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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (189269)	10/4/2001 5:23:29 PM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769669

Why 100,000 out-of-work aviation workers will be voting Democratic in the next several elections: Headline: After Airline Bailout, It’s Time to Help the More Than 100,000—and Counting—Jobless Aviation Workers Chuck Witmer has worked for US Airways and its predecessors for 29 years. But the Communications Workers of America member and reservations agent at the airline’s Syracuse, N.Y., office will soon be out of a job when the center closes later in October. Mary Fagerberg, a United Airlines customer service representative since 1996, achieved the dream she had since she was 13 years old when she graduated in April from the airline’s flight attendant training program. That dream’s over now—she’s out of a job. Witmer and Fagerberg are two of the estimated 140,000 other aviation industry workers who have been or are expected to be laid-off in the coming weeks and months as the economic aftershocks of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon, near Washington, D.C., and a passenger jet that crashed into a Pennsylvania field roll through the nation’s economy. With the U.S. Capitol as the backdrop, on Oct. 3, aviation workers, union leaders and lawmakers called on Congress and the president to pass and sign legislation to aid those workers, whose industry is bearing the brunt of the economic impact. On Sept. 21, Congress passed a “$15 billion bailout of the airline industries [that] has helped companies deal with the effects of the terrorists attacks. But the aviation industry workers have not received a dime of aid, even though they and their families are shouldering the tremendous bulk of the effect of the attack to their industry,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Bipartisan legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives (S. 1454, H.R. 2955 and H.R. 2946) would provide extended unemployment insurance benefits, expand the number of workers eligible for such benefits, provide job training and retraining and health care coverage to laid-off aviation workers. Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.), the original sponsor of S. 1454, said, “We cannot abandon these workers and their families during this crisis. We must support those who directly have been affected by Sept. 11.” The industry aid legislation “was a bailout for Wall Street interests. But it does nothing for the major stakeholders in the airlines, the aviation industry employees. There was no bailout for baggage handlers, skycaps, flight attendants, pilots or mechanics,” said co-sponsor Sen. Peter G. Fitzgerald (R-Ill.). CWA’s Witmer said about 400 people will lose their jobs when US Airways closes its Syracuse reservations center. Along with their jobs, “people will lose their health benefits, many will be forced to take significantly lower pensions.…This bill will give people a second chance.” Flight Attendants International President Patricia Friend said that on Sept. 11 when commercial flights were ordered to make emergency landings and as news of the attacks spread and created fear among the airborne passengers, “Flight attendants got their passengers home safely. The thanks they got was to be told that their services were no longer needed.” Fagerberg was one of those. She said not only was she told she no longer had a job, but that her father, who was traveling on an employee family-member pass, would have to pay for his return ticket from Germany if he wanted to come home. The bills’ backers will try to include the legislation in the aviation security bill that is expected to soon come to a vote. aflcio.org