(The AFL-CIO issued the following statement on March 28.)
WASHINGTON — Since Monday, union members who work in the airline industry have been arriving in Washington, DC from around the nation to tell Congress that it should act now to provide strong and immediate relief for this critical industry and its workers.
The national crisis facing the airline industry and its workers is worsening every day, creating an extra drag on the troubled national economy. It is irresponsible for the Bush Administration and Congress to wait for free market forces to restructure the airlines while working families nationwide reel from the impact of the blows to this industry. Federal action to help the airlines must be swift and leave no worker behind.
Congress should provide relief for the airlines for the enormous costs of the war on terrorism. Congress must not repeat its performance after September 11 when — with the quiet acquiescence of airline CEOs — it failed to include worker relief in an industry aid package. It should provide extended unemployment benefits for laid-off airline workers and a renewal of benefits for those who have already exhausted them. To ensure the stability and continuity of workers’ pension plans, Congress also must act to address the excessive funding pressures faced by these funds, as well as by the plans in virtually every industry.
The current crisis is not just another cyclical downturn. Since September 11, the airlines and their workers have been saddled with enormous homeland security costs that should be borne by the federal government, not by airlines and workers. Since the days following the September 11 attacks, nearly 200,000 airline and Boeing manufacturing workers have lost their jobs. Many have run out of benefits and face little prospect of being rehired anytime soon. The Air Transport Association, an industry trade group, is estimating that the war in Iraq could cost an additional 70,000 airline jobs?. With 16 jobs in the U.S. connected to each airline job, the ripple effects in an already anemic economy will be devastating. Failure to keep this industry intact will have a severe impact on our economy, air travelers, and their communities.
In addition, airline CEOs must stand with, not against, their workers in these difficult times. They should support worker relief, cease their counter-productive attacks on collective bargaining rights, rein in excessive executive compensation in recognition of the pain and suffering of their workers and mobilize with their employees to rescue the industry from financial insolvency.