Cog in the machine...

SPEEA's Midwest Council met in "Emergency Session" a week or so back, but it really wasn't all that much of an "emergency." All it was was the kickoff meeting we'd been planning to have once the divestiture was announced. So we sat there, in (hopefully) rapt attention, while Debbie and Bob walked us through the short-term game plan again and Charlie and I had our usual bantering discussion about strategies to get to our goals and we all verified our service at employee entrance gates the next morning and... well, I digress from the story I really wanted to tell here, which was me tweaking my friend, Shane Michael, WEU Chair.

Shane's been leading the drive for an employee ownership plan for BCA-Wichita and when he came in and sat down just two seats away from me, I knew what I had to do: Shane's been fighting Harry and the Board's continued reluctance to so much as entertain the idea of selling our Division to the employees and I just got news that will set him off in a righteous, justifiable tirade, much to the entertainment of the rest of the Council.

"Yo, Shane!" I yell, like an offensive lineman in The Replacements, "I guess Boeing doesn't mind selling Commercial to employees, just as long as they're management employees"

"What the heck are you babbling about now, Bill," Shane asks, knowing how often I spout little more than gibberish.

"Didn't you see that Onex press release, where they say Boeing sold the company to local management, as well as Onex?" I reply.

TORONTO -Onex Corporation (TSX: OCX.SV) announced today it has agreed to acquire the Wichita/Tulsa Division of Boeing Commercial Airplanes in a transaction valued at $1.5 billion, consisting of approximately $1.1 billion in cash and the assumption of certain liabilities. Senior management of the business will be investors and owners along with Onex...

Rather than getting righteously angry, as Shane has every reason to, it appears I've sucker-punched him in the solar plexus, knocking the breath from him. He just sits there, shocked at the betrayal.

Not me, of course.

"WTF?!..." I yell, much like upon my first reading. "Just who the heck is this 'senior management'?

"Pleeeeeeease," I whine, "Don't tell me that Mr Turner and the other Wichita VPs are going to try to fatten their wallets at our expense, by picking my pocket in the effort 'to implement market-driven wages and benefits' in their upcoming contract offer."

Then the Council Reps around me start to growl...


-- Bill, who bets he can get more than 149 friends to vote against this one, if it's as bad as it sounds like it's gonna be...