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| Striking Airline Workers last year. We're all in this together now? |
"Brethren we conjure you...not to believe
a word of what is being said about your interests and those of your employers
being the same. Your interests and theirs are in a nature of things, hostile
and irreconcilable. Then do not look to them
for relief...Our salvation must, through the blessing of God, come from
ourselves. It is useless to expect it
from those whom our labors enrich." *
Back
in March, US airlines received $25 billion from the US taxpayer under the $2.2
trillion stimulus deal known as the “Cares Act”. This money was
intended to keep the Airlines afloat for the summer by covering their labor
costs. They also received, $25 billion
in loans and loan guarantees. One of the conditions for the hand out was
that the Airlines were barred from laying off, or to use the media’s
euphemistic terminology, furloughing employees. This ban ends October 1st
2020.
Well, the airline
bosses and their investors are coming back for more money and are disappointed
in the Republican proposal for the next coronavirus aid package there’s that
there’s no money in it for them. Hence the resort to a dose of economic
terrorism. If they don’t get it they will be laying off thousands more workers.
American Airlines says it will have to lay off 25,000 workers and United
Airlines some 36,000 if the taxpayer won’t pay their wages. United Airlines told its pilots that until a vaccine is
available things will not improve much and the airline’s original plan to layoff about one third of its pilot
workforce in 2020 and 2021 won’t do the job without taxpayer money. Alaska has
threatened to layoff 35% of its workforce.
American allocated
around $11.9 billion toward buying back its stock over the past five years and paid out more
than $1 billion in dividends during this same time period. Meanwhile, American’s
chairman made over $11 million in salary in 2019 and other executives another
$20 million. Investors in the airline industry, what amounts to a form of mass
transportation on a continent, claim that it will be 2024 before the global air
traffic returns to anything like they were before the coronavirus hit.
It’s
always interesting to look at the language the unknown figures behind the
scenes in this particular field use when making public statements. All the talk from the airline investors
through those that manage the business, never mentions profits. They need help
to “prevent” thousands of job losses.
They are desperate to “avoid cuts” “We hate taking this step, as we know the
impact it has on our hardworking team members.”, says one executive. Some team
the workers are on where they never control the ball.
The
airlines are hoping that workers will leave through early retirements or as
they put it “on their own”. Thousands
of workers have left “on their own”
at Southwest Airlines for example but one has to laugh at the language again as
it implies there was no external pressure, nothing happening in the outside
world or the economy that would cause thousands of workers to just leave their
jobs “on their own.”
One
can only imagine the uncertainty and fear that many workers must be
experiencing in this crisis. Beyond this, the huge stimulus will have to be
repaid and the future is one of further concessions and attacks on US workers.
All the talk of essential workers and
heroes is pretty nauseating as these
very same workers have been abused and denigrated for ever. Nurses and other professionals
in the health field aside, these heroes are in positions we are all encouraged
to avoid. They are reserved for the poor, the immigrants and so on.
Airline
bosses are hoping that the union leadership will agree to concessions to try to
save jobs and there is no indication that they will not. When capitalism goes
in to crisis, the labor hierarchy’s immediate response is to bail it out.
Aviation
unions representing pilots, flight attendants and mechanics are all supporting
an extension of the aid for another six months. In a letter from the unions to
Congress in June they called for another $32 million for “passenger airlines cargo carriers and aviation contractors.” “This is the simplest and fastest way to
maintain Congress’ historic commitment to keep aviation workers on payroll.”, the
letter said.
Sara
Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) made an appeal
on social media in March: "We
have told Congress that any stimulus funds for the aviation industry must
come with strict rules that includes requiring employers across aviation to
maintain pay and benefits for every worker," Nelson
said in the video. "No taxpayer
money for CEO bonuses, stock buybacks, or dividends; no breaking contracts
through bankruptcy; and no federal funds for airlines that are fighting their
workers' efforts to join a union."
Nelson
is regarded as a left winger in organized labor but, like all of them is wedded
to the Team Concept stressing workers and bosses have the same interests. “We’re all in this together, there is no
difference” she says in the video as she appeals to national pride and how
important this industry is to all of us carrying our troops and so on. Congress
must protect our paychecks she says.
Airline-catering
providers, security companies, ground handlers and cleaning services got $3
billion of the Cares Act to cover pay and benefits for workers through the end
of September with the same conditions----no layoffs. But numerous contractors
that laid off or furloughed some 9,000 people since the Cares Act was passed
received some $728 million in funding. https://www.wsj.com/articles/stimulus-money-for-airline-contractors-comes-under-scrutiny-11596044969
Yes
we’re all in this together.
And
Sara Nelson is placing our salvation and economic interests in the hands of the
billionaires and millionaires in the US Congress. Even if we take the name of
the legislation, the “Cares Act”. It
has two different meanings. Workers care about wages, jobs, security etc., and investors
that own the airline industry care about profits. There have been other top labor
officials that liberals and sections of the left in the unions have gone gaga
over, Amy Dean was one as was SEIU’s Andy Stern. Always looking for a savior except the
organized power of the working class.
Joining
with airline executives and the investors behind them under the “all in this together” canopy is a guarantee
that union members and the working class and taxpayers as a whole will suffer.
After workers saved US capitalism from itself in 2008 bailing out the auto
industry being one example, the end result was that Ultimately, the
government lost about $11.8 billion on its investment in the auto makers.
I
have done a fair bit of flying and have nothing but respect and admiration for
the flight attendants. They work non-stop taking care of their customers and
working through various time zones that can be very stressful. I remember when
the airline industry forced concessions of them and attendants, (mostly women) found
themselves in some areas, having to apply for welfare. Others who had planned
to retire had those dreams dashed.
Not much of an “all together” attitude there. Sarah Nelson who has gained some respect
for her outspoken views and sounding quite militant, is in danger of ending up
as they all do, participating in the attacks on their own members, by relying
on the Democratic Party and Congress, a direct result of the Team Concept and the
view that there are no differences.
It
is absurd that the taxpayer, the working class which is most of us, are
borrowing billions of dollars that we will hand over to a ruthless bunch of
wasters so that they can keep the business and pay our wages. After the Great
Recession the hatred and anger at the super rich and the government was very
strong. Here we are bailing the system out again and the heads of organized
labor are reminding us that there are no differences among us; bankers and
hedge fund managers, are no different to waiters and welders.
This
is the time for any labor leader that claims to be heading in a new direction to
call for the nationalization of the airline industry. If we are paying the
wages why don’t we collectively own the company? In the UK, workers have shown that they want
the re-nationalization of the major important industries, mail, rail, water and
do on. In the US we never hear any alternative views only pro-market propaganda
from representatives of the two big business parties and their candidates. In
the debates we only hear carefully scripted questions and answers from the two
big business parties, I recall Jill Stein getting arrested trying to get in to
the debates some years ago.
Our
postal service is a public agency and an extremely efficient one if we are talking
about serving the majority of the population rather than providing profits for
a minority that don’t work. Many fire departments, the TVA, are public so are
social services despite being savaged by privatization to a great extent.
Public services like public jobs are overwhelmingly positive.
Nationalizing
a major industry within the framework of a capitalist economy is not the be all
and end all of it, only a small step but an important one as it undermines the propaganda
that the market and the private sector is the only means of organizing society.
Relying on our own collective strength and applying it through a direct action
fight to win strategy, and building our own independent political party is the
path the US working class must open up ahead.
*1840's appeal from
New England laborers to their fellows to abandon the idea that the
employers/capitalists would solve working people's problems. Philip Foner History of the Labor Movement
Vol. 1 p192
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