Your recent editorial on Clinton’s involvement in the American Airlines strike is so full of distortions it is difficult to know where to begin.
You state that “high wages and rigid work rules are helping to put American at a disadvantage against newer, low-cost airlines.” How about a few facts? Starting pay for American flight attendants is between $14,000 and $16,000 a year, with the highest-paid attendant earning $32,000.
Flight attendants earn one-fifth the salary of pilots and less than baggage handlers. And they are paid only for the time between when the cabin doors close for take-off and open for landing. Layovers, delays, nights away from home are all compensated at the rate of $1.50 per hour for expenses.
American Airlines earned $153 million in profit in 1993, while paying their workers so little that their profits were in fact subsidized by taxpayers (some flight attendants’ wages are so low as to qualify them for food stamps). Since jobs held primarily by women pay considerably less than jobs held primarily by men with comparable levels of skill, education and training (true throughout the economy), the company’s profits are also being subsidized by depressed wages paid to women workers.
Yet you deplore the pressure placed on American by the strike without noting that the striking flight attendants were pressured with threats of permanent job loss for daring to assert their right to a living wage and respectful treatment.
American Airlines chose the wrong target in its attempt to restructure on the backs of its employees. Perhaps they felt the flight attendants represented the weakest link in their chain of employee relations.
