EDITORIAL
UAL crash--was it sabotage?
The Bush administration continues to accelerate its brutal
attack against the labor movement. Driven by its mounting
campaign to trigger a war against the Iraqi people, this clique
of warmongers has added the unions at United Airlines to its
growing hit list.
It all began following a threat from the corporation that
unless the unions gave the company over $5.4 billion in wages
and other concessions, UAL would be forced to enter Chapter 11
bankruptcy. It was a cruel hoax, a conspiracy to get
concessions from the unions. And it got them.
All the while, the Bush administration had other ideas.
Their plan was to deny a $1.8-billion loan guarantee and force
UAL into bankruptcy to weaken the three major unions--the
pilots, the machinists and the flight attendants.
How is it possible that United Airlines Corp., the
second-largest airline in the world, is now in Chapter 11
bankruptcy? It was only three years ago that the company was
rolling in money. Fortune magazine named UAL one of the 10 best
companies to invest in. UAL is a behemoth with airline routes
that cover the globe. It has financial arrangements with 14
international airlines and suppliers in a consortium called the
Star Alliance.
It was mismanagement, CEO greed, brutal competition and
overproduction that overtook this giant airline. During the
boom years, management bought too many planes, expanded beyond
market capacity, and created a capitalist crisis of
overproduction. Now hundreds of planes are parked in the desert
while thousands of workers lose their jobs.
UAL had to be bailed out. Congress had created the Airline
Transportation Stabilization Board, with a $10-billion
appropriation, to assist airlines following 9/11. It is run by
two Bush appointees--one from the Department of Transportation,
the other from the Treasury--along with a governor from the
powerful bankers' bank, the Federal Reserve.
They did the hatchet job. They denied the loan and forced
UAL into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Bush strategy has been
clear. Tearing up labor contracts, laying off workers and
driving down wages are the order of the day. The bankruptcy
court, with its secrecy and its control by Wall Street bankers
and other creditors, is the best way to achieve these
objectives.
These plans expand far beyond UAL. The effect is
industry-wide. American Airlines, Continental, Delta and
Northwestern are all calling for their unions and workers to
accept concessions to compete with UAL in bankruptcy.
But the workers should not have to pay for CEO greed and UAL
mismanagement. When the company hired CEO Glenn Tilton, who
cried that he needed deep concessions from the unions, he had
just signed a contract giving him a signing bonus of $3
million, a salary of nearly $1 million, bonuses equal to twice
his salary for "services," and a golden parachute of millions
when he retires.
This is unacceptable. It is up to the 80,000 workers at
United Airlines to fight for their jobs and take back what is
rightfully theirs. They create the value of the company, but
Wall Street, the banks, investors and CEOs steal the profits
generated by their labor. In bankruptcy court, UAL workers and
their unions can fight for their jobs, contracts and wages, but
also can assert their ownership rights--they actually own 55
percent of the company. This unity of the workers would be felt
throughout the entire airline industry and shake up Wall
Street. The airlines do not belong to the banks and corporate
CEOs. The real owners are the workers who built them.
Reprinted from the Dec. 19, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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