Workers Face Difficult Choices

AAquila

Senior
Sep 22, 2002
357
0
New York Times

September 20, 2004
Workers Face Difficult Choices as Airlines Seek Concessions
By MICHELINE MAYNARD

Leonard Robinson, who put in 30 years as a mechanic at Pan American World Airways, has a message for his counterparts at US Airways, Delta, United and other struggling airlines pressing their workers for concessions: do not wait until it is too late.

"Negotiate. Just negotiate," Mr. Robinson said. Pan Am had more than 26,000 workers in its last full year of operation in 1990. All those jobs were lost when the carrier shut down on Dec. 1, 1991. "They should give up something" if it will save their jobs, Mr. Robinson, 74, from Brooklyn, said.

But David Garriga, who was laid off in 2001, after Trans World Airlines went bankrupt and was absorbed by American, said he did not regret fighting the constant rounds of concessions that T.W.A. management sought. Even though he has not worked since, he said the unions had no other choice. "It got to the point where we said, 'We're not going to give back and take away any more,' " said Mr. Garriga, 53, of Valley Stream, N.Y.

Therein lies the conundrum that union workers at the major airlines face, none more so than those at US Airways, which filed for bankruptcy protection for a second time on Sept. 12, after its employees refused to grant $800 million in wage and benefit cuts, the third round of cuts sought by the company. Including US Airways, along with United Airlines, which has been in bankruptcy since December 2002, and Delta Air Lines, which is threatening to seek court protection, more than 100,000 airline workers face uncertainty about their futures. If all three companies fail, which analysts say is unlikely, that would wipe out more jobs than the 110,000 lost after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

If the employees give in, as Mr. Robinson counseled, they may see their jobs vanish anyway. But once those jobs went, they might never find anything, like Mr. Garriga, and surely never the kinds of jobs they once held, for the industry has fundamentally changed.

The recent bankruptcies at US Airways and United demonstrate that companies can face financial distress even when workers cooperate, strengthening the resolve of today's labor groups to resist further cuts.

Even so, the previous generation's hard-line stance is understandable because airline jobs were once considered tickets to an enviable lifestyle, more flush in some ways than than middle-class families could otherwise enjoy. "People used to say, 'you'll never be a millionaire, but you'll live like one,' " said Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

That was true for Mr. Robinson and other members of the Pan Am Retirees Association, who held a quarterly meeting last week at a hotel near Kennedy Airport, where many of them once worked.

Standing near a table with flight bags in Pan Am's distinctive turquoise blue and bumper stickers reading, "Gone But Not Forgotten," Mitchell Jensen, 72, a retired ramp worker from Staten Island, recounted how he saw the world for peanuts as one of the perks of his job.

Years ago, on the way to India, he sat next to a schoolteacher who boasted of paying only $837 to fly from New York, round-trip. "Can you imagine getting such a good deal?" the woman asked him. Mr. Jensen could: his ticket had cost only the $13 service fee.

But those days are gone, as are his health care benefits. So is the company stock he received, in lieu of raises during the airline's final 11 years.

All Mr. Jensen has left is a pension of $832.78 a month, administered by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which took over the airline's retirement plan when Pan Am went under.

Bobby Hall, who is in his mid-50's and spent 33 years repairing planes for T.W.A., was not as lucky. He lost his job on Oct. 6, 2001, when American, which assumed T.W.A.'s assets in bankruptcy, laid off thousands of workers. He has not found work since. "The airline field is basically dead right now," said Mr. Hall, of Oceanside, N.Y.

If US Airways could not survive, it would throw 28,000 more workers, many of them in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, into markets already crowded with former airline employees. The group includes 5,600 flight attendants, 4,800 maintenance workers and 3,200 pilots.

Some of the earlier crop of airline refugees have joined other companies, including JetBlue, which has hired about 7,000 people since it began flying four years ago. Only about half the JetBlue work force has previous airline experience, however, and most of them are pilots and mechanics with specific job skills.

That is usually the way airline employees end up, said Professor Cappelli, who has been following the industry since it was deregulated in 1978. "If you're a pilot, you end up as a pilot, although you might bump around a little" from corporate jobs to flying charters or working for delivery companies like FedEx and United Parcel Service, he said.

Likewise, mechanics young enough to be retrained can sometimes find work in other businesses. But gate agents, flight attendants and baggage workers, whose skills are unique to the airline industry, often are forced to take a step down.

For some former employees, joining JetBlue, which does not have unions, means losing years of seniority at their old companies, said Vincent Stabile, JetBlue's vice president for human resources.

"Seniority is so important to them, because it gives you quality of life control," Mr. Stabile said. "It is a tough, emotional thing for them to do without."

David G. Neeleman, JetBlue's chief executive, said he preferred to have a mix of longtime airline employees and people who were fresh to the industry. "We never have had any problem hiring them from any other airline," Mr. Neeleman said on Friday, including Pan Am, T.W.A., as well as American, United and Delta.

"What's important to us," Mr. Neeleman said, "is whether they have a good attitude."

Some employees are grateful for the jobs. Though he works the night shift at J.F.K., Anthony Alexander, 30, showed up at La Guardia Airport on Friday morning for a balloon-strewn ceremony for the start of JetBlue service there.

Laid off by Midway when it halted service last year, Mr. Alexander earns $12.20 an hour as a lead ramp worker at JetBlue. That is $2.20 an hour more than he made at Midway. Despite the lack of union protection or a traditional pension - JetBlue workers have 401(k) plans - "I'll be there unless they kick me out," he said.

Former Pan Am workers know that feeling. News that the airline was ceasing operations "was like a shock to my body," said Hope Laredo of Queens, who declined to give her age. Ms. Laredo spent 36 years in the accounts department before she lost her job in 1991. She wound up at the company that made Pan Am's uniforms before retiring a year later.

Tony Miranda, 36, saw two airlines disappear - T.W.A., where he spent 13 years as a mechanic, and Eastern, where he spent three years as an aircraft painter. He now overhauls planes at Mid-Coast Aviation, a company that services business jets. There, he said, he earns 45 percent less than at T.W.A., with lesser benefits.

Luckily, he said, his wife has a good job with health care coverage, but there is no chance of expensive colleges for his 16-year-old son. "I told him straight up, unless he gets a scholarship, don't even think about a private college," Mr. Miranda said. Before, "I said the sky was the limit."

But with more than 110,000 workers laid off by the major airlines after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, on top of the thousands who lost their jobs at the vanished airlines, Mr. Miranda, who lives in St. Louis, said he is lucky to still be in the business.

"I know pilots making change at the casino, mechanics making pizza and flight attendants who are now waitresses. I know a lot of guys who have just given up," Mr. Miranda said. "They don't event want to touch an airline now."

Mike Carr, 41, of Hanover Park, Ill., is still at United, where he has spent 18 years as a mechanic. But in the last year, he had to take the overnight shift. He pays $180 a month for medical benefits, which used to be fully paid, and his unit has shrunk to about 650 mechanics from 1,200 before 9/11.

United, the unit of UAL that has been operating under bankruptcy protection since December 2002, is warning workers that more jobs will be cut, and it is expected to seek more concessions on top of the $2.5 billion a year in cuts won last year.

Mr. Carr, however, is skeptical about giving more. "Nobody minds making the changes if you think it is going to be worth it," he said.

But United does not seem to have a strategy "except cutting workers," Mr. Carr said. "Morale is very low."

Such experiences not only scare away workers on the front line, but deter managers from considering the industry, Professor Cappelli said. "It's not clear any more if this industry is going to get the best and brightest. I don't hear any of my M.B.A.'s saying, 'I want to go to work at an airline,' " he said.

Still, the former airline workers have sympathy for their counterparts at US Airways, whose chairman, David G. Bronner, warned in August that the airline would probably liquidate if it sought bankruptcy protection, because it was unlikely new investors could be found.

"I would imagine they are scared and are in the dark, just as the Pan Am employees were," said Nick Lacetera, 53, the former president of the Pan Am credit union who is now in charge of the financial institution that acquired its assets.

Hearing that US Airways' pilots rejected an effort to vote on concessions "brought back a whole bunch of memories," added Mr. Garriga, the former T.W.A. mechanic. Constantly under threat from management for more givebacks, he said, workers felt, "regardless of whether we close the company, this has got to stop." But such a stance would not serve workers at US Airways, Delta and other airlines well, Mr. Lacetera said. "The reality is that they are going to have to bite the bullet and do what is necessary to survive," he said. "A half of a loaf is better than none."


Eric L. Dash contributed reporting for this article.
 
Working as a lead ramper at JetBlew for $23k a year in NEW YORK CITY and GLAD to get it?

Oh, yea, Mr. Bush . . . . the economy is great and getting better . . . . NOT.
 
Winglet said:
Working as a lead ramper at JetBlew for $23k a year in NEW YORK CITY and GLAD to get it?

Oh, yea, Mr. Bush . . . . the economy is great and getting better . . . . NOT.
[post="183022"][/post]​

Well, he is making 22% more than he was last year at Midway before he was laid off. B)

Did you get a 22% raise this past year? :p

Sadly, there are many thousands of desperate people who would gladly take his place.
 
There is an oversupply of labor in this country. That forces wages down and encourages employers to bully their employees into concessions. Immigration and birth rate are the main causes. The fact that a preponderance of immigrants (and their children) are unskilled/untrained makes it even easier for employers to cut wages.

Due to the contraction of the airline industry, we are even more affected by the oversupply of labor.
 
Prior to 9/11 the Bush administration said he would not let any airline union strike for better conditions because it would affect the economy. I guess letting the airline industry fail and putting thousands of workers on the street is much better for the economy.
 
this is NOT about letting the airlines fail for loss of jobs, this is about breaking the unions backs! labor is under attack in this country and unless WE as a group rise upto halt the raping of our livlihoods most will be left in a most dire sitiuation econonmically because a vast amount of americans live way beyond their means and stand to lose it all. save while you can, sell what you can!
 
local 12 proud said:
this is NOT about letting the airlines fail for loss of jobs, this is about breaking the unions backs! labor is under attack in this country and unless WE as a group rise upto halt the raping of our livlihoods most will be left in a most dire sitiuation econonmically because a vast amount of americans live way beyond their means and stand to lose it all. save while you can, sell what you can!
[post="183118"][/post]​



How exactly is labor under attack?
 
what planet do you live on garfield? or maybe your one of those who thinks american jobs are better sent overseas to increase the shareholders profit margins! :eek:
 
this is NOT about letting the airlines fail for loss of jobs, this is about breaking the unions backs! labor is under attack in this country and unless WE as a group rise upto halt the raping of our livlihoods most will be left in a most dire sitiuation econonmically because a vast amount of americans live way beyond their means and stand to lose it all. save while you can, sell what you can!

Rise up against who? The industry is changing fighting will only make it worse. Who are going to get money out of? The airlines don't have any. Strikes and labor pressure only work when a company is MAKING MONEY, not losing it, otherwise they just go out of business.
 
Prior to 9/11 the Bush administration said he would not let any airline union strike for better conditions because it would affect the economy. I guess letting the airline industry fail and putting thousands of workers on the street is much better for the economy.

What exactly do you want Bush to do about it?

Government intervention is a big reason why the industry is in such bad shape, if airlines were allowed to go out of business the industry could reinvent itself into a money making industry, which surprisingly would increase wages. Letting the airline industry fail, specifically certain airlines is EXACTLY what needs to happen.
 
local 12 proud said:
what planet do you live on garfield? or maybe your one of those who thinks american jobs are better sent overseas to increase the shareholders profit margins! :eek:
[post="183159"][/post]​



Hey, if you are willing to do it for the same wage, I'm sure AMR or what ever corp will be hppy to keep the jobs local. AMR is in buisness to ake money. They will go where the best deals are just as people go to Wall Mart for the best deal. So untill you come up with an iea to off set the salary that you want to receive, I would not hold your breath.
 
you may whore your self out to walmart but I DO NOT, people like you and oneflyer are the reason jobs are being sent to the lowest bidder! saftey and quality be damned, give you the rock bottom price. well guess what your job may find its way over seas! :blink:
 
I do not go to Wal-Mart. But that does not really matter now does it. The majority of the people do shop their. So, I ask you again. Do you have a way to offset the cost of your labor or not? If you do not, then the AMR or any company for that matter out of necessity for survival, must look else where in order to lessen their costs. Most people will look for the best deal. That is the world we live in. If you choose to live in a reality where everyone gets paid what they are worth, you go right ahead.

The US government should have been more concerned with the standard of living in the rest of the world rather than defending the mineral and resource rights of despots and dictators. We should have all been concerned with the people of Mexico having clean water, clean air and a decent economy as opposed to the “big bad Russiaâ€￾ taking over the world. Because as far as I am concerned, it is not Russia he “hadâ€￾ to worry about, it is Mexico and China how we HAVE to worry about.


Local, just curious, have you gone through your closet and checked how many items have been made my low cost labor in China and Thailand? Have you gone through the components on your vehicle and seen how many of them were subcontracted out to Mexico or other 3rd world nations? Have you looked at the appliances in your home and ensured that they were all manufactured solely here in the US with components build in the US by companies who do not use immigrant labor? Do you shop at local markets who get their produce from farmers who only use American labor to pick their crops with American built tools and machines? Are you getting my point Local? You do not have to shop at Wal Mart to affect US labor. I know that you have items in your possession that have affected the future of a US laborer. Do not even try to deny it. It is not humanly possible not to. Hell, Ford builds cars in Mexico, Honda builds cars in the US. Are the cars Mexican, US or Japanese?

Companies are in business to make money. They are not in business for our enjoyment. For any employee who feels they are not earning the salary that they feel they are entitled to, that individual is more than welcome to search for an employer who will pay them what they want. Unfortunately, in this day and age, that may be easier said than done. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. So when you vote, keep this in mind. The US is not an island. We are part of a world community. How the rest of the world is living affects us in a very real manner. When someone slams the idea of us “givingâ€￾ money away to less fortunate nations under the guise of “aidâ€￾, keep in mind that if we do not help Mexico and other such nations get on their feet, those citizens will be looking else where to make a living.

So Local, unless you have a fix for the problem, get used to it because it is not going to get better anytime soon, if it ever does.
 
FWAAA said:
Sadly, there are many thousands of desperate people who would gladly take his place
[post="183046"][/post]​
But you're not sad enough to hold the current administration at least partially responsible? No I did'nt think so...
 
DCD said:
[post="183046"][/post]​
But you're not sad enough to hold the current administration at least partially responsible? No I did'nt think so...
[post="183477"][/post]​

What makes you say that? Because I didn't include an obligatory slam on President Bush?

The moderators of this board have made it perfectly clear (at least to me) that political discussions have absolutely no place in the airline forums. I respect their wishes.

Political discussions belong in the Just Conversation forum (at the bottom of the page), not here.