NATCA Going Down in Flames

On 4 Sep 2006 15:17:06 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote
in .com:

Of course, Mr. Honeck might not have a problem with the practices at
EDS.

Okay, I give. What the heck is "EDS"?

EDS is Electronic Data Systems, Inc., the folks that do IT for GM.
They have a reputation in the industry for draconian labor practices
(as did Henry Ford):

http://www.realchange.org/perot.htm
Abusing His Employees
Perot is by all accounts a great motivator, a man who demands
great loyalty and extreme hard work from employees, but also can
repay it with striking acts of generosity (though rarely much in
the way of wages.) He has done things like fly a new employee's
wife to Johns Hopkins Hospital in his Lear Jet, after she injured
her eye.

At the same time, the relationship he creates is one where Perot
is all-powerful, and bestows his generosities from on high. He
works people extremely hard for little money, and subjects them to
intrusive scrutiny, including private investigators, wiretaps,
drug tests and lie detector tests.

In this regard, he bears a striking resemblance to Ralph Nader, of
all people, who also inspires great loyalty, pushes himself at
least as hard as he pushes his employees, burns people out for
little money, and seems to feel he has a right to monitor and
control their lives.

For example, discussing salaries has been an immediate firing
offense from the first days at EDS, Perot's company. The company
dress code, up into the 1970s, required white shirts only for men
(he considered blue shirts effeminate), no pants or flats for
women, and no "mod looks," as the contract put it. But the
intrusion went much further.

EDS tapped phones and used detectives to investigate its own
employees, according to Posner. He traced license plate numbers in
the parking lot to see who came late or left early, just as Nader
telephones employees at home on sunny weekends to test how long
they work. And in "particularly heated" fights for contracts,
employees on the bid team would be physically searched to ensure
they did not remove any paperwork that could assist the
opposition. (Posner, p94-5)


http://www.vault.com/survey/employee...YEER-3100.html