Cato was a consultant before coming to AAWW and was hired as a contractor for the Atlas initial contract negotiations and union busting. Later he became a VP operations because many he had to work with at AAWW told him to kiss off because they don't report to him when he ordered things done when he was just a contractor/consultant.
Cato found himself on the way out when B Flynn was brought in as CEO due to his general character and how things were done in general with the work force. You generally don't come in and fire everyone at one time. Bad business stability and bad for the stock. You'll note a number of VP's etc started leaving over the next year after Flynn's appointment but didn't notice due to their lower impact on our day to day stuff. Cato was pretty well entrenched due to the convoluted structure he set up with AACS/AABO, Polar, the ongoing grievances, merger and multitude of self constructed things to help ensure his continued employment to manage it and screw with the labor. Eventually he stepped on his penis one too many times with Flynn by forgetting his position and not keeping his ego in check thinking that he was indispensable. Forced his termination somewhat earlier than expected before they had an immediate replacement installed which is now Carlson. Court still out on him, but his history isn't promising. Few in those positions have rosey labor history.
Cato is still kept on in a consultant/witness basis due to the lack of records at AAWW on ongoing grievances that were initiated by the union during his tenure. So he self did ensure a continued trickle of income for himself and is still getting a check from time to time on what the company can't come up with evidence/info during processing of past grievances caused by Cato.
Of course, the conspiracy theories involving Bourne sound soooo much better and go sooo much further than the facts. Funny how they all seem to have been developed from one side of this Polar/Atlas equation and continue as an easy excuse of the situation. That repeated behavior by one group was probably one of the bigger driving forces of why we went Teamsters by what was a record setting decertification vote.
Last edited by nitty-gritty; 20th Aug 2009 at 18:43.