Union Workers Join Forces at American Airlines

Workers at American Airlines, from passenger service agents to flight attendants, mechanics and pilots, are in the fight of their lives.

They’re standing together to block American Airlines’ proposed devastation of their jobs, wages, health care and retirement security.

The Transport Workers International Union represents mechanics and fleet service workers who will be hit hard by the airline’s plans for outsourcing. TWU members; passenger service agents who want a CWA voice; American Airlines flight attendants who are members of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants; AFA-CWA flight attendants, and other supporters all have joined together in rallies outside the federal bankruptcy court in New York, at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and other locations, to blast the airline’s proposals.

At the New York rally, TWU International President James Little said American Airlines’ action “isn’t a bankruptcy, this is a crime scene… Nine years ago we gave them a checkbook, we gave them money to reorganize, we saved their company and we saved ourselves. And they brought us into this bankruptcy process.”

Judge Sean Lane, the federal judge overseeing the American Airlines bankruptcy proceedings, is urging the company to negotiate with unions over new contracts. Lane has delayed a decision on the airline's call for termination of the contracts, stating, “I urge, and I cannot urge this any more strongly, that the parties resolve this where they need to resolve this — the negotiating table.”