Doing my best to ignore the ramblings of a temporarily deranged EWL, the following appeared in yesterday's Buenos Aires Herald paper, not very encouraging:
"According to reliable sources Aerol'neas Argentinas employees have put together a proposal whereby they are seeking to purchase the airline themselves. This new proposal, which has been called Cooperativa Aérea Argentina, or CAAR, has tabled the following proposals:
• A debt reduction of 50 percent
• A 50 percent tax reduction
• A five-year tax holiday
• A return of all its historic routes
• A government investigation of the last 10 years
In return the employees are prepared to offer:
• Salary reductions in proportion to income
• Staff reductions in all areas
• Democratic union meetings with secret ballots
• Voluntary retirement programmes paid by employees themselves
• If the airline is producing a loss by year five, indemnity payments are cancelled and the airline closes.
• Management appointed in open selection procedure
A reserve fund would be set up and each employee would have a share in the company depending on years worked and salary level.
Other parts of the proposal are that each employee would have one vote at union meetings, each union would have one vote on company decisions and voting will be secret and obligatory.
Employees would be allowed to sell their shares, which would be listed on the stock exchange, but would lose their right to vote if sold before three years.
Voluntary retirements would be paid out of the salary reserve fund and directors would be chosen through a selection process and paid a maximum of $20,000. Area managers would be selected - and fired if inefficient - by their colleagues.
This new proposal has the unmistakable flavour of the old state nostalgia as for five years it proposes a complete tax holiday.
What is worse is that again a huge state apparatus is built up with monopoly conditions to the detriment of the private sector which is itself in the midst of a serious crisis out of which nobody is helping it to survive.
Also not answered in the proposal is who settles the remaining 50 percent debt that hasn’t been condoned?
These proposals are a blatant attempt to destroy market competition and distort market forces as its main aim is to return to the status quo that existed before the airline was privatized in 1990.
Also relevant is that the proposal makes no reference to key issues such as fleet management and personnel management.
It would seem that any measure now goes to save the Condor, closer to extinction than to death.
Currently Aerol'neas Argentinas and its subsidiary Austral have a domestic market share of 16 percent while the remainder is split up among LAPA, with 49 percent, Dinar 17 percent, Southern Winds 13 percent and the rest 5 percent."