NY TIMES: Cogently Explains Dilemma of Employees

Workers Face Difficult Choices as Airlines Seek Concessions

Published: September 20, 2004


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David G. Neeleman, JetBlue's chief executive, said he preferred to have a mix
of longtime airline employees and people who were fresh to the industry. "We
never have had any problem hiring them from any other airline," Mr. Neeleman
said on Friday, including Pan Am, T.W.A., as well as American, United and
Delta.

"What's important to us," Mr. Neeleman said, "is whether they have a good
attitude."

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Some employees are grateful for the jobs. Though he works the night shift at
J.F.K., Anthony Alexander, 30, showed up at La Guardia Airport on Friday
morning for a balloon-strewn ceremony for the start of JetBlue service there.

Laid off by Midway when it halted service last year, Mr. Alexander earns $12.20
an hour as a lead ramp worker at JetBlue. That is $2.20 an hour more than he
made at Midway. Despite the lack of union protection or a traditional pension -
JetBlue workers have 401(k) plans - "I'll be there unless they kick me out," he
said.

Former Pan Am workers know that feeling. News that the airline was ceasing
operations "was like a shock to my body," said Hope Laredo of Queens, who
declined to give her age. Ms. Laredo spent 36 years in the accounts department
before she lost her job in 1991. She wound up at the company that made Pan Am's
uniforms before retiring a year later.

Tony Miranda, 36, saw two airlines disappear - T.W.A., where he spent 13 years
as a mechanic, and Eastern, where he spent three years as an aircraft painter.
He now overhauls planes at Mid-Coast Aviation, a company that services business
jets. There, he said, he earns 45 percent less than at T.W.A., with lesser
benefits.

Luckily, he said, his wife has a good job with health care coverage, but there
is no chance of expensive colleges for his 16-year-old son. "I told him
straight up, unless he gets a scholarship, don't even think about a private
college," Mr. Miranda said. Before, "I said the sky was the limit."

But with more than 110,000 workers laid off by the major airlines after the
September 2001 terrorist attacks, on top of the thousands who lost their jobs
at the vanished airlines, Mr. Miranda, who lives in St. Louis, said he is lucky
to still be in the business.

"I know pilots making change at the casino, mechanics making pizza and flight
attendants who are now waitresses. I know a lot of guys who have just given
up," Mr. Miranda said. "They don't event want to touch an airline now."

Mike Carr, 41, of Hanover Park, Ill., is still at United, where he has spent 18
years as a mechanic. But in the last year, he had to take the overnight shift.
He pays $180 a month for medical benefits, which used to be fully paid, and his
unit has shrunk to about 650 mechanics from 1,200 before 9/11.

United, the unit of UAL that has been operating under bankruptcy protection
since December 2002, is warning workers that more jobs will be cut, and it is
expected to seek more concessions on top of the $2.5 billion a year in cuts won
last year.

Mr. Carr, however, is skeptical about giving more. "Nobody minds making the
changes if you think it is going to be worth it," he said.

But United does not seem to have a strategy "except cutting workers," Mr. Carr
said. "Morale is very low."

Such experiences not only scare away workers on the front line, but deter
managers from considering the industry, Professor Cappelli said. "It's not
clear any more if this industry is going to get the best and brightest. I don't
hear any of my M.B.A.'s saying, 'I want to go to work at an airline,' " he
said.

Still, the former airline workers have sympathy for their counterparts at US
Airways, whose chairman, David G. Bronner, warned in August that the airline
would probably liquidate if it sought bankruptcy protection, because it was
unlikely new investors could be found.

"I would imagine they are scared and are in the dark, just as the Pan Am
employees were," said Nick Lacetera, 53, the former president of the Pan Am
credit union who is now in charge of the financial institution that acquired
its assets.

Hearing that US Airways' pilots rejected an effort to vote on concessions
"brought back a whole bunch of memories," added Mr. Garriga, the former T.W.A.
mechanic. Constantly under threat from management for more givebacks, he said,
workers felt, "regardless of whether we close the company, this has got to
stop." But such a stance would not serve workers at US Airways, Delta and other
airlines well, Mr. Lacetera said. "The reality is that they are going to have
to bite the bullet and do what is necessary to survive," he said. "A half of a
loaf is better than none."


Eric L. Dash contributed reporting for this article.


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