmmm.

 

The issue is outsourcing of maintenance and, perhaps, not knowing the paper and parts trail of what is being done to the aircraft.  What kinds of replacement parts are being used?  How competent are the mechanics?  What about drug testing?

 

arthur

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Lawrence deBivort
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 10:13 AM
To: 'Salvador Sánchez'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

I’ve been following this matter of outsourcing airline maintenance carefully.  It seems that some of the comments hide a bias against 3rd world maintenance. But is there really any reason to think that maintenance performed by El Salvadorans would be inferior to that performed by US, Canadian, or European crews?  I doubt it. We white folks haven’t quite yet digested the understanding that people from the ‘third world’ are just as intelligent as we are, and, increasingly, just as educated and skilled.  To that I would add the likelihood that they are more motivated to do a good job, and under fewer pressures to cut corners.

 

Let us remember that some of the best eye-care in the world is now available in India. Why not the nest airplane maintenance?

 

Cheers,

Lawry

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Salvador Sánchez
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 11:03 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

 

Thanks, Harry, but please do not misunderstand me. If I can choose, I would NOT fly in a airline that outsources its maintenance and mechanical work. And if I have to, I will surely be scared to death while enough statistical evidence about safety comes to me. Furthermore, if I know that a mexican airline (I am mexican) outsources it´s maintenance in a foreing country, taking out jobs that can be done by mexicans, I will actively go against that practice.

I have to say that I do not look for cheaper things or lower prices. I pay what I have to pay for products and services, thinking not only in my immediate needs and desires but in the future of my children, of the country and of the society as a whole. So I am very careful about the globalization discourse, about the benefits of the internalization of the economy. What's the real price of destroying a secular commercial structure, closely tied to the community structure, of loosing the skills that cost so much effort to get (mechanical skills, for example), even of changing the face of towns and neighborhoods (to say the less) to have the chance of buying cheap chinese (or mexican, or wherever) products in a Wal-Mart?

One additional point: in Aeromexico and Mexicana, our two biggest airlines, you still can find a smiling crew and good service. And decent snaks and beverages. Their owners are about to sell it. Some big business is going to come and get it, maybe Iberia. Good bye to good service. Good bye to the smiling on board personnel. For a lot of people good bye to their jobs. For many of those who can keep their jobs, good bye to the pleasure of working as a pilot or as a flight attendant, or as a mechanic or as a clerk. And we will save two or three --or one hundred, it´s the same-- miserable dollars while somebody somewhere gets even richer at our expense. I will be very happy to pay what I have to pay, believe me.

Salvador        

 

 

Salvador,

 

Good point!

 

One has to wonder how many maintenance failures have occurred during the thousands of millions of miles these in-sourced, or outsourced planes have flown?

 

Maybe they are doing something right?

 

Harry

*******************************

Henry George School of Social Science

of Los Angeles

Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042

818 352-4141

*******************************

 

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Salvador Sánchez
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 1:16 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; Christoph Reuss; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky

 

How do you know? Is it public information?

Salvador

Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 1:01 PM

 

My colleague will not fly on any airline that outsources its maintenance and mechanical work.

arthur

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Christoph Reuss
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 2:51 PM
To: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Unfriendly workplace in the sky


Harry Pollard wrote:
> Yep, re-regulation will raise prices and keep the great unwashed off the
> planes.

Harry surely prefers cheapo airlines that save on maintenance.
Better dead than red, right Harry?


http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/25/france.air.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest

France 'to publish air blacklist'

   Thursday, August 25, 2005; Posted: 8:41 a.m. EDT (12:41 GMT)

   Photo: 121 died when Helios airliner slammed into mountains north of Athens.
       
PARIS, France (Reuters) -- France says it will soon publish its own blacklist of airlines and countries with poor air safety records, after a spate of air crashes raised concerns passengers were being kept in the dark over safety.

Transport Minister Dominique Perben, who indicated last week Paris supported a Europe-wide blacklist, told Le Monde newspaper France wanted to move quickly to allay public fears.

"In the coming days, the French civil aviation authority (DGAC) will publish different lists on the Internet," Perben told Le Monde on Thursday. "As in the United States and Britain, we will provide passengers with all the information at our disposal."

Airline safety has become a sensitive political issue after three fatal crashes in less than two weeks. On Tuesday, 40 people died in Peru's northern jungle when a Boeing 737-200 of the state-run TANS airline crashed.

Some 121 people died when a Cypriot airliner slammed into mountains near Athens on August 14.

Two days later, 160 people died when a Colombian jet crashed in Venezuela, including 152 French nationals from the French-administered Caribbean island of Martinique.

Demanding tougher international scrutiny of airlines, Perben told Le Monde Paris would publish a list of airlines banned from landing in France and name the states whose planes were banned from the country.

In addition, the DGAC civil aviation authority would publish a list of regular and charter airlines whose aircraft have permission to fly from France. It would also name the airlines likely to be chartered by authorized airlines, Perben said.

"At the end of the year, we will publish rules forcing tour operators and companies that charter other (airlines) to tell passengers, when they buy their ticket, who the carrier will be," Perben told Le Monde.

France has been pushing for a so-called "Blue Label" for reliable airlines but has run into opposition from the airline industry. Perben said he had told airlines he wanted the scheme in place by the end of the year or early 2006 at the latest.

The French drive mirrors one by the European Union.

European Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said last week the EU executive was planning to introduce a blacklist of airlines whose aircraft had been grounded for safety reasons.

The measure, to be set up under an EU accord that predates the Venezuela crash, only needed a vote in the European Parliament to come into force, Barrot told French radio.

Once the measure was approved, Europe's air safety agency would be able to organize information-sharing on grounded airlines, said Barrot. The data would have to take the form of a blacklist, as in the United States, he said.

Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.

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