Airline Companies Still Struggling on thier Crews

AER Lingus cabin crew have overwhelmingly backed a €97m cost-cutting plan after chief executive Christoph Mueller threatened to sack them.
A total of 92pc of the staff dramatically reversed their earlier vote against the rescue programme after the airline announced it would take drastic measures against them.
Three weeks ago, cabin crew rejected the cost cuts, known as the Greenfield Plan, by a majority of almost two-thirds.
The way is now clear for the airline to implement its plan to achieve over 650 voluntary redundancies within two years, pay cuts up to 10pc, which will be applied to the next payroll, and a three-year pay freeze.
Aer Lingus threatened to axe 230 of the over 1,000 IMPACT cabin crew on a compulsory basis, with just basic legal redundancy payments after they rejected the plan.
It said it would first terminate all of the crew's employment before rehiring them on inferior terms and conditions.
But IMPACT asked the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) to intervene and following talks with mediators, it agreed to put the proposals to its members once again.
It said members agreed to a re-ballot after getting more clarification on details of the plan.
Last night, Aer Lingus said it appreciated the overwhelming result of the second ballot.
It said the re-ballot result was a major step towards full delivery of the savings it wants from cabin crew under its cost-reduction programme, known as Project Greenfield.
"The company will now work with IMPACT to implement the productivity targets in the Greenfield agreement," it said.
Aer Lingus will discuss its plans to increase annual working hours from 600 to 850 with cabin crew next week.
IMPACT said approximately 828 of its members voted in the ballot. "It is significant that this result was achieved through a joint negotiating process," the union said.
Negotiations
"Furthermore, the agreement was achieved without any recourse to, or threat of, industrial action at any stage of the negotiations."
The cabin crew branch committee said it was pleased with the outcome of the ballot but the past few months had been difficult as staff faced the cost cuts barely a year after similar proposals valued at €15m.
It said it hoped the re-ballot would mark the start of a new relationship with management based on the principle of mutual respect.
Most of the troubled airline's staff, including pilots and ground handling staff, have already backed the plan.
Dublin North Fianna Fail deputy Michael Kennedy, a member of the Joint Oireachtas Transport Committee, said the result was "very good news" for Aer Lingus.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

Read More

Million Joins Earth Day

The white-shelled roof of the Sydney Opera House fell dark, one of the first landmarks to turn out the lights in an hour-long gesture to be repeated by millions of people around the world who are calling for a binding pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The fourth annual Earth Hour will see buildings in up to 4,000 cities in more than 120 countries unplug to reduce energy consumption and draw attention to the dangers of climate change, according to organisers.
The event will roll across the world, with participants turning off the lights when the clock strikes 8.30pm local time. From a shopping mall in Manila to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Empire State Building in New York, landmarks and skylines will dim.
"We have everyone from Casablanca to the safari camps of Namibia and Tanzania taking part," said Greg Bourne, CEO of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Australia, the environmental group that came up with the idea that started in Sydney in 2007 and has since spread to every continent.
The shutdown is completely voluntary and street lights, traffic lights and other safety measures are unaffected.
Andy Ridley, a WWF worker in Sydney who cooked up the idea of Earth Hour in a pub with friends, said he hoped this year's event would inspire world leaders to strive for a much stronger climate agreement than that struck at December's Copenhagen climate change summit, which failed to come up with binding rules on reducing pollution blamed for global warming.
"What we're still looking for in this coming year is a global deal that encourages all countries to lower their emissions," Mr Ridley said. "China is going to have to be a big part of that but so is every other major economy."
China first took part in the campaign last year, and this year more than 30 cities were to switch off their lights, including those at the landmark Forbidden City in downtown Beijing.
The giant panda Mei Lan, who lives at the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Centre in the south-western province of Sichuan, will kick off China's participation: when she walks on to a platform in her enclosure, the lights will go out, said Chris Chaplin, communications officer for WWF in China.
Some 88 cities took part in last year's Earth Hour, which has the backing of the United Nations as well as global corporations, non-profit groups, schools, scientists and celebrities - including Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and retired Cape Town Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

Read More

Microsoft joins tablet competition

Rumours have been building for months that Microsoft plans to challenge Apple’s iPad with a tablet computer of their own.
The Courier, thought to be a dual-screen tablet computer that opens like a book, was implicitly confirmed last week in a post on the Microsoft Jobs website that referred to “the forthcoming Courier digital journal”.
The post was quickly edited to remove the mention of the Courier but that didn’t stop the rumour mill.
Those rumours say that Microsoft’s Courier will weigh about a pound and be less than one inch thick.
Just as the iPad runs on the same operating system as the iPhone, it’s thought that the Courier will share the Windows Phone 7 Series mobile operating system.
Of course, with nobody at Microsoft prepared to officially confirm the device, it’s impossible to be sure.
Apple’s iPad launches in America next week and comes to these shores at the end of April.
Such is the hype around the device that analysts are predicting that tablet computers will become one of the growth technology categories of 2010.
Launching the iPad in January, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, said that he believed his company had successfully created “a third category” of devices that would sit between smartphones and laptop computers.
What do you use when a laptop is too cumbersome and too powerful for your needs but a smartphone has too small a screen and is not powerful enough?
For a few years the technology industry thought the answer would be so-called netbooks, ultra-portable but low-powered laptops.
But Apple believes netbooks offer the worst of both worlds, not the best, and the technology industry appears to agree.
Asus, a company that was instrumental in driving the netbook market, will launch a ‘netbook tablet’ in Europe next month.
This hybrid device has a netbook-style full keyboard which folds away to offer a tablet-style experience when required.
Then there’s the JooJoo tablet, which launches in the US imminently and boasts the largest touchscreen - 12.1 inches - of the new tablet crowd.
Other industries are looking expectantly at the new devices. The publishing industry hopes tablets will give e-books a much needed boost, while newspapers and magazines are making plans for money-spinning applications.
Then there are games, productivity apps and other kinds of software. Analyst Michael Wolf, of GigaOm, predicts that the tablet application market will be worth $8bn a year by 2015.
For tablets to succeed, those who own both a smartphone and a laptop will have to be convinced that a third device offers enough to make it worth buying and light users of computers will need to be sufficiently tempted to make the switch.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

Read More

Apartment in Russia Collapsed

An apartment block west of Moscow partially collapsed after a suspected gas explosion, killing three people and possibly trapping others under the rubble.
Some of the supporting walls of the three-story building gave way and a fire broke out.
Emergency situations ministry spokeswoman Veronika Smolskaya was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying seven people were injured and three may still be trapped under concrete after the blast in the small Moscow-area town of Pavlovskaya Sloboda.
The blaze engulfed several apartments but firefighters quickly brought it under control, she said.
Emergency officials trawled through the rubble in the hazy spring sunshine as shocked locals looked on.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

Read More

Story of Rags to Riches Stars

When thinking of the "new breed" of celebrity - from the Kardashians to Paris Hilton to the stars of "The Hills" - fame seems to depend on the fact that they're already fabulously wealthy. Well, despite these new trends, some of the most famous and wealthy people did not come from rich families - many of them were born into poverty. Read on to learn some of their stories and what it took from having nothing to multi-million-dollar empires.
The Phenomenon - Oprah Winfrey
Surely the most well-known rags-to-riches story of our era is the story of Oprah Winfrey. Having been born into abject poverty in rural Mississippi, Winfrey went from being a young girl clothed in potato sacks (literally) to the richest and most powerful female media mogul in the world. Winfrey was able to accomplish this by moving from a disruptive and abusive household in with her stricter father.
Once Winfrey was subject to discipline and was supported at school, she became an honors student and got her big break when she became a newscaster in Nashville after finishing college. Winfrey has come a long way from her poor upbringings, and is worth $2.9 billion as of 2009, according to Forbes.
A Magical Story - J.K. Rowling
Similar to Winfrey's story, J.K. Rowling went from being on the dole to starting a $15 billion industry. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books series, was estimated to be worth $843.92 million U.S. dollars as of 2008. She began writing the series while she was on welfare and by incorporating some of the darker elements of her own life - the loss of her mother and battle with depression - into the novels, Rowling's books became a success after an initial press of 1,000 sold out, giving way to Potter mania.
Signing the Stars - David Geffen
David Geffen is a name that many of you will have heard, but few will understand the significance. Geffen is responsible for signing Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bob Dylan and Nirvana, starting Geffen Records and was a founding member of Dreamworks studio.
Geffen grew up poor in Brooklyn, living in a one-bedroom apartment with his family and sleeping on the couch. Geffen did poorly in high school and flunked out of college, but his natural gift in spotting and developing musical talent — along with business sense that he learned from his mother - made him a millionaire by the time he was 26.
At 67, renowned art collector and philanthropist Geffen is worth an estimated $4.6 billion - making him one of the richest behind-the-scenes players in showbiz.
Making It With Music - Jay-Z
Another music mogul that made his way from the bottom to the top is Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter. Carter is as much a businessman as he is a performer, but began his life in the Brooklyn's Marcy Housing Projects. Carter was raised by his mother, and was involved in crime when growing up - at 12 he shot his brother in the arm for stealing his jewelry.
Carter began as a rapper and went on to become involved in everything from nightclubs and clothing to being a part owner of the New Jersey Nets. As of 2009, Carter was worth over $150 million according to Forbes, and seems to be broadening his reach in the business world.
Her Cash Will Go On - Celine Dion
Though she's kind of faded from the spotlight since her late '90s ubiquity - Celine Dion is still ranked as one of the highest-grossing female entertainers and in 2007 was listed by Forbes as the fifth richest female entertainer, coming in at $250 million. She also was ranked as the top-earning singer of the decade by U.K.'s The Sun. Not bad for the 14th (!) of 14 children growing up in a poor household in rural Quebec, where her father made $160 per week to support the family of 16.
Like many of these rag-to-riches stories, it seems Celine's success owed as much to luck as talent - she was discovered singing when she was 12 and continued to create more songs and make more money.
Canadian Songstress - Shania Twain
Another Canadian songstress that grew up with nothing in the rugged wilderness was Shania Twain (born Eileen Regina Edwards). The recently separated Twain grew up in Timmins, Ontario in a household that was too poor to pay for heat, and at times couldn't afford to buy food. By the age of eight, Twain was honing her craft in bars in order to provide an extra $20 for her family.
Twain continued her singing career into high school and was soon on her way to becoming the highest-selling female musician of all time. Her net worth is estimated at around $450 million.
The Bottom Line
From inner-city housing projects to rural homesteads without heat, many of the most famous and wealthy celebrities had very humble beginnings. What brought all of these stars from rags to riches was focusing in on their natural talents, dedicating themselves to its development and not stopping until they had a hefty bank account. It just goes to show that you don't have to be born rich to become rich.
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

Read More