Senate Statement
FLOOR STATEMENT AIRLINE AMENDMENT
Thursday, April 3, 2003
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment by my colleague from Missouri. We are dealing with another very significant bailout, using taxpayers' money, for the airlines which have been hurt.
I agree with the need to keep the airlines flying. Airlines are absolutely essential to our economy. But I believe when we are sending taxpayers' dollars to airlines, that we have at least some responsibility to ensure the employees are being fairly treated. This, to me, is simply an issue of equity and fairness.
Back when American Airlines acquired TWA, they did not just take the airplanes. They took the hub, they took the facilities, and they took the heart of TWA as well--its employees, employees we have come to know and respect and trust and whose service we have appreciated over the years. Since April 9, 2001, American Airlines and TWA have operated under a single umbrella. On that date, Donald J. Carty, chairman and CEO of American Airlines, stated:
Today, we warmly welcome TWA's employees to the American family. While employees and customers will see business-as-usual for some time, we're looking forward to working together and building a future as one team. Employees at American and TWA are united in our commitment to meeting our customers' needs and providing opportunities for growth in a rewarding work environment. Our theme for today's celebrations is ``Two Great Airlines--One Great Future,'' and I'm sure that, working together, we can fulfill that promise.
I was out there and I joined in that recognition in celebrating two great airlines with one great future, and on January 1, 2002, all TWA employees officially became American employees. At that moment, all former TWA employees were now an integral part of the new team at American Airlines.
Promises were made to the hard-working TWA employees in my home State, and these employees were publicly referred to as the crown jewel of TWA. It was not as if they were ``lucky to have a job at all,'' as some have suggested. They are employees with extensive years of background and years of seniority over a great number of their colleagues at American Airlines and, through their service to the traveling public to our communities, had developed a reputation for service that made this an extremely valuable hub. Had they known that the promises were not going to be kept, there were other options--reorganizing in bankruptcy, seeking alliance with another airline that would treat them fairly. They were made promises of fair treatment. They gave up what they call their Allegheny Mohawk protection rights on the expressed promise that they would be treated fairly.
After American Airlines stapled the TWA seniority list to the bottom, at least the top official of American Airlines came to my office and said: We are going to protect the hub at St. Louis; we are going to put a wall around that and keep former TWA employees serving the traveling public out of that hub, and we are not going to have them laid off because they will continue the TWA service. The wall came down. They were not protected. The crown jewel of TWA, the people in St. Louis, are losing their glitter. These promises made to them were the root of the entire agreement reached between TWA and American Airlines back when this whole deal was going down, and now these promises appear to have been broken.
If the TWA employees knew at the beginning they were merely being taken as a sacrificial lamb, then the deal would likely never have happened. Now the TWA employees, the TWA pilots, and the TWA flight attendants are the blood donors when cuts have to be made.
According to today's issue of the St. Louis Post Dispatch: All American Airlines flight attendants based at Lambert Field will lose their jobs if members of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants approve a contract by April 15 to help the airline avoid bankruptcy.
That is what we are providing money to support? The situation for former TWA pilots is grim as well. Fifty-four percent of former TWA pilots will lose their job before a single former American Airlines pilot will lose his or her job because they were simply stapled to the bottom of the seniority list.
After planned furloughs, there will only be 565 former TWA employees remaining. To help everyone with the math, that is 76 percent of the former TWA pilots and 100 percent of TWA flight attendants in St. Louis who will lose their jobs. They are literally cutting off the family crown jewel.
The senior most TWA pilot hired in 1963 was integrated along with a 1985 hire from American Airlines. That is almost 22 years later, and guess which one is on the chopping block first? Promises made in fairness have not been achieved. In this supplemental bill, we are poised to provide our airlines with $3.5 million to keep them in the air. With that assistance, more layoffs are coming. We must act before more of our talented and qualified employees are let go before junior colleagues within the same organization.
The choice before this body is simple: Support the Talent-Bond amendment and you support fairness, or oppose the Talent-Bond amendment and you decide with the bosses who are strong arming weaker unions, resulting in an extremely unfair integration of two great airlines and one great future. About 5,000 jobs are at stake. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this fair integration proposal.
I yield the floor.
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