HACECA, EAHSOP, CSOPAH HAPPENINGS ON MARCH
25th, 2002
Our new, beautiful CRJ700s,
Q400s, Boeing 737-700s and 900s. Even with wheels chocked they are living,
breathing works of art. But these machines do a lot more than just please our
eyes.
They are the tools of our trade. And
create money. Lots of it. Money that allows people the resources to love,
prosper and live long. So who owns these handsome, essential machines?
Who are the true owners, the
flesh-and-blood ones, not verbiages of corporations printed on documents
posted on bulkheads?
Are corporate executives the true owners of these
machines? No. They professionally manage and rarely outright own the companies
they work for. There’s only a handful of them, yet there are tens of thousands
of employees and potentially millions of customers who live-and-breathe these
machines at Alaska/Horizon. Surely the soul of ownership resides there.
But
true ownership can’t do work philosophically. Employees and customers have to
revive the institution of private property in corporate equity. Great minds
such as John Adams and Leo XIII recognized that the rights
of property are "sacred and inviolate." Those rights include the right
of an owner to the fruits of his labor and the fruits of his productive
assets.
Accordingly, then, no one, whether a manager, a majority
owner, board directors of a corporation in which shares are held, or
government, has the right to deprive that owner of those fruits without his
consent. (i.e., the wages of labor or the wages of capital or
"profits").
Morally, anyone who takes
another’s private property rights to their own bodies or private property
rights of their own productive assets (or share thereof) is stealing.
A similar analogy of
grievous injustice was the institution of slavery, which deprived some people
of private property rights in their own bodies; all the fruits of the creative
efforts of slaves belonged to the slave owner, not the slave.
The 21st century dawns with human slavery still very much
plaguing the planet. We are all mixtures of good and evil, some more conscious
of their actions than others. But people or institutions that block open and
equal access by workers and customers of owning the machines and tools they
use to do work and consume, and instead chain workers to pay by hourly-wages
only, are frankly--evil.
People with vested stakes in
the current unjust system, such as corporate officers and managers, union
leaders and educators of academia, who act to perpetuate this injustice, hold
back all of human kind. What we need in this country is
the Second American Revolution—this one an assault on the perpetuation of
hourly-wage slavery onto the masses.
In the airline industry,
the human labor of mechanics who own their personal tools is meaningless
without access to the aircraft. What is a pilot without their cockpits? What
is a flight attendant without their galleys? What is a ramper without their
tugs and ramp equipment? What are reservation and passenger service agents
without their computers to join our customers to these marvelous machines of
our dreams so they all can freely and affordably travel?
They are nothing.
So beware of any
person or group who advocates or promotes distance between us and our capital
equipment. The key is closer proximity. Hugged your airplane today? Patted it
gently on the nose? Rubbed its fuselage? These are OURS!
Just laws assure peace among diverse
peoples. So now we must complete the legal process of asserting the oldest of
all human rights--ownership. But not just to our bodies, but to the capital assets that are an extension of our flesh. It will take work and
cooperation. It will take time and patience. Many compassionate people are
working on this paradigm shift now. (We could use a lot more
help.)
Meanwhile, take care of our tools. Be gentle with them. Never
forget their importance. They create the money for us to hoist lattes toasting
the intimate connection between workers and our natural
partners--customers. They create the money to fix our cars, buy homes,
put kids through college, and pay for well-earned retirements when that day
eventually comes for all of us.
It’s a righteous process we all
collectively partake of and play an individual part in. Do it well and when
the future arrives you won’t even notice. Moment by moment life will be
fully vested for all to enjoy—Steve
Nieman, President of the Horizon/Alaska Customer/Employee Co-Ownership
Association, AAG shareholder, Horizon employee and QXTeamster