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   Vol.65/No.38            October 8, 2001 
 
 
Airline bosses target workers with mass layoffs
(feature article)
 
BY JACK WILLEY  
Airline companies have announced layoffs of more than 100,000 workers across the United States at the same time that Boeing, the largest aerospace company in the world, said it will cut up to 30,000 jobs, a third of its commercial aircraft workforce, by the end of next year. Untold thousands of additional airport and aviation industry workers face the ax as aerospace bosses expect production of passenger aircraft to fall by 50 percent in the next two years.

Airline companies quickly took advantage of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington to carry out in one fell swoop a massive downsizing they had been planning for some time.

It is widely acknowledged that the sharp drop in airline bookings in August--even with discounted fares in place--was the latest sign of extensive excess capacity in the industry. For example, the Washington Post, writing about the debate on Capitol Hill about how far the government should go to bail out the industry, admitted, "Even before the disastrous hijackings, the airline industry already was one of the weaker sectors of the economy. The general economic slowdown had dampened business travel, and with less money coming in the gate, the airlines struggled to repay debt they had run up buying fleets of new jets."

But for months the airline bosses have feared the response by workers--many of whom have been working years under expired union contracts--to mass layoffs and concession demands.

In the latest in a string of moves, Northwest Airlines as many as 10,000 workers no notice that they are out on the street. Tearing up union contract provisions that supposedly guaranteed notice of layoff and unemployment pay, Northwest bosses issued a "Notice of Reduction in Force" September 21 notifying thousands of employees they would be laid off at the end of the day's shift. The form letter, addressed to "Dear," invoked contract provisions saying, "In the event a reduction in force is caused by circumstances over which the Company has no control, such as these, no advance notice of layoff or pay in lieu thereof is required.

"Similarly, Article 22 of the AMFA [Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association] Agreement provides that in the event of a war emergency, or a temporary cessation of work because of circumstances beyond the Company's control, layoff pay will not be provided. Unfortunately, the disastrous and unforeseen consequences of last week's attack require application of this provision in order to preserve the long-term survival of the Company."

American, Continental, and other airlines are also carrying through similar firings. North Carolina-based Midway Airlines closed its doors for good September 12, putting 1,700 employees on the streets.

Pat Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, condemned the layoffs and accused the airlines of trying to create political pressure on Congress to approve a multibillion dollar bailout package for the companies. "Their greed and antipathy toward workers are needlessly going to hurt thousands more working families," she said.

On September 21, 10 days after Reagan National Airport in Washington was shut down under the pretext of security concerns of flight paths near government buildings, hundreds of defiant airport workers held a protest, chanting, "Open Reagan now!" and "Hey, hey, ho, ho, let the airplanes come and go!" Nearly 10,000 people lost their jobs at the airport and, the Washington Post reports, an additional 70,000 hotel, restaurant, and travel industry employees connected to the airport are at risk of being laid off.

But on the whole, airline and aerospace bosses have been able to carry out massive layoffs--and set the stage to try to drive through concession contracts from workers "to preserve the long term survival of the company"--with scant protest from trade union officials.

IAM president Thomas Buffenbarger issued a pro-war and jingoistic statement September 12 that let the bosses off the hook by blaming "terrorists" for the layoffs. Under the headline "Vengeance," Buffenbarger stated, "It was our planes that were used as weapons of mass destruction. It was our members who were forced to endure the unimaginable nightmare. It was our members who were among the murdered. And we will have our vengeance.... Today, IAM members return to work. They will be prepping the planes that can just as easily carry troops to the farthest reaches of the earth. They will be building the F-15, F-16, F-18 and F-22's that will impose a new reality on those who have dared attack us. For it is not simply justice we seek. It is vengeance, pure and complete."

The IAM officialdom also got in some protectionist proposals, calling for an end to all aircraft repair work overseas. IAM vice president, Robert Roach, Jr., stated September 21 that "foreign aircraft repair stations should not perform work on any of our aircraft while a single U.S. aircraft technician is out of work due to the current crisis."

The IAM bureaucracy's stance is consistent with their support for the U.S. rulers' moves to develop and deploy an antiballistic missile system. In the feature article headlined "Bombs Bursting in Air" on the cover of the spring 2001 IAM Journal, the Machinists officialdom emphatically backed the U.S. government's militarization campaign.

Although the airline companies have faced increasing overcapacity and declining revenues all year, they have used the September 11 events to push through Congress a $15 billion federal bailout for themselves while throwing tens of thousands of airline workers out of work.

Hand-in-hand with the restructuring and layoffs are sharply increased security measures targeting workers. Some $3 billion in federal funds has been approved for carrying out new "criminal" checks on all baggage handlers, food service workers, and other airport and airline employees; placing federal sky marshals on flights; and beefing up airport security. Airline workers at the United Airlines maintenance base in San Francisco report being told by the company to report to work up to an hour before their shift begins to line up for daily searches of their belongings before clocking in. These measures are aimed primarily at restricting workers' rights and further weakening union protections on the job.

Although the big-business press is filled with stories blaming the September 11 events for a sudden economic downturn and the current binge of layoffs, the U.S. economy was already slowing down, with declining revenues, a stock market slide, and rising unemployment for the last year. The September 10 issue of the Washington Post reported, "With unemployment rising, stock prices retreating, corporate profits in free fall and consumers showing signs of pulling back on spending, a number of economists now say the U.S. economy has stopped growing and that prospects for an autumn rebound are rapidly disappearing." The U.S. economy was affected by "a European economy that has suddenly stalled and the onset of recession in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore."

Unemployment is steadily climbing, rising half a percentage point to 4.9 percent in August. U.S. corporations had already announced layoffs of 1.1 million workers by the end of last month. In July, telephone equipment manufacturer Lucent Technologies announced layoffs of up to 20,000 jobs, and third-quarter loss of more than $3 billion. Technology companies' profits have taken a steep nose dive and a rash of bankruptcies swept the industry over the last year. J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank both project zero growth in the economy in the fourth-quarter.

Auto manufacturers, in face of low sales and a growing glut of excess cars and trucks, are shuttering factories around the world. Five U.S. steel companies went belly up in 1998 and LTV, the third largest in the country, filed for bankruptcy last December. In February, DaimlerChrysler eliminated 26,000 jobs in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil--a total of 20 percent of the work force in face of sagging auto sales.

The speculative balloon in stock prices had also begun to deflate well before September 11. After peaking at more than 11,900 points last December, the New York Stock Exchange had steadily declined before taking a major drop in September, hovering between 8,500 and 9,000. The Nasdaq index, largely made up of technology stocks, has plummeted from a high of 5,000 last December to around 1,500 in September.

Along with the slowdown in the United States, economic growth in Germany came to a standstill by mid-2001 and has slowed sharply in France. Interest rates in Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, have soared and Argentina is teetering on the edge of financial collapse under $130 billion debt burden. The Mexican economy, where trade with United States accounts for more than 80 percent of all exports, entered a recession last spring.  
 
 
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