The January 13 Eno-Eno-Rouf, In Pictures

Follow me and a new world to you will appear.

In a blaze of glorious anger and a spaceship of lies we will fly to victory.

All I ask is that you sacrifice your career.

#Honk!

- QSG

Guest Commentary - Cost of Hubris

Bravo. Now that's satire. Though I think the company will shut down EJM long before giving up the only shield we have to low-cost charter. Looks like we will just live with the agreement and endure the PR harm from administrative furlough-recalls. What? Lupee did not tell you about that?

Click here if the video did not play.

#Honk!

- QSG

It Does Not Take a Swami to Predict Lupee's 2012 Goose Eggs

"It's all coming to me now... more of the same for 2012..."

Honk! Honk! I am back from the islands and ready with a fully-researched batch of posts. I also have a bag of viewer mail and video, including notes from labor, management, and the people caught in the middle. January is going to be great fun for all lovers of satire and those willing to laugh at how low and slow some are willing to fly to try and manipulate others! Before we get to the (belated) predictions for 2012, I must recognize one pilot that wrote in during December just before I left. A 12-year captain in the X who wrote in to describe how he sat down over his Christmas break and printed and read every single Lupee Eno-Eno-Rouf since July of 2008 and he reported back that anyone willing to do same would see why management will not touch Lupee, line pilots are confused/infected with Lupees, and as a public figure Lupee is the best source of satire that we have next to the 2012 Presidential campaign. Thank you. Now, on to...

12 Crystal-Clear Predictions for 2012

12. BAD INFO MOJO

Lupee will continue to coordinate with terminated / resigned "on principle" partner Bend Over, and claim that they have deep business knowledge of how the company works in spite of not once coming to the table to accept inside data and work on any interest-based solutions (also known as pathetically cobbling together publicly available information and guessing).

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11. GOOD MONEY FOR FOOT BULLETS

Lupee will continue to spend dues money, payer fees, and management pilot fees on organizing 1) NJE pilots that will turn around and bargain international flying away from NJASAP pilots, 2) Flight Center employees who, if organized, will have to wait years to see any contractual benefits and be excluded from any profit sharing, 3) EJM pilots/employees, resulting in the destruction of EJM and a flood of aircraft into the low-cost charter market, shrinking the moat and harming the longevity of the fractional provider.

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10. SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY WILL BE SELF-FULFILLED

Will the parent company ask the company to order less airplanes because the sector is depressed, charter has never been cheaper, and sales are soft OR will the parent company ask the company to restructure orders, order less airplanes because the union radicals are making war and owners flee to cheap charter? Fellow flyers - does the reason why matter? The Goose needs help, ideas, interest-based proposals. We have enough problems already without making more. To stop the self-fulfilling prophecies we will need leaders that think for themselves, or have balls. Either will do. Neither is likely.

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9. LUPEE'S HATRED WILL BANKRUPT THE UNION

How do I know? I asked A THIRD PARTY what it costs to arbitrate each 401(k) grievance. Even when bundled together, the 1000 or so grievances will cost each party $5-6 Million. Will Hansell want to pay that much to break the union's bank account? I hope he is not reading the Eno-Eno-Roufs, because only an industry vet would be able to resist the bait. Did you know that even with the different types of harm (portfolio increases of 1-4%), they all qualify for the single class-action? I sure hope the company agrees to roll them into one... of course Lupee is counting on your willingness to pay for picket signs, banner tows, newspaper ads, and of course, regular union operations like stipends for stewards by assessing the members for more dues once he's emptied out the bank account. Looks like one symptom of Lupees is letting anger keep one from thinking things through. Just look at patient zero.

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8. FINGER-POINTING WILL SIGNAL THE BEGINNING OF THE WIND-DOWN

Bend Over and Lupees will blame mis-management for the wind-down. Management will blame union rhetoric for the wind down. It won't matter, the 500-800 pilots that get to fly the permanently smaller company will have theirs (well, the 250-400 Captains will, anyway). Truth is, the parent company will decide if the shrinking will continue - based on their confidence in the employees to execute the growth plan - the very plan the union is avoiding seeing at all costs, since then they would be accountable for actually participating. The current path is much easier for the future consulting careers of union leadership.

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7. LUPEES WILL ENDORSE THE "SELL THE COMPANY" FANTASY

Yes, sell the company. Free market forces will suddenly realize that a product that in some markets is 4x more expensive than charter, with runaway labor costs and no alternatives in sight, with huge debt and a razor-thin margin, is a GREAT buy. Perhaps the old chairman will buy the place back - certainly that's why he sold Celene's old crib at a discount, so he can bet that on one of his horses, win big, and buy it all back....

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6. ABUSE OF VOLUNTEERS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES

Lupee will continue to sit on / interfere with as many joint company-union activities as possible in order to suppress the communication of strategic, monthly, and daily progress on the committee level. Volunteers that dare to collaborate with their company partners will be forever branded as "company leg-humpers" and either fired, discredited, or humiliated into leaving their positions so that an appropriately stipend-ed Lupeeite can sit there and make war out of every opportunity.

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5. MORE CLASSIC HITS: LIE, LIE, LIE, AND MAKE COUNTER-ACCUSATIONS

Lack of engagement is the strategy that allows Lupees to spin the web of lies. Trying to run a business is what allows the company to continue to make mistakes that give credit to the lies. 401k communication? Riiiight. Pilots being brought in for dicipline? Riiiight. Reliable sources claim individual pilot data is being culled from intellijet and it will soon be clear that the 40 bullies that dominate the river of lies on the message boards are the top fatiguers, sick-callers, and policy abusers that cause the rest of us to sit standby more and get home later. When on earth is someone going to grow some balls and fire those people? See, there is room for improvement on both sides. Company can be more transparent, union can stop allowing the worst of the worst to set the strategy from the internet.

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4. ALL UNION CREDIBILITY WILL BE DESTROYED

Once it could be said that every pilot was "the union." Increasingly it is obvious that "the union" is in the mind of a handful of self-interested die-hards, and die their credibility will, along with that of every other pilot. It is bad enough that unprofessional behavior and bullying led to "informational picketing" that will forever harm the brand in the eyes of the owners and prospective owners, but because the company will not bend-over and accept childish antics the picketing, taunting via billboards, will escalate to newspaper adds, banner tows, and leafleting. Leverage is not being created. The ability of the company to sit down and expect to accomplish anything is evaporating. The word of union leaders will mean nothing, making any deals impossible and the slow death of the company inevitable. If self-fulfilling prophecies can be molded into interest-based proposals, or even honest meetings, then there may be hope.

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3. THE COMPANY WILL NEVER AGAIN HAVE A SMALL-GROUP MEETING WITH THE UNION

Simple explanation: No one can trust the dude farther than you can throw him, and one or two sycophants do not make reliable witnesses. Just go to njcrew and catch up on the correspondence and you will see that Lupees has a purpose in life... occupying hundreds of hours of company resources setting the record straight.

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2. THE "YOU CAN'T CHANGE HORSES MID-STRIDE" BATTLE CRY WILL BE IN VOGUE

There is an election looming and the ultimate union FUD campaign is around the corner. It will go like this, "Look, the company is buying X (airplanes, companies, FBOs, Chinese battery plants) and you need me to negotiate your next agreement." It is true, we need an experienced, mature negotiator working for us. But who is that? Can we pay for that experience? What if bargaining becomes prolonged? Then what? Who can provide consistency? I don't know. I DO know that Lupee could not close a revolving door, much less a deal. Just ask around. There's a six-year old quote from some of the negotiating committee members about his ability to close.

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1. WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, THE PERSONAL ATTACKS WILL CONTINUE

Because, as you will hear:

"It's not our/my fault. It's all their fault."
- It takes two to tango and Lupees forces them onto the high road so far, they will have to execute the business plan without union input.

"We can't work with lawyers like Kheller and Rosenthal."
- That's right, you can't.

"We have more experience running companies than they do."
- Running them into the ground.

"They are not wissening to me!"
-  Go to Cornell and learn Interest-Based Bargaining, stop spending your constituent money harming their interests, halt the baseless rhetoric, then maybe they will have something to listen to.

"They have brought in union-busters!"
- At this point, who can blame them. I hope they aren't wasting the money on them, because just as a company that needs a union gets a union, a union can only really bust itself and Lupee is doing a bang-up job!

"Let's go down the list and discredit each and every manager..."
- I have never heard of a manager discrediting a union rep. Have you? Hmmm.

"We know who the Goose is, and he's the Weasel!"
- That's right, because Lupee is counting on the fact that no one else can put it together. With a network that spans all sides I, QS Goose, can report that there are no sides, just fools with opinions. Based on the bullying on the boards, is it any wonder why I allow the discussion of my identity to continue? I'll give you a hint... the last time Lupee spoke to the pilots at the hotel I was right there within 20 feet. Good luck with that! Honk!

- QSG

Confessions of a Union Organizer

Chapter 1: You Can’t Argue With Lies of Omission

This week’s episode of Organize at All Costs, aka Eno Eno Ruof, aka 911, El Presidente enchants us with a vision of unity and an almost misty appeal to our heart-strings in the face of oppression from the monolithic company.

An all-out high-dollar media blitz results in near zero media coverage. Why? Maybe because it was timed to gin up the pilots and try and trick people into calling in sick, fatigued, and write up airplanes that aren’t really broken right in the middle of the peak season. Maybe consideration was not given to the fact that central Ohio is #1 out of the top 12 US metro areas in POVERTY, and the news does not give a goose crap about a media campaign built around a retirement program in a community where pilots are the 1% and work for the 1%. DER!

But don’t worry, Lupee managed to hire a professional photographer and make 45 pilots look like 80, even without the support of the Flight Attendants, and with the support of…... drum roll please……3 or 4 dispatchers and 10 or 11 mechanics. Actual observations put the total strength at 65 sustained for 25 minutes – a far cry from 80 pilots. So when you subtract all the IBT reps, pilot union staff, union paid pilots (e-board, stewards, certain committee members), how many pilots remain? When you further subtract the 15 (out of 45) pilots in recurrent that were intimidated into coming down for 30 minutes, how many pilots remain? When you subtract the Lazy Bears that want to protect their non-flying call in fatigued and sick and let someone else do the work habits, how many REAL pilots remained?

So if I wanted to attract attention I would have marched in the sunlight on the corner of Stelzer and Easton Way – where the traffic is. Instead, the ragged band of disorganized picketers sauntered around in the shade – almost hidden from traffic. Who noticed? Why were most of them wearing sunglasses? Embarrassed, maybe? Afraid Lupee would cut you off from your stipend? Kick you off the committee? Make you, gasp, fly???

There are just a few holes in the 911, as usual. Ask your friends in IT and facilities that were right there. They will even tell you that the event ended 40 minutes ahead of schedule. The joke at Easton is that they had to leave early…for a union break. I am sure glad my dues paid for that, and when I learned that the end-of-year sales surge is being slowed by the competition using the AIN article to sell fear of union strife as a reason to not fly the goose… well, my heart swells with pride. I can’t wait for these aces to picket in Omaha and at the Bridgeway grand opening, maybe even add more billboards or a banner tow. Maybe when real negotiating begins the bank account can be so close to zero that we have to layoff employees at the union office.

It just gets better. The 911 waxes on about how Lupee has 20 years of experience in these maters. Is that why the next section of the Watchtower invites all of us to consider filing stacks of grievances related to the 401(k)? Ginning up more fear and harm, knowing with 20 years of experience that all those filings will be converted to a single class-action and wasting everyone’s time? He has already promised to join with his IBT brothers (sisters are busy negotiating for real) and file an actual lawsuit. All of this (redundant) administrative activity requested in the "Day Of Issues" Section? Really? Day Of who? The union? 20 years of experience means we know what we are doing.

Real purpose? Create 100-200 grievances on a single issue so he can clearly and accurately tell the press that “grievances have skyrocketed” and the union has “multiple grievances” with the goose. So never mind how the company collaborated in LMRC and the Dispute Resolution Working Group to cut the arbitration docket by 2/3 just days before the picket.

It is all so clear to me now why the company should sit down and listen to these fine representatives. In fact, when was the last time the company asked for subcontracting relief? I had not heard that since, say, March. Hmmm. At the time it did not even sound like relief. It sounded like a request to send in reps to discuss options. Who spun that up into a poison pill: ["Er, 1.5c3 = EJM" or "Shut down EJM ans send 110 airplanes into the low-cost charter market and take away MORE business though direct competition. Eureka! Genius!]? Seems like the organizers are telling us what to think again. Just like they are telling dispatchers to not sweat the lack of pay raises and profit sharing this year – they’ll get full retro. Anyone out there EVER get full retro? Believe that and you can believe I have unlimited golden eggs for you. Is anyone taking the bait who say, hasn't called in fatigued more than 15 times this year or has some personal beef with individual managers or some unfinished business complex?

Have fun choking me to death with fabricated strife. Fear always unifies. Just be careful, unified, educated, and unafraid pilots don’t care where they “Get their pound.” It just might be out of you.

HONK!

QSG

The Adventures of Fuzzy Wuzzy and Diamond Jim

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no Lupees
Fuzzy Wuzzy hates to fly
Fuzzy Wuzzy likes to picket
Fuzzy Wuzzy is always tired
Does Fuzzy Wuzzy have Lupees or the perfect cause to be Lazy Bear?

Breaking News... early in November Fuzzy Wuzzy aka "Lazy Bear" suddenly buries the hatchet with his longtime nemesis Luther Lupee and they agree that they have both had enough of the companies antics of ignoring groups of people out to kill the golden goose. Last week Fuzzy drives to the Goose's Nest on his own time and pickets, posing for pictures, then makes sure all the Goose's competition believes there is labor strife at the Goose. On Wednesday, Fuzzy Wuzzy is amongst the 45 po-pilots that declare total war on the goose and proudly proclaim they are - "duh," in for a pound! Fan mail sent to the goose on Friday reveals that both Fuzzy Wuzzy and Diamond Jim called in fatigued the first chance they got. Now we know flying 72 days a year can be really grueling, and some days might require the po-lots to go to bed early and/or even, gasp, call and ask for more rest. But, see, Lazy Bear has gone and called off 19 times so far this year.

So let me ask you honkers out there... If Fuzzy Wuzzy thinks that damaging sales by joining with Lupee to fake conflict also thinks abusing policy (each call causes 1-5 flights to be rescheduled and usually causes real pilots to have to sit standby longer and/or have longer days) and harming real pilots is the way to conduct yourself professionally, then either Wuzzy has got Lupees real bad or this is just another excuse for Lazy Bear to take advantage of everyone else. I, for one, am totally shocked that our naive and inexperienced CEO would not want to meet with hot-shots like these, because they obviously have an interest in helping the goose survive and thrive, right? Sure.

Meanwhile, at Diamond Jim's Arcade and house of mirrors, this know-it-all po-lot who claims to care about other employees and wants to help the goose, promotes himself to Picket Captain on Monday, sends photos of picketers to the competition on Tuesday, and takes offense because no one wants to hear his twisted bullshit on Wednesday, then calls in fatigued on his first day of actual work. If this is Diamond Jim's idea of unity and leadership, then I suppose we are going to need all the charitable contributions we can possibly make because this kind of goose-choking will put all of us out of work.

Meanwhile, Mini-Me, Pedro's Posse, and all the other bitter ex-management and former airline-strife Lupeeites are calling for all-out war against the goose, starting with full-blown (dramatic music and drum roll please)... the devastating.... My Union Speaks for Me Silent Treatment.



Oh NOOOOO! Well, maybe the fatigue abusers and airplane breakers can help the picketers put us all out of business before we have to listen to this kind of union. At least it will be peaceful and quiet as the silent majority follows the program and watches their careers get flushed down the drain.

Have a happy weekend of silent treatments, extra work from fatigue abusers, and extra airlining to airplanes that aren't really broken.

Honk!

QSG

Lupee is chumming for Lupeeites - protect yourself

Conflict is the Lupee way...

Be patient. Suffering from Lupees can be very confusing. If you really want the truth, use your CrewOps sign-on and visit http://njcrew.netjets.com and check out the correspondence tab.

While you are there, ask yourself, "Did Lupees know what was going to happen before he got there?"

Also, why did he ignore the letter he received On December 9?

Do you think that the only way he knows is the way of conflict?

More truth to come....

Honk!

QSG

Did you know?

Did you know that Lupee was asked if his team wanted to be plan fiduciaries, so they could have all the info. they needed and influence the outcome and, through union counsel he said, "Responsibility and accountability - NO WAY!" (Maybe it was a simple, "no thanks" but the meaning is the same).

What's that, is your Lupees messing with your memory? Is that not what you were told? Were you told what ever it took to get you to march like a lemming in a circle and carry a sign so that team members at Easton could be reminded about how they have had to pay higher heathcare fees and go without a 401(k) for a year and sacrifice and sacrifice while you bring NO solutions to the table, and be totally pissed at your colleagues because every time they think of pilots picketing they remember 2005? Wow, do you call Lupee before you accept every flight assignment, too? Do you call Lupee before you take your wife out on a date to see if the destination is union-approved?

DO
YOU
THINK
FOR
YOURSELF?

I hope you remember all the cars honking at you as you watch the Golden Goose wind down.

Honk!

QSG

On The First Day of Xmas

"On the first day of Christmas, my Lupee gave to me

A dead goose hanging from a tree."

#Honk!

QSG

Honkin' it on Facebook

'Till Lupee kills The Golden Goose and we all apply for work somewhere else...

[Save The Golden Goose] Community

Honk on my wall!






Fa-la-la-la-la La-la-la-HONK!

QSG

Eno Eno Ruof – The Search for Intelligent Life amongst the LLL

This satirical translation of a recent communication seems to be just the right start to the first day of the rest of our careers – meaning the end of our careers as the Goose will not last much longer after tomorrow. If you have the backwards version in your hand, you will find that this one is the perfect guitar accompaniment to the one-string banjo that is the thusly- and so forth- infused communication for the Luppe Lemmings.

Dear Loyal Lupee Lemings,

(Para 1) I have fewer and fewer options to further my career and thankfully the Railway Labor Act affords me a structure from which I can shield myself with bylaws and spend your money to create the illusion of huge issues where lesser men may have been inspired to resolve the matter in a way that is good for everyone. I am putting you on notice that I am going to ignore the contract myself and use economic warfare to harm the Golden Goose (on your behalf) rather than allow myself to be defeated by the mechanism that I agreed to use to solve problems. Hopefully you will not notice that I have encouraged many people to file grievances that I knew could not be won, and allowed the arbitration docket to swell so that I could claim that the company was eroding the contract. Such a situation is typically caused by the company not capitulating to unreasonable and one-sided demands on my part.

(Para 2) Thankfully for ME, I will have a lucrative job at IBT National waiting for me. Since I am the one that reunified all of the parts of Local 284, intimidated anyone who opposed me, and can walk away with full employment as a great organizer while the company crumbles at the feet of the competition. Yes, my Lemmings, succumb to the illusion that economic warfare is warranted. I know that picketing will drive away customers in a critical year. I know that picketing will make pilots look like spoiled children. I know that the screen readers will slam down the phone and assume that every pilot is just like the ones protesting an improved retirement plan. But I don’t care. The parent company does not respect ME, senior leadership does not respect ME, many of my own board members do not respect ME, most of my former volunteers fear ME, and many stewards want to quit ME, but you will know that it was I – Lord Lupee – that killed the Goose by convincing the Ol’ Farmer in Omaha that there is not one reasonable union leader amongst us and a smaller, more manageable Goose is the responsible thing to have. I will squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze until all the gold is gone and leave my lemmings with goose poop and regret as I march East to the populist revolution with my Teamster masters. Never mind that I give no shred of evidence that rights have been eroded or a contract is harmed. You are convinced. You are my LLL.

(Para 3) That’s right, my Lupee-infused Lemmings, this picket – this ultimate public display of warfare against the Goose – is not about the issue that I told you it was about. It is about two and a half years of the one thing the leadership team has had in common the entire time – ME! Santulli had ME! Sokol had ME! Christensen had ME! Olsen had ME! Eyer has ME! Hansel has ME! YOU HAVE ME to thank as the one consistent thing in labor relations, that and my unbelievable ability to snipe and twist and defame and inflame as I am the greatest negotiator and organizer that ever lived! [Thunder clap] AH-HA-HA-HA!

(Para 4, 5, 6, and 7) Ladies and Lemmings, Mr. Conway Twitty:

In conclusion, please keep writing airplanes up. Please accept the fact that none of our volunteers ever get anything done. Please keep telling everyone you see that we are unsafe and our training sucks because me, the 35 guys that abuse the schedule and fatigue all the time, the 150 pissed-off junior guys that we mentally abuse instead of reassure, the 10% that think working steady and hard is a curse instead of a blessing, and the freakin’ idiots that we have convinced to sign union cards and follow us to Hell are takin’ the Goose down and it’s too late to stop. Just remember to sign my name to the email you send your wife telling her we had to cancel the airplane orders and we’re gonna stop taking new customers, cause this will never be interest-based anything…. It’s I-ME-ME, the final chapter.

Deceptively,

Saiboat Captain Lupee

...and the Fat Lady say, "Hoooooooooooooooooonk!" 

QSG

Disregard and Disrespect Indeed

1. Disregard for the fact that the Union retirement committee knew everything about the changes early in 2011
2. Disregard for the fact that union counsel rejected an offer from the company to act as fiduciary to the plan
3. Disregard for the fact that the law prevents non-fiduciaries from having full plan information
4. Disrespect for the membership by lying and turning a change in third-party administration into a plan change when plan benefits have been unchanged
5. Disrespect for other employees by putting up billboards and informational pickets that Lupees knows will drive owners to fly the competition
6. Disrespect for all employees by lying by omission and not revealing that the plan fiduciary is a retirement committee made up of employees and not senior leadership
7. Disregarding years of Strong Union progress, unity, and sacrifice by acting like and partnering with the very truck-driver union we spent millions of dollars separating from
8. Disregarding Union Duty of Fair Representation by spending dues money and union credibility organizing other employee groups across the globe on a foundation of lies and half-truths that will bring about the end of the company

This is not Emery Airlines, Lupees, so why are you acting like it?

#Honk!

QSG

#OCCUPYNJASAP

...Because 99% of pilots get the reputation of 1% of their pilots pretending to represent them.

Luuuupeeeee

Will someone please Google "Duty of Fair Representation?" Puh-lease!

Ho-ho-ho-HONK!

QSG

Honkin' it Twice Daily

QSG on Twiter
You won't hear me Tweeting, but I am Honkin' for my skinny little life!
Tune in and increase my chances of survival!

Honk!
QSG

December 12, 2011: A Picture Story

Brought to you by Mark Lupees and the Lupeeites.


Once there was market volatility that made selling our services difficult..

Big companies could not convince labor they need their help...

But Lupee thinks he is special, and righteous, and rallies the Lupeeites...

Once proud backers wonder why thousands of funds in a self-directed brokerage, and a 50% match on up to 15% of income (within IRS limits) results in Lupee and his Lupeeites so willing to damage the brand at Stelzer and Easton Way, and in the press. Shall he continue to support our spoiled little pilots?

Probably not.

How many kids do you have in college?

What's your excuse for not getting involved?

Honk!

QSG