Pledge Your Support for Workers at American Airlines
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Last week, American Airlines announced plans to eliminate the jobs of 13,000 workers and dump pension plans for nearly 90,000 workers pensions as part of its bankruptcy plan.
You can show you support for American Airlines employees by going to www.isupportamericanjobs.com and pledging to support the workers by telling public officials, the news media and community leaders that employees at American Airlines and regional carrier American Eagle and all workers dependent on these airlines must be treated fairly.
In the day since the pledge has been posted more than 10,000 people have signed. Click here add your name.
Transport Workers (TWU) President James Little—about 9,000 TWU members work at American—says the “plan is wrong for American and wrong for America.”
The same management team that took hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses while the airline was losing money now wants workers to pay a high price for their mistakes.
Read more from Little here.
Transport Workers Set to Protest ‘Job Cremator’ Romney
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Members of the Transport Workers (TWU), whose jobs are facing elimination by Bain & Co., will protest outside campaign offices of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the days leading up to the Florida primary election on Jan. 31. Calling Romney ”a job cremator, not a job creator,” TWU President James Little says Romney:
made a fortune snatching up companies, closing factories and laying off workers. Now, Bain & Company—which still lines Mitt Romney’s pockets with their profits—has been hired to axe workers at AMR Corporation.
Some of that fortune is on display today, as Romney’s tax returns show he amassed $45 million in the past two years alone.
Hostess Bankruptcy Filing Hits 5,000 BCTGM Members
Hostess Brands, the company that has brought us such iconically American snacks as Twinkies, yesterday filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time since 2004. But the move does more than affect our universal sweet tooth—it has vast repercussions for some 5,000 workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM).
BCTGM, which represents workers in 34 production facilities throughout the United States, has been working with Hostess for months to identify a mutually beneficial solution that would address the company’s financial difficulties. But according to BCTGM, the company has never offered a legitimate proposal that could be taken to the membership for consideration.
Says BCTGM President Frank Hurt:
More Jobs Lost in Sept., as Corporations Hoard Cash, Refuse to Hire
Some 95,000 jobs were lost in September, fueled by a loss of government employment, which declined by 159,000 jobs, and minimal hiring in the private sector, which added 64,000 jobs. The new jobs data released by the U.S. Department of Labor today also show the nation’s September unemployment rate remained unchanged from August at 9.6 percent. Public-sector job losses include 83,000 lost at the state and local level, of which 58,000 were in education.
The 64,000 new jobs is about half of what is required to absorb new labor force entrants. To lower the unemployment rate to 6 percent by 2013, the economy needs to add 350,000 jobs a month.
The number of workers who are underemployed, which includes those who are too discouraged to look for work or are working part-time out of economic necessity, worsened to 17.1 percent from 16.7 percent in August. More than 26 million U.S. workers are without jobs or full-time work.
Tribune CEOs seek $70 Million in Bonuses as Company Sinks
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It’s not like we needed one more example of greedy corporate executives at a bankrupt company making a grab for big bonuses while axing hundreds of employees and freezing wages for many others.
But that’s what Tribune Co. executives are doing as the multimedia conglomerate sinks under the weight of $13 billion in debt incurred by its corporate leaders in 2007. And they want to keep the bonuses a big secret.
The company filed for Chapter 11 protection last December and, in its most recent action, is seeking court permission to dole out nearly $70 million in executive bonuses. The company also requested the court seal much of the request. The request was denied.
The Newspaper Guild-CWA and the Teamsters, which represent employees at the Tribune-owned Baltimore Sun and WPIX-TV in New York, has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware to block the company’s plan to pay up to $69.9 million in executive bonus this year, including $20.6 million to the 10 top managers (about $2 million each). Some 700 other managers would share in the bonus booty.
539,000 Jobs Lost in April—Don’t Let Them Tell You This Is Good News
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Have you heard the one about the recession being over?
New data out today show 539,000 workers lost their jobs in April and the nation’s unemployment rate worsened to 8.9 percent, from 8.5 percent in March, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Jobs lost in April were spread across nearly all major private-sector industries. Jobs lost include 149,000 in manufacturing; 110,000 in the construction industry; 122,000 in professional and business services; and 47,000 in the services industry.
Even more worrisome, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) worsened by 498,000 to 3.7 million over the month and has risen by 2.4 million since the start of the recession in December 2007.
The official unemployment rate is bad. But the real unemployment rate is far worse. If those who are underemployed or who want a job but have given up looking are counted, the U.S. unemployment rate stands at 15.8 percent—more than 25 million Americans.
So it looks like the pundits who claim this Bush-instigated recession and the jobless bleed it created is over, haven’t talked with the millions of unemployed U.S. workers.
Bad, Bad, Bad Jobs Report: Unemployment at 8.1 Percent
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Stunningly bad news on the nation’s jobless rate today: Unemployment worsened to 8.1 percent in February, from 7.6 percent in January, the highest level in more than a quarter century, according to Labor Department data released today.
We’re now looking at historical comparisons of joblessness not to the bad recession of the Reagan years but to the Depression era. This from Bloomberg:
Employers eliminated 651,000 jobs, the third straight month that losses surpassed 600,000—the first time that’s happened since the data began in 1939.
