Buzz Hargrove wins a game of 'Chicken'

Yep, he did.

You remember that game as a kid? I remember it - riding full bore on my bycycle, another kid grimly bearing down on his, heading straight at you. One of you buckles and turns away (that was usually me. I value life!)

Buzz Hargrove, CAW negotiator and chief, did that with Air Canada. He won. I am genuinely pleased by this, because his membership will still have jobs (looked iffy there for a while) and because obviously he managed to give away as little as possible. When you're negotiating on behalf of people who only make $34,000 a year, it's great to know that they have had what they have to give up reduced to a minimum.

It is always the guy on the bottom getting squeezed. Robert Milton, who to my knowledge has never flown a plane, fueled it, or sold tickets for it, was going to score millions of dollars in a "bonus" when Li was at the table. Bonus for what? His remarkable skill at running profitable airlines? Milton was apparently quite good when he was a lesser Air Canada executive, but I think he's got to prove himself again before he picks up any bonuses. And what an insult to the union members, who've had to tighten their belts!

But is it not always that way, these days? At so many publicly traded companies, non-owner CEOs collect incredible pay for mediocre quality leadership (or worse), while the staff are laid off, downsized, offshored, or paid less. Greed is soon going to have to give way to more useful motivations, or even the greedy will be screwed, when the rest of us no longer have enough to consume their services.