M.Mouse

The remark that HiSpeedTape made concerning the use of the telephone and ACARS etc are indeed relevant. The telephone in my company has a bypass code for long distance calls, which in the strict sense should not be used for personal calls, however this is not always the case. Obviously you have never ever flown aircraft that are ACARS or HF equipped so there is no need to expand on this subject.

The 39 year employee in question was only a few months from retirement so why all the unnecessary fuss and wasted dollars in firing him.

This is just another example of security running amuck the most glaring example being airport security itself.

It’s the same mind set folks. Policemen do not understand aviation and never will, sad but true…

The AC management in this instant needs to give their collective heads a shake. In this current economic climate they would be well advised to keep track of the big picture. No company needs or wants this type of PR.:o

T_richard, with all due respect, in considering the scope, grandeur, and the sheer effrontery of theft in the investment securities business, I am beginning to see how you have arrived at your point of view; morally intact, but a little jaded in my opinion, no doubt backed by substantial experience.

The nature of the piloting business, as with most other professions requiring a high degree of technical skill, generally speaking now, tends to weed out the dishonest ones at an early stage. You can't lie your way, for example, through a serious inflight emergency. The exceptions seem therefore all the more glaring.

I do not work for Air Canada, nor would I wish to in view of current management policies. By applying sledgehammers to midges, they display not only their inability to solve problems creatively, but the very nature of their collective baseball-bat mentality.

HotDog, over here you could be summarily dismissed for drinking in uniform! Does your ex employer allow crews to drink in uniform? :eek: :eek:

Oooh, the PC police are on the ball tonight.:D

FIRSTLY I DO NOT CONDONE THEFT, BUT I THINK AC HAS DONE MORE DAMAGE THAN GOOD BY CREATING AN ATMOSPHERE OF NERVOUSNESS AND LOW MORAL AMONGST IT'S EMPLOYEES.

767-300ER THERE ARE POOSIBLE SCENARIOS THAT YOU HAVEN'T CONSIDERED. ie. MAYBE ONE OF THE ACCUSED DIDN'T STEAL ANYTHING BUT WAS VISITED BY SOMEONE WHO HELPED THEMSELF TO A COUPLE OF BREWSKIES AND CONSUMED THEM IN THE INNOCENT PERSONS ROOM. THE QUESTION COULD BE, WHO IS THE INNOCENT ONE? I THINK THE COMPANY'S CASE IS EASY TO REBUT.

MUSTAF THIS IS A CRIMINAL CASE - ITS THEFT UNDER.

I presume your condescension is to cover the fact that you are wrong.

Big Partyr,

Petty theft from ordinary citizens is a CIVIL matter. Check your definitions.

Otherwise I agree with your further examples underlining the difficulties in making a case out of this. Even I would be more than confident were I their advocate. I've successfully defended tougher ones before!!!

please
 

We all know when we get a job, we are supplied with pens and paper for obvious reasons...mainly to conduct Company Business. So let me ask you this:

Have you ever used the ink in the pen for anything but official purposes such as signing a credit-card form at the Gas Sataion? If so, you are stealing Ink.

Have you ever used a sheet of their paper to make out a grocery list and a "things to do list' on your plane ride home? If so, you are stealing paper.

If you answered "no" to both questions, I don't believe you !!

I do it all the time and I'm not ashamed of it. But by your definition I'm stealing according to M.Mouse and T.Richard among others...

Please give employees some slack because they'll work far harder for you if you do. And then the passengers will be happy, the crew will be happy and the company will be happy as profits go up as opposed to having no profits at all. What Air Canada did here is a real dis-incentive to produce quality service as there are no "perks" at the end. Gimme a break.

Andy

wsiu

I wondered when you would pop up with some more attempts at justifying theft.

In a certain airline in the UK there are circa 15,000 flying staff. Lets say that each takes on average two small beers from the aircraft per month. Lets say that the beers cost the airline 25p each. That comes to £45,000 p.a. for crew theft. Or in more realistic terms the airline must carry roughly 1000 passengers per annum paying £450 each just to cover the cost.

I bet Air Canada did some research and found that the true figures were far, far worse.

Using your strange logic could you explain how one would set about defining the limit of the 'perk'? Or is it what you feel like taking on the day, a little like your attitude to hotel property?

M.Mouse
 

I'm truly amazed at your piousness and even more shocked to claim these people are guilty before a trial.

Think about who participated in the invention of the "invisible dye on the cans". I'd imagine Air Canada security did or I hope at least they did.

Then ask yourself this: Who searched the rooms in question?

Who's to say the cans weren't planted? Personnal vendetta or a grudge perhaps. And we all know the beauties of Camcoders..namely EDIT and ON/OFF.

I prefer to give everybody the benefit of the doudt until the FACTS are known and the parties involved are proven guilty!! Apparently, you just want to leave these people out to dry. That's where I think we have a major difference in beliefs and philosophy.

Andy

Forgive me for not being clearer but I wasn't saying the Air Canada crew are or are not guilty.

What I am saying is that as a principle theft is wrong however one wishes to try and justify it.

Nowhere have I claimed that I am above reproach but I do try and live by a personal moral code which it is plainly obvious you and a few others disagree with

The bottom line is if you permanently deprive someone of something thats THEFT end of story.
Unless you work for an airline:D

I'm sorry, but it's difficult to see what relevance the opinions of a Systems Consultant are to this. Not being at all experienced in what goes on in Airlines, I'm not sure you have the background to defend what is theft and pilfering- such things should stop completely.

MUSTAF

IN CANADA INTERNAL THEFT FROM A COMPANY CAN, IF THE EVIDENCE MERITS, BE PROSECUTED CRIMINALLY BY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL. IT IS SIMILAR TO SHOPLIFTING, BUT IT IS CONSIDERED A FAIR BIT MORE SERIOUS BY THE COURTS DUE TO THE POSITION OF TRUST THAT AN EMPLOYEE HAS. IF PROVEN GUILTY IN FRONT OF THE WRONG JUDGE, THESE PEOPLE COULD VERY EASILY END UP WITH A CRIMINAL RECORD - A BIT HARSH OVER A FEW CANS OF WHATEVER, BUT POSSIBLE.

I THINK AC COULD HAVE HANDLED THEIR INTERNAL THEFT PROBLEMS A LITTLE MORE STRATEGICALLY ie. MAKING THE EMPLOYEES AWARE OF THE EFFECTS OF THE LOSES AND THE COMPANIES INTENTIONS OF PUTTING A STOP TO IT. SNEAKING UP ON A FEW UNSUSPECTING PEOPLE AND MAKING AN EXAMPLE OF THEM IS ASKING FOR A MORAL DISSASTER (ESPECIALLY WHEN MOST EMPLOYEES HAVE TAKEN SOMETHING FROM TIME TO TIME)

Ah Big Party As you probably know already, typing your entire message in CAPS is the internet equivalent of yelling at someone.

I am amused by the lengths that people have gone to, to justify these stolen drinks. Ink from a pen, personal telephone calls. My limited understanding of the law is that it doesn't work with quite the rigidity portrayed in this thread. Using the company pen, maybe even taking the company pen home to write the great British/Canadian/American novel while technically theft won't be pursued by most companies. As I understand the previous postings, Air Canada had a serious problem with large numbers of staff helping themselves to the liquor supplies repeatedly. I also am led to believe that there was a company wide warning about this behavior and the companie's intent to crack down on it. Bottom line, they were warned, the continued to steal, they were caught, now they pay.

The way I see it, if you want to believe it wasn't stealing, no argument is going to change your POV. Believe what you want, life will straighten it out for you.

I'm outta here

Peace

I would tend to agree with M.Mouse - the accounting would of course differ with each airline regarding the cost of the beer, pax ticket costs to cover food not consumed, etc, etc.. but fact remains that these things do add up. And with the state of the airline industry being as tenuous as it is, who's to say that all those beers won't eventually amount to a serious chunk of change that even a big company can't ignore? Beer is cheap. I buy my own, thank you very much.

BIG PARTYR

Are you losing your eyesight......OR WHAT!!!!!!!

NotsoFantastic
 

You wrote:

"what relevance the opinions of a Systems Consultant are to this. Not being at all experienced in what goes on in Airlines, I'm not sure you have the background to defend what is theft and pilfering"...

sorry to inform you but EVERYBODY has the background to defend theft and pilfering. Without boring you to tears, let me you about a really nice scam I uncovered in the early '80s at a company I was consulting at.

The loading dock at this place was staffed from 7:00am until 3:30pm. After that, a phone was provided and the Computer Operators would open the loading dock and sign for the equipment. In short time, irregardless of who signed for the equipment, instead of finding 8 controllers the next morning there would only be 7. This went on for a couple of months and bear in mind, this was before Video Survelleince. Needless to say both the company and IBM were more than a little upset at the missing equipment.

About 10 weeks into this and having stopped deliveries after 3:00pm, no more equipment went "missing" Imagine my surprise on the Tuesday after Labor Day when our IBM engineer came in and told me he knew where to find the equipment. Needless to say I asked for a further explanation. It turns out this IBM engineer was driving around his neighborhood with his family and saw a sign for a garage sale. Sure enough, right on this guy's lawn were 8 or 9 controllers been sold either intact or for their parts. The individual selling them was very flexible.

Turns out this individual was one of the Computer Operators at the site in question. After his shift was over, he was simply opening the loading dock, driving in, and shoving a controller into his flatbed truck. Then he left.

Of course, he obviously wasn't the sharpest stick in the forest as evidenced by his attempt to sell the said equipment. :D :D

I guess that's why a Systems Consultant might have had some experience in this. Simply because THEFT is THEFT irregardless of the industry involved.

Andy

Taking drink from the aircraft has been part of the airline industry since before Pontius was a pilot. It is now, quite rightly in my opinion, looked on as something that should not be happening. However some sort of sense is needed in applying the rules, the famous (or infamous) BA sausage incident at LHR recently is an example of rules gone mad. There is a big difference between emptying the first class bar into your bag to start the room party off with 5 bottles of Krug at £60 a go and taking a bottle of mineral water with you because the hotel water is undrinkable.

As an aviation professional but not being a pilot, and after having read this thread, it's so easy to understand why so many pilots' colleagues hold them in utter and absolute contempt. Here we have a group (i.e., pilots) that is the best paid of all aviation professionals and whose allowances/per diems would quite often exceed the annual salaries of their colleagues on the ground wingeing because some of their number were sprung helping themselves to company stores.

Shame on anyone who takes their employers property!! It is a fact that the odd telephone call, a few pages of photocpying here and there are part and parcel of all corporate life, regardless of industry. What falls outside accpted practice in the name of 'perks' is the systemic removal - I would call it theft - of company materials be such material be aircraft stores or widgets. The fact that a/c stores and pax amenities have been included in the ticket price is immaterial: the simple fact is that these stores are NOT yours. They belong to someone else and quite clearly should remain where they are.

I have to ask Musthafagander how he can defend the indefensible? The fact that technicalities are used to escape a charge of theft must indeed be a hollow victory....resort to a technicality often implies guilt but of course everyone is innocnet until proven guilty. I wouldn't want to be working alongside someone who was a tad light fongered - I would never know if his or her fingers would extend to my goods and chattels.

Good riddance to thiefs!!!

:(

reggiespotter,

Defending what you call "the indefensible" is easy. At the time I was running a union, and all my members are innocent until proven guilty. If you care to read my posts on this subject, you may notice that I want proof.

Maybe at some time in your life you, too, will want the burden of proof to be on your accuser. Technicalities are not the issue - prove your accusations or withdraw them. No ifs, buts or maybes.

It is sometimes a real disappointment to see how ready some people are to try and convict people on the basis of rumour for something of which they may well be innocent.

Just to recap - There is no excusing theft, but before I convict someone I must have proof. You know, that stuff that will stand up in court - not what you think, what you can prove.