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Northwest’s dumpster-diving tips crash or "How a company should not handle layoffs"

Getting money advice from a bankrupt airline wasn’t the thing that most offended some soon-to-be laid-off Northwest Airlines Corp. employees. It was the dumpster-diving tips.

Northwest is laying off its customer service workers and baggage handlers at many smaller airports as it reorganizes under bankruptcy protection.

Earlier this month, it sent workers in Bismarck, N.D.; Bozeman, Mont.; and Austin, Texas, a handbook with tips for handling their layoffs. It included 101 money-saving ideas such as, "Don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash."

Other tips included using old newspapers for cat litter, asking friends and family for hand-me-down clothes and asking a doctor for free prescription drug samples.

"I realize that some person probably thought they were doing a world of good," Bryan Dalzell, a Northwest customer service agent for 27 years and a union steward in Bismarck, N.D., told the St. Paul Pioneer Press Wednesday. "It came across to us, after losing our jobs after a lifetime of work, as patronizing and rather insulting."

Full Story: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0608170207aug17,1,6096838.story?coll=chi-business-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

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