Yes.. After 4 years of negotiating with Big Labor.. American Airlines has decided to file for bankruptcy and can now tell its union employees to go F**K themselves..


Faced with high labor costs and rising prices for jet fuel, American Airlines parent company AMR filed today for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Once the world’s largest airline, American is deeply in the red, and in recent months its cash reserves have been falling. The company says labor contract rules force it to spend many millions of dollars more on operations than other airlines.

Employee pay may be cut. “When they go in and file bankruptcy, then American can set the employee contracts anyway they want.”

http://news.yahoo.com/american-airlines-plunges-bankruptcy-134106121.html

another Union-Pitcher that went to the Well until it broke!
Guess now,enter Obama,and Bailout GM-Style by propping up the Airline,and give the Union preferred Stock,as was done at Government Motors(GM)!

There is allways some schmuck somewere willing to work for less I am sure they will find some good help eventualy. I gave up flying when they started gropeing.

Doesn't everybody want to experience the adventure of being on a plane flown by a pilot making minimum wage? The race to the bottom was never such fun!


-Kerry O.

Declaring bankruptcy is the private sectors favorite way to do away with pensions.

Hire them when they're young and healthy promising a nice pension and health insurance down the road, declare bankruptcy when they're old and sickly.

Emerge from bankrupcty collect bonus and wonder why they are occupying wall street.

Its sad to see how easy it is to blam poor magment skills on labor and unions and the fact that americans dont see what the unions have done but they enjoy working 8hr days unimployment Social security but hey what did the unions ever do for america

all of the other airlines got out from under union contractual obligations and I don't see a shortage of pilots flying for them or an increase in accidents based on the pay scale.. Nice try though..

That may be true just thousands of people having to decied witch bill to pay and that is not true southwest is still union

oh ya and i do belive they r still doing well and lets see makening a profit

Unions were great when we weren't competing in a global market dominated by countries that devalue their currency and use slave labor to manufacture their products.

We can all sit around and give thanks to the unions while China and India keep taking our jobs..

One airline that flies to limited destinations..

That is your shining example of unionization?

haha

is that a union problem or a tax problem for alowing it to be cheper to ship it out raw and then back finished but hey if you think we should have slave labor y dont you go to china

On March 6, 2008, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspectors submitted documents to the United States Congress, alleging that Southwest allowed 117 of its aircraft to fly carrying passengers despite the fact that the planes were "not airworthy" according to air safety investigators.[35] In some cases the planes were allowed to fly for up to 30 months after the inspection deadlines had passed, rendering them unfit to fly. Records indicate that thousands of passengers were flown on aircraft deemed unsafe by federal standards. Southwest declined comment at the time, and US Representative James Oberstar advised a hearing would be held.[35][36][dead link]

On March 12, 2008, Southwest Airlines voluntarily grounded 44 planes to check if they needed further inspection. The FAA claimed that Southwest Airlines flew almost 60,000 flights without fuselage inspection. Southwest Airlines faced a $10.2 million fine if they violated FAA regulations. There have also been rumors that the FAA knew about Southwest Airlines violations but decided not to fine the airline because it would disrupt the service of Southwest.[37]

On March 2, 2009, Southwest settled these claims, agreeing to pay the FAA fines of $7.5 million for these safety and maintenance issues. The original fine of $10.2 million – a sum which would have been the largest fine in the agency’s history – was lowered after a year of negotiations. The FAA gave Southwest two years in which to pay the fine.[38]

On August 26, 2009 the FAA investigated Southwest for installing improper parts on about 10% of its jets. The work was performed by an outside maintenance company. The FAA stated that the parts do not present a safety danger, but the airline was given until December 24, 2009 to replace the parts with those approved by the FAA.[39] The FAA is still determining whether it will fine Southwest or its vendor.[40]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airline

You can have high paying jobs without unions..

Every management position in this country is non union.. I guess they don't make any money..

thats a great sourse wikipedia know for its honsty but on the other had the inspections said it need to be fixed i belive it falls to magment not labor to get it fixed you kinda got to do what the boss say or you wont have a job and 2009 been awhile i bet any large company has a track record if you look back far enough

yes lets all be magment and then whos going to work but hey that works right its alot to expect for magment to share the welth with the employees that made them there money but fu%k the worken man

there is no disputing the violations..

you made the claim they were this great airline that was unionized..

don't make excuses when confronted with reality.

Thats the best you have give me a break yes and the janator at enron should go to prisen as well

haha..

you can have high paying jobs without unions..

what part of that don't you get?

besides.. management is not necessarily ownership..

large companies are full of managers that have no ownership stake..

so the werkin man ain't actually makin dem money..

and how was pay and binifits befor unions but hey once companys figure out works wont stand together you will get to live it if americans dont open there eyes and yes there are high paying worken jobs but if you look at most of them its to keep there employees form going union