Northwest Airlines created a ruckus by distributing a "save money” booklet to laid-off employees that included such tips as: "Don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash.” The booklet was included in a layoff packet given to dozens of axed workers in North Dakota, Montana and Texas.
After word of the often laughingly insensitive tips leaked out and employees complained, Northwest apologized and removed the tips from undistributed booklets.
"This is disgraceful that somebody at Northwest Airlines would send this out to a long-term employee facing having no job, telling them to do certain things that are very degrading,” Robert Roach Jr., a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, told a reporter.
Northwest is shedding jobs as it seeks to exit bankruptcy protection as early soon as 2007. The company said the "101 Ways to Save Money” were drawn up by a vendor charged with preparing materials for workers to help them cope with unemployment, the Web site The Smoking Gun reported.
The money-saving tips included:
Get hand-me-down clothes and toys for your kids from family and friends. Take a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods. Take a shorter shower. Rent out a room or garage. Borrow a dress for a big night out. Use old newspapers for cat litter. Ask your doctor for samples of prescriptions. Buy pre-owned toys and children’s books at garage sales. Buy spare parts for your car at the junkyard. Share housing with a friend. Buy, sell and trade clothes at consignment shops. Use low-flush toilets. Grow your own vegetables. Shop at auctions or pawnshops for jewelry and antiques. Cut the kids’ hair yourself.
The booklet also included such innovative advice as "inspect clothing carefully before purchasing it” and "when you buy a home, negotiate the sales price.” And it told the laid-off employees: "Bicycle to work.”
