WASHINGTON – The whistleblowers who exposed maintenance and inspection problems at Southwest Airlines told Congress their jobs were threatened and their reports of noncompliance were ignored for years.
Federal Aviation Administration inspector Douglas Peters choked up Thursday at a House hearing and needed a few sips of water to tell lawmakers about how a former manager came into his office, commented on pictures of Peters’ family being most important, and then said his job could be jeopardized by his actions.
Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., said FAA managers’ actions displayed “malfeasance bordering on corruption,” adding that if presented to a grand jury, the evidence would result in an indictment. Both FAA whistleblowers — Charalambe Boutris and Peters — said the agency views the airlines as its “customers” instead of companies to be regulated. They said the FAA’s chief maintenance inspector at the time, Douglas T. Gawadzinski, knowingly allowed Southwest to keep planes flying that put passengers at risk, and that another inspector knew of the problem and did nothing.
When FAA inspectors blew the whistle in March 2007, Gawadzinski was their superior. He’s still employed by the FAA, but has no responsibility for safety decisions, said Nicholas Sabatini, the agency’s associate administrator for aviation safety.
Disgust prevents me from commenting at the moment.
We’re the Government. We have your best interest at heart.
Gee, another section of the Bush Government “servicing” their paying customers, industry? Surely by now this is no surprise to anyone. If the Bush administration is doing anything, it’s not for the citizen’s good. If they aren’t doing anything, it’s not for the citizen’s good.
Plane loads of people are falling from the sky but at least I have my job. I like my job I don’t have to do anything but complain and I will probably get a raise next year when they elect a democrat. I guess it really doesn’t matter which party gets elected though, they both pretty much care only for themselves, like me and my job.
Sorry to say, no good deed goes unpunished.
#2, It’s always Bush, isn’t it. Or – for the not-so-insane among us – we know this kind of thing has been going on for a long time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_whistleblowers
A related article by KD on the cage match, United grounded its triple 7 fleet.
http://tinyurl.com/283wqo
#4–Ah Yea==excellent/sobering/sad link. I’ve never understood why people just don’t deal with the truth and thank people for bringing us all closer to it.
#5
With Bush, Cheney, Rove, Pelosi, Clinton et. all as our representatives in government you could say that the illegals have taken over. Each one of them belong in prison. Period.
#7, bobbo you got that right. When someone puts their career on the line to do the right thing, they should get highly rewarded.
What incentive is there to do the right thing?
Aside from the political finger pointing, the NBST
needs to be given teeth when it comes to these safety matters. Too many times, over too many years the FAA doesn’t head NBST warnings until it is too late.
#9–Ah Yea==well I think I’m arguing for something different. When a “line investigator” says xyz is wrong, the system should respond to fix it==NOT COVER IT UP OR IGNORE IT. Here is where everyone should just be for the truth and fixing things. Its only after this point that “whistleblowers” become heros because they have made the correct reports which have been covered up or ignored and usually they have to do something more than just keep reporting the same things in order to get correction.
Now, in my experience what “often” happens is after that first report goes ignored or the investigator is told to stop reporting those things, the investigator does indeed stop reporting xyz as they are fearful for their jobs. Then a few months or years later they whistleblow on the subject in secrecy. What they are charged to do is to keep initially reporting accurately==but they are only human. Its good they finally whistleblow, sad they stop initially reporting.
Whats also “curious” is how “higher ups” somehow get the notion that violating the rules is something that is valued. It rarely is in the full daylight. Something about the dark is mystical.
It’s the same story in every government regulatory agency. The agency gets into bed with the ones they are supposed to regulate.
Since the ones being regulated are businesses – usually big ones, their big money comes into play and simply buys the behaviors it wants from government.
And the result – what we have right now – is fascism.
—————–
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
——————
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini, Fascist Party, Prime Minister/Dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943
——————
Here are some of my own thoughts on it:
Our country has been drifting towards Fascism because both parties have bought into the slogan, “Government is not a SOLUTION to the problem. Government IS the problem” – an idea promulgated by the Republican party. Do you remember the Republican line (Reagan?, Goldwater?) that the scariest thing you can hear is, “I’m from the government and I want to help you”?
That shallow idea is destroying the regulations that were built up slowly, over time, to protect ordinary citizens from the ravages of unrestrained capitalism.
We must remember, and teach, the reasons those regulations came into being.
Bobbo, I’ve experienced the exact same think in a corporate setting. I had a stint working for Iomega just before they went down the tubes big-time. I can go into a huge laundry list of problems the company had and what we tried to do to fix them, but in the end the Vice-Presidents became the worst problem. Instead of helping, they ardently impeded us because they didn’t want to look bad (even though a poop-throwing semi-trained monkey could have done their jobs better.)
They became the gate-keepers of bad news because it jeopardized their bonuses. Result: They ended up getting fired with nearly everyone else because Iomega lost $50 million/year for nearly 3 years due entirely to upper-management incompetence.
I did all I could to help, but I jumped ship before Iomega imploded because it didn’t take a fortune-teller to see where that company was headed.
Oh, while I’m at it –
Removing the regulations that protected us since the “Great Depression” are one of the direct causes of the financial situation our country finds itself in right now.
#12–Stu==right on. “Before you take a wall down, remember why the wall was put up in the first place.” Old xyz saying.
Government IS THE PROBLEM when it doesn’t govern. Stupid politicians don’t understand their own constitutional oaths. On top of that they are bastards and corrupt.
#13–Ah Yea==you make me laugh. Yes, executives acting to protect their bonuses. Same ballpark as acting to protect their stock options. And so forth. Got to balance 10 balls before the more complicated, but more accurate, democratic/liberal position on protectionism/reform can be understood.
Colbert had a good liberal guest on a few nights back. Colbert jousted that truth was easy to understand. The guest said “No–truthiness is easy to understand and fits on a bumper sticker which the repugs are good at. Liberals have a harder time because the truth is more complicated and harder to communicate.” Good one, that.
Bobbo, that’s a great quote, and all too true.
I also agree wholeheartedly with your observation about Government not governing and corrupt politicians. This thread itself has highlighted one of the reasons why the government can’t be trusted to regulate business.
In my dreamworld the shareholders would keep the corporations in line. After all, it’s the shareholders money which is spent as obscene bonuses and lost through failed strategies. It’s the shareholders who have the ultimate say as to how their corporations are run.
Unfortunately, it’s also the shareholders who are asleep at the wheel until the car drives off the road.
#16–Ah Yea==nice parallel there. We citizens pay attention/get involved as much in monitoring/correcting our government as do we stockholders over our corporations===and all for the same reasons. We are steps removed from the points of action, the system is rigged for those closer to the actions, we trust those charged with duties to perform them and all too often they don’t, and we really are and should be very busy raising families and making a living.
So==we get what we get. One of the kickers though is how many of the victims of all these shennanigans all to their personal injury, will turn around and support the very ideas that so injure themselves and their neighbors. Inheritance taxes is a wall being torn down right now. I haven’t yet heard the original reasons for it talked about. Same with all the mortgage melt down==banking activities were extended to non-banking entities without the banking walls included. When wisdom is available in fortune cookies, you’d think our masters would eat out more.
#16, Ah Yea,
A great discussion with you, Bobbo, and Stu. I feel compelled to comment on one item.
Unfortunately, it’s also the shareholders who are asleep at the wheel until the car drives off the road.
There are three types of shareholders. The huge institutions of pension funds, etc., the wealthy with money to burn, and the little Joe Blow investor.
The Institutional investor only cares about the dividends. Nothing else matters. They also usually own most of the stock.
The wealthy group like to control the companies and so will often end up with a Board seat or even the CEO chair. Too often they are all buddies and sit on other boards with their friends. They are dangerous as they want your money more than you do.
Joe Blow just doesn’t have a voice. Their stake in the company is almost always too insignificant to mean anything.
#19==Catshit==you remind of good points. I wasn’t thinking of that when I posted, yet mine and Ah Yea’s point remains valid in that most Institutional Holders are indeed also asleep at the wheel even though they independently employ stock analyst.
One of the larger investors in Exxon was the California Public Employees Retirment Fund.==That fund was negligent in its stockholder self interest==again, they as professional as they might be, are still steps removed.
So what we effectively have left over is as you say the “greedy class” of inbred self-electing over monied CEO’s.
I’m worse off from having this conversation. Better go post on Seinfeld’s brakes or something less stressful.
#19, Yes, that is all too true. It’s almost like an endless circle-jerk the there are very few ways out.
One way out is a class-action lawsuit. Minority shareholders can launch one on behalf of all shareholders. Iomega had three going at the same time while I was there, and none of them were initiated by the major stockholders.
It’s not a great solution, but it can be moderatly effective.
Another option is to sell their shares of that corporation. Also not a great option, but money talks. Taking money from one evil corporation and investing it into another which is less evil can be very effective.
BTW, Thanks Catshit for posting EbolaMoney. I’ve been reading about Jacob Ndu and laughing my ass off!
One of the core issues with stockholders and voters being asleep at the wheel is time. People are busier today than they were 30 years ago. You now have Grandma splitting time between selling knitting on eBay and bidding on antiques. People have far more information at their fingertips than in the past but they also have more demands on their time. It is no wonder than most members of Congress do not read most of the bills they sign.
In the case of stockholders, it is hard to feel you are part of the company when you own say 1000 shares out of hundreds of millions. Instead of taking a direct interest in a particular company, people simply mitigate the risk of stupidity and mismanagement through portfolio balancing. Unfortunately, with government agencies, there is no simple way of spreading the risk of malfeasance, stupidity and mismanagement other than to have a competing agency to counterbalance the corruption.
#22–Thomas==what you say sounds reasonable at first blush==but citizens do not “invest” in the government as they do when buying stock. So, while your analogy is true in a sense, it is irrelevant.
No–what is COMMON to both scenarios is how to prevent corruption in the first place. You can let it continue as you seem to accept in the stock market by diversification==or you can change the mechanisms that are available to lie, cheat, and steal==but that would mean regulating the capitalism that currently is free to steal.
In government, corruption is prevented again by starting with a set of appropriate rules and monitored by an effective free press, the checks and balances of the other branches, and by voting the bums out.
There is a lot of work to do on all fronts.
Moral of the story: take the train. Or even drive whenever you can
If they can’t even handle the safety, then we definitely should privatize the FAA. At least then they would have the air traffic control figured out.
#22, Thomas,
Just to add to your points.
One way to get answers is to attend a Stock Holder’s meeting. There one may see how questions are usually shoved to the side or given a non-answer. Often the meetings are held in some far out of the way, yet expensive, place. Yet even when meetings aren’t held out of town, it is hard for an individual investor from Atlanta, Indianapolis, or Denver to attend a meeting in New York, Boston, or San Fransisco.
Individual investors will not make much difference by selling their stock. The vast majority of shares are owned or held by the large institutions. The managers care more about returns than they do about who the CEO is fucking. The only time they will react is when the stock price drops.
Ah_yeah can’t quite figure out that in this instance IT IS the Bush admin. And most stuff wrong now with industry v govt regulation is wrong because of what the B’s crew has done (and what neocons have pushed for around 25 years). That doesn’t mean previous admins didn’t bad things too. My completely sane look at things is much better than someone with their eyes closed to what’s actually happening. And no, they aren’t all corrupt, but it is the tendency of any large corporation to make money any way they can, and of course if they can get a good fascist government in power, they can pretty much do whatever they want, including save money by ignoring or stopping inspections. Look at the meat industry. That’s the case all over the place since Bush came in and all though it was heading that way in many areas before, didn’t quite get all the way to “a very American” fascism until then.
So, yep, I’m sane. Sorry if you don’t like that. It’s entirely your problem, and everyone else that lives in America like you until you can get better educated. Ad homonym attacks show a lack in education.