Re: Study: Consumers Oppose Cell Phones in Flight

TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to my query:

Regards the City Engineering Department, like everything else in > Chicago, it is so full of corruption. The Great Flood, back in about > 1991 is a good example: Do you recall when one of the several > underground tunnels (one of them which crosses under the Chicago > River) sprang a leak? A city inspector, whose job it is (or was, he > got fired afterward, then rehired when he appealed to the union) to > walk through the tunnels frequently looking for water leakage, etc

Pat,

That story certainly seems like a case of the "big wigs" being too arrogant to take notice of what they are told, then trying to pass the blame afterward.

I'm not at all familiar with Chicago. The longest I've ever spent there was a couple of hours one Sunday afternoon waiting for a connecting train at Union Station to go west. I just wandered around downtown a little, and looking at the map I guess I must have been close to some of the spots you mentioned.

The union issue has been a huge problem in the past in Britain. I have a friend who worked for London Transport on the buses at one time, and he says he almost caused a strike one day by doing a little servicing. It seems he was "allowed" to change a filter in his job, but to get at one of them meant removing a small access panel in the wooden floor. A union boss spotted this and kicked up a fuss. Apprently he was expected to call the fitter/carpenter to come out and remove the panel, a procedure which could involve a wait of several hours. After changing the filter, he was then supposed to request the fitter to come out again to replace the cover. A half-hour job would suddenly take all day to complete.

Apparently the rules also required a bus to go out on an hour-long test drive after _any_ service work was done on it, even just replacing a blown bulb. The unions sure had that lot wrapped up tightly.

attached in your exhibition booth. If they catch you with a light bulb > or a multiple outlet cord, etc, the union workers take it away from you

Isn't that called theft? What happens if somebody refuses to give it up? ;-)

- Paul

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know that they literally 'take it away from you'; just that you'll be very pressured to go along with their plans, just like you mentioned on your busses. PAT]