ac emplolyees should demand for Milton and Ca

[duckedy]

How can a CEO who got us into this mess even think he will get us out?? He does not have the confidence from his employees or even any morale. He took this awesome 65 year old company and destroyed it. I think its time for Milton and his boys to go....lets get someone new in there that can rally our troops and get our spirits high. Milton has had is 180 days....they are now way past due...I say we demand for his and all his BOD's resignation NOW!!!

[Guest GDR]

Let’s just have a quick look at what Milton has had to deal with since taking over at AC.

1/ Less than a month after taking over as CEO a combination of the liberal gov’t, ONEX, and AMR attempt a hostile take-over of the airline.

2/ He has to work at trying to put together 2 companies with an antagonistic history, both overstaffed and with many of the employee groups having no lay off agreements.

3/ Sep 11 and the fall off of traffic from that.

4/ A prolonged recession

5/ The collapse of Nortel which meant a loss of approximately 40% of our business class traffic.

6/ Oil goes from a low of about $10 a barrel to as high as $37.

7/ In spite of winning awards for our service, our safety as well as general management the airline and Milton are continuously vilified in the press and thus in people’s minds.

8/ New entrants into the market that hire enthusiastic young people at lower pay scales. These new entrants are able to make money with much lower yields. (In the end even when, and if everything else stablizes is the one reality that will have to be dealt with.)

9/ Gov’t sanctioned tribunals that take us to court when we lower the fares or if we increase them.

10/ A massive increase in gov’t taxes and fees without any parallel improvement in services.

11/ War in Iraq, and federal gov’t policy that antagonizes our American customers.

12/ Lately, just in case things should start going better, we have a plague that is carried around the world by the airlines with Toronto being one of the world’s hot spots.

13/ Now of course we are facing a possible ATC slow-down.

As someone said to me he has had to deal with the “Perfect Storm”. It is very easy to vilify the guy at the top when things go bad, but we also might want to look at how much worse things might have been. I'm sure that RM would admit that he's made mistakes and who hasn't?

As employees it is quite probable that eventually we can have Milton’s head on a platter and maybe that will make a lot of people feel better in the short term. What happens then? We could just as easily as not wind up with a Frank Lorenzo.

In my opinion our best hope, by a long shot, of pulling out of these bankruptcy proceedings in the best possible shape, is to work with Milton. We are only a part of the process, but it does appear that many of the financial issues that revolve around our debt and long term financing are being effectively dealt with.

JMHO

Greg Robinson

[Guest jimmy]

There is NO WAY Nortel accounted for 40% of our business class traffic. Maybe on some routes but not system wide.

jimmy

[Guest Starman]

As employees we're probably better with Milton and Co. guiding AC through the CCAA process with all the bad news associated with it. Afterwards we can sit back and let the shareholders deal with replacing the management that reduced their investment to next to nothing.

[Guest Goggles]

Milton did exactly what the Board of Directors expected of him, including the poison pill defense against the Onex goals.

They could have gotten rid of him if they had wished. If there's anyone at fault here, but taking in to consideration the outside factors listed in GDR's post, it's the BOD.

Goggles

[Guest GDR]

I can't verify it, but that was the figure that was given at the time. I know it sounds like a lot, but they were a very large company and were all a roll until the bottom fell out of the tech market.

[Guest GDR]

I think you're right on the money with that comment Goggles and it's interesting to note that Fraser (former Cahirman of the BOD),is already gone.

[ai]

GDR,

Well done on your initial posting. Could not have said it any better myself.

As for Nortel, they were heavy on our YOW-YYZ market onto places like SFO,LHR and RDU.

In fact, if I recall correctly, we used to operate (a legacy of CP) YOW-RDU non-stop just for Nortel. This being said, 40% does sound high.

Milton has my vote of confidence any day over guys like Carty and Mullin (DL). The latter airline is only now waking up to things that Milton had spotted at least two years ago!!!

[Guest Airmail]

In reality, we're absolutely lucky that Milton's decided to stick around to try to keep this place from going into liquidation right away.

This "awesome 65 year old company" of yours is simply not configured to compete against the WJ, Jetsgos and Canjets of the world so as awesome as it is, it's present configuration just doesn't work any more. I'm sure hundreds of Eaton's employees also felt that their company was awesome but that didn't shield them from disappearing because they simply could not compete against Walmart.

Do you honestly think that SARS Part I, the War with Iraq and now SARS Part II had nothing to do with us being in CCAA? Do these things just not matter in the real world? Did Milton cough once too often and infect YYZ?

Milton's clearly done more than most CEOs to try to keep a lumbering, old, traditional, bureaucratic, high cost airline afloat while competing against the flexible, new, fresh, entrepreneurial, low cost carriers.

In addition, Milton's done this with a mixture of humility and sincerity. This is a guy who, unlike Carty, Mullen et al., turned down a massive salary offer following his industry-leading performance in Q2 and Q3 2002 and, instead, foresaw trouble coming with the threat of War and decided not to accept the money because he felt that the environment would not allow it. He never put out a news release about this act of humility and leadership, he simply did it out of principle.

This is a guy who has spent the past three years talking about and acting decisively about the need for AC to adapt to the new realities of the market with low fare product alternatives (ie. Tango, Zip) and, in doing so, has prepared AC better than any other North American traditional carrier to compete with the low cost carriers.

Given these FACTS, I'll stick with Milton.

[Mitch Cronin]

Ok Mr. Airmail, I don't know who you are but you're sounding almost worse than Mr. Burns's stooge, Smithers, the way you defend Milton... You must be getting tired of it yourself, so why don't you just encourage him to drop in here himself and answer some of these complaints and critiques... Surely he could spare a few moments from time to time to yak a bit.

I came out with an attack against the man here recently and after talking with him, I pretty soon found myself wondering if I'd been wrong about him. He can do a far better job of swaying people than you, and if morale is low because of a lack of faith, then maybe it's time to do something about that?

Whaddya think?

[Guest GDR]

Hi Mitch

First off let me just say that I think it's a little unfair to call a guy a stooge just because he expresses a genuinely held view.

As far as the suggestion goes about RM dropping in on the AEF for a chat once in a while, I wonder just how possible that would be. I'd love to see it, but I doubt very much that the BOD who hires and fires him would like to see it.

It is one thing for you and I and others to banter back and forth, but we don't have the same legal relationship with the shareholders.

There is also the question as to who makes what decisions. I'm sure that Milton has often been hung out to dry for decisions that the BOD made. He can hardly put that on a public forum.

As Airmail says Milton has been trying in every way possible to change the way this airline has functioned since he took office. The final attempt was Feb 06 and nothing changed. SARS then made CCAA inevitable. Just maybe if we had come out with the concessions that our unions have now agreed to prior to APR 1 we could have avoided the CCAA filing.

However it is also true that it is very possible that SARS would have done us in anyway. We'll never know.

Greg Robinson

[Guest Airmail]

Mitch: Are criticisms of Milton the only form of expression you approve of? Is going to Milton's defense with the same energy and conviction as those who criticize him wrong?

The guy took the time to call you personally to address your concerns about him and the company. Isn't that enough? Should he have to justify himself to you at your beck and call? And exactly why does he have to justify himself before a bunch of largely anonymous posters on a public internet forum?

I'm frankly not trying to sway you, you've clearly got your opinion of the man -- I'm merely posting a counterpoint to someone who, I feel, is simply wrong about Milton.

[Guest Peanuts]

I only have one thing to say. How come we (as in all the employee groups) took a wage cut, yet Mr. Milton and some of his boys refused to disclose their oncome. Which....they are supposed to do.

It was said by them that their income was NOT part of the problem, yeah right !

If he wants to impress me he should show how much of a wage cut HE and his right hand men are taking. If any !!!

Just a thought for him if he wants ALL the employees wanting him to stick around.

Yet, at any other big industry if it goes (basically) under, the head of that company is usually released. That is why they get paid the big bucks to prevent that from ever happening.

Yes, the past two years have been rough in general for the airline businesses. That is when good management somes into play. You'd do anything to shine through.

Guess I had more then one thing to say

[LongTimer V]

But the BOD should go,at least as a cost saving.What do/did they do???

[Maranatha]

Greg and Airmail: excellent posts! Clamouring to get rid of RM is a good way of getting rid of some frustrations but it is not the answer IMHO. I personally believe that Robert is trying hard to reposition this company to compete against the WestJets of the world. I'm not too concerned about JetsGo because every person that I've spoken to who has travelled on them say "never again." It's the [unionized] employees, all of us, who have to realize that we need a complete "paradigm shift" in our thinking, and it is executive management who will have to get out of the way and let the employees deliver the excellent service that each and every AC employee is capable of delivering, but has been prevented from doing so by micro-managing control-freak managers who are constantly looking over the employees' shoulders.

Greg, I agree completely with you, Robert ran into the "Perfect Storm" and, considering that, I think it's a miracle that we're in CCAA and not complete liquidation. Alot of the blame has to rest on his shoulders, but the question is, who could have done any better with the catastrophic set of circumstances which he faced.

Robert Milton gets my vote.

Cheers,

IE.

[Guest GDR]

I don't know why he hasn't disclosed his salary. My best guess is that it has something to do with the legal process that we are working our way through. I do know that he made much less in 2001 than he did in 2000.

I also know that he took a 10% cut on, (I think it was SEP 1 2001) while other management employees took less of a cut.

He offered to take a 33% cut when he asked the unions for 22% cut after Feb 6 and prior to CCAA. He didn't go public with that either.

Part of the restructuring had executives taking a 15% pay cut. We know that he has taken at least that much of a cut and given his past history, likely more. Unlike Carty, when Milton has sacrificed his own pay he has just gone ahead and done it without making sure that it was splashed all over the newspapers.

Greg Robinson

[Guest Airmail]

His salary is made public -- it is disclosed with every proxy circular which is directly tied to the scheduling an Annual Meeting. Since the Annual Meeting is postponed, so is the filing of this information. It's that simple. His salary is filed every year.

[Maranatha]

Minimum 15% on top of the 5% that they had already taken.

I suggest that you reveal your sources, Peanuts, regarding management utterances about their salaries, and if you're going to slag the guy, use objective evidence, not workplace rumors.

In this case, IMHO RM is leading by example, as far as I am aware anyway.

Best Regards,

Iain Edghill.

[Guest Peanuts]

Thanks for your reply Greg.

Have abit of respect for Mr. Milton again.......

a bit !

[Guest GDR]

Knowing next to nothing about how a BOD works I'll refer to something that Dagger said. He made the comment that the majority of the AC BOD was deadwood but there were 2 or 3 sharp individuals on it.

As I mentioned earlier the chair for the last several years has been replaced so maybe we'll see more changes there in the future.

Incidently as far as Milton is concerned, one of the conditions that GE Capital put on advancing the DIP financing was that Milton stay in place through this process. They obviously think highly of him.

Greg Robinson

[Guest Peanuts]

No need to tell on people. But I don't believe that I stated anywhere that I was perfect, did I ? Perhaps I misunderstood or was given a nasty rumour. Don't go getting mad at me, at least I had the guts say something and hence I got the truth. Now, next time I hear that rumour I can tell them they are wrong.

[Mitch Cronin]

Ok Airmail I understand what you're saying and I don't mean to put you down for it. I apologize if I sounded harsh... You're a staunch supporter of a man doing a job you approve of and I can't knock you for that. The repetition of your defence, however, regardless of the cause, does sound an awful lot like the perfectly parodied "Smithers" character.

I'm now extremely curious about your identity I must say....

In any case, no, it's not that he should pop in here at by beckoning! He said he thought it was a good idea and he'd find out how, after I emailed him a link to my first invitation.

There are a lot of people at AC who are echoing the complaints that we're seeing right here on this site, I'm simply thinking he'd be better off in person, than sitting tight letting you and Greg (and perhaps a few others) defend him.

Look, I'm just a shmuck on a bloody internet forum, expressing my opinions on occasion... Then the phone rings! Good grief, you think I didn't fall out of my chair?! (I've got a good hunch it's you I owe my appreciation for that little surprise!)

But I found out he's for real, he's apparently a lot more sincere than I thought, he made the time to chat with a miniscule peon like me, he's got some reasonable things to say, and he defends himself better than you do. (Again, no offence intended to you)

Greg's telling me legal horsedung would prevent him from being able to talk to the rest of us here, but I'd say that's gotta be wrong. There's no difference in him having a chat here than having a chat sitting in a park or any other public place.

The man's not an ivory carved figurehead, he's a working stiff like the rest of us and he's working at fixing a problem he didn't have a whole lot of control in creating. A lot of people are putting their all into the fix and would like to hear from him.

[Guest Airmail]

Peanuts:

Milton and "his boys" took a pay cut last year when you didn't.

Milton and "his boys" took a pay freeze over the last two years when you received pay increases.

Milton's already said he's taking a pay cut in conjunction with the employees.

Milton doesn't have the habit of broadcasting his deeds to the world -- unlike Carty -- but doing so as a matter of principle and in the shadows. Maybe that's what he should do, spell out exactly what heroics is up to, but if he did that, I'm sure people will find something to complain about too!

[Fido]

For another perspective think of where AC was when Milton came.

Air Canada was weeks away from bankruptcy when Hollis took over and brought Milton onboard. Between the two of them they made it a very interesting [and profitable ride] for a number of years.

[Guest Airmail]

We're all just a bunch of schmucks on a bloody internet forum!