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Obama Sends Letter to Midwest Airlines

What the hell?  Obama sent a letter to Midwest Airlines to “question” them regarding their employee issues.  In part, he says:

I am writing because Midwest employees have approached me with concerns about their prospects at Midwest Airlines and feel like those concerns have fallen on deaf ears.  They have said that seventy-five percent of Midwest Airlines flight attendants will be furloughed and on unemployment through early next year and are facing demands to cut their wages by up to fifty percent.  They also argue that Midwest will outsource scores of flight attendant jobs unless dramatic and drastic wage and benefit reductions are enacted.

Few points…

1) I know that this may come as a shock to some of you, but Obama is not the president.  I know… I know… but it’s true.  He’s a Senator from Illinois.  What business does he have sticking his nose into the business of a Wisconsin company?  Sure, he’s a customer, but in the midst of a presidential campaign, this kind of thing is much more than a simple complaint letter.

2) Perhaps Obama hasn’t noticed, but Midwest is in severe financial straits.  What does he think they should do?  Go out of business and fire the lot of them?

3) This seems to be indicative of the way that Obama will govern.  Remember that if he is president and sends a letter like this, there are all sorts of threatening undercurrents.  Even as it is, he’s a Senator and it is wholly inappropriate for him to insinuate that Midwest is not dealing in good faith.  Obama may not like what Midwest is asking of the unions, but that doesn’t mean that the company is acting inappropriately. 

4) Just to underline the point, nobody has suggested that the company is acting in bad faith except some of the union folks.  The truth is that the company is trying to stave off bankruptcy and asking for concessions from their employees - even severe concessions - is perfectly legit.

5) OK, time to get down to the real issue here.  Obama’s letter has nothing to do with the union or Midwest or their negotiations.  It has everything to do with the Obama campaign sucking up to unions in a swing state two weeks before election day.  Obama wants to get the union voters to the polls and actively showing support for their cause is a way to do it. 

UPDATE: Dave the commenter is chasing this down and thinks it might be a hoax.  I’ll update as we find out.

Posted by Owen at 1726 hrs
Politics + Politics - General + Politics - Wisconsin

1. two words:

   Government takeover.

   Posted by Michael J. Cheaney on October 21, 2008 at 1755 hrs
   
   
   

2. He is leasing a Midwest plane,  I am sure that he heard all of this from the employees and sent the letter.  Not something I would do, but I am sure he thought he was being helpful.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 21, 2008 at 1936 hrs
   
   
   

3. Yeah, I don’t like this shit one bit.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 21, 2008 at 2019 hrs
   
   
   

4. What an arrogant power-monger.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 21, 2008 at 2047 hrs
   
   
   

5. I looked at the whole letter, and there is just something “goofy” about that letter.  Of course, sometimes when I watch Obama when he isn’t saying something (like during the debates), he seems to radiate the same kind of goofiness that Bush has shown at times.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 21, 2008 at 2056 hrs
   
   
   

6. two words

   Union suckup

   He didn’t seem to mind when he was doing business with them. What a hypocrite.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 22, 2008 at 1210 hrs
   
   
   

7. Goofy…yes…very goofy.

   I think it’s a hoax written by the union. It has grammatical errors, seems to ramble in place, the language is often imprecise and it uses union lingo only executive management and union negotiators would know or use. I’m a business executive and I don’t know exactly what “collective bargaining” is.

   My money is that it is a HOAX. The editor of the Harvard Law Review (or whathrver he did)  doesn’t write a letter that’s that poorly written AND doesn’t make sense for Obama to go on the written record about.

   Maybe he should write a letter to GM too??

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 22, 2008 at 1253 hrs
   
   
   

8. Yeah, Obama may be a lying, tax-raising socialist, but he can spell. The MSM would have been all over this if it was true.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 22, 2008 at 1312 hrs
   
   
   

9. You bring up a very interesting point, Dave.  I took a second & third look at the letter.  I’m not an expert on PDF documents or scanning details, but take a look at how clear the type is in the body of the letter, and then look at the bottom, with the signature & logos & the “fuzziness” - almost looks like the “sincerely”, the signature, and logos were taken off of a scan, and then the letter imposed on it.

   I looked at numerous articles, and some mention a copy was sent to the Association of Flight Attendants union.  None mention having gotten it from the Obama staff directly & I doubt that Midwest Airlines would release a copy to the media.
   Also, in any business I have been involved with, “cc"ed parties are usually notated on the bottom.

   Not wanting to blow smoke here, but I wonder if the Milwaukee Journal was conned.  I guess the only thing that would extinguish my skepticism would be some kind of official Obama followup comment.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 22, 2008 at 1428 hrs
   
   
   

10. Here is my list of ten reasons this letter is goofy and a hoax (written by the union or a law level Milwaukee operative):

    1. I worked as a political adviser in Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s. EVERYTHING that was printed for political use had to have the printer’s union local stamp on it. Unless he used non-union printers for his campaign letterhead, I don’t see no union label (and especially since this is a union versus management issue).

    2. There are several minor spelling and grammatical errors that a copyrighter would have spotted and corrected had it been proofread. It’s not the work of a former editor of the Harvard Law Review (or whatever he did…I haven’t taken the time to look that up).

    3. Hoeksema’s name was misspelled in the letter to MW but not in the one sent to the union (got that data from a MW exec).

    4. The language is imprecise and rambling. “I have appreciated..” (meaning he increased in value??) instead of “I appreciated…”.

    5. The copy sent to the pilots union was different from the one sent to the airline (MW exec again). The one to the union was more poorly written than the one sent to MW (again, from my mole at MW).

    6. The letter refers to the company’s past relationship with the union (as though Obama has firsthand knowledge of it) yet doesn’t seem to know what management’s reason or position is on the layoffs.

    7. References “outsourcing” negatively as it is commonly referred to with regard to offshore outsourcing...yet this is outsourcing to a domestic carrier of American employees and so shouldn’t matter. An educated person can easily discern the difference between the two forms of outsourcing.

    8. Arcane union terms are referred to and a specific action plan is suggested (return to collective bargaining) that most people wouldn’t understand nor would a politician suggest such deliberate steps.

    9. [mht] points out that the text may be on a scan of the letterhead…not hard to do.

    10. Having been a political adviser, one would counsel his candidate to say something sympathetic but not get in the middle of a fight by sending a letter. If you had to do something in writing, you would release a statement. This violates all political common sense…particularly since Obama has been very careful not to upset the applecart in the last days of this campaign.

    The letter has upset a lot of people I know. If it was written by Obama, it certainly calls his judgment into question…

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 22, 2008 at 1516 hrs
    
    
    

11. I haven’t seen an Obama campaign denial.

    Posted by Owen on October 22, 2008 at 1521 hrs
    
    
    

12. I just called Obama National HQ and they know nothing about the letter. Someone is going to get back to me with a definitive answer, but they said there is no official campaign record of the letter being sent to MW.

    The person I spoke to checked all their “daily notes”, press releases and statements. They found the article online and said it appeared to be a letter from O but they have no official campaign documentation of it. They also said it was odd that it was sent as a letter and not a campaign press release or official statement.

    The JS, the pilots union and MW got skunked!

    I’ll post again if and when I hear back from the Obama campaign.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on October 22, 2008 at 1637 hrs
    
    
    

13. I said I would get back to you all if I found out the letter was real or a hoax. I was allowed to see the actual letter to Midwest Airlines. I also read the letter from the union and the response from Midwest to Obama. The letter the union received and the JS published were slightly different from what Midwest received. I totally believe the letter to Midwest was AUTHENTIC and the one received by the union/paper had been poorly copied and edited by someone not connected with the campaign.

    The point I made about the union “bug”, the printer’s union local stamp, was clearly visible on the letter Midwest received and had been erased, among other minor details, from the PDF published by the Journal Sentinel. Per mht I think it was retyped on an image of the original letterhead with signature.

    Although different from the letter published, the letters are essentially the same…and the blogger’s comments/criticism are quite valid.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 01, 2008 at 1351 hrs
    
    
    

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