Such a demand is effective if it is advanced by workers in the course of resistance and as a slogan of struggle. There is no fight being organized by the airline unions today, and no struggle-minded leadership in existence or emerging that could promote the slogan to strengthen such a fight and broaden its appeal.

Far from it. In late December US Airways announced that union officials there have agreed to give the company an additional $200 million in wage and benefit cuts. The bosses have used the threat of liquidation of the airline to get deeper concessions. In response to this blackmail an official of the International Association of Machinists remarked, "We believe the agreement affords US Airways the best opportunity to avoid liquidation and preserve our members’ jobs."

Like US Airways, United Airlines is using its declared bankrupt status as a justification to press for even deeper concessions. Meanwhile, the United bosses have threatened to file a motion in bankruptcy court to void their contracts with the unions.

The editorial that Gurewitz wrote his letter in response to advocated a break from this subordination of workers’ interests to the fake corporate "family."

"Rather than tie our future to the employers," it said, "working people need a fighting perspective to defend the interests of our class. The road for unionists at United to be able to stand up to the bosses is that of broad working-class solidarity. Their efforts to defend hard-won wages, working conditions, and other rights will be strengthened if they join with other workers resisting the same employer assault."

Fighting along such a course, the labor movement can campaign for the demand to nationalize the airline industry as a response to the anarchy of capitalism, coupling it with a struggle to exercise workers’ power over production. In the absence of such a struggle, nationalization will be a de facto bailout of the bosses by their government.

In fact, the chief spokesperson for the airline industry bosses, Carol Hallett, president of the Air Transport Association, recently proposed nationalization of the airlines as a way of pressuring the government to reduce its demands for them to pay more for extra security measures. "If appropriate action is not take, draconian steps will be necessary," she said.  
 
 
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