Stop The Excessive Corporate Greed of American Airlines

A Letter to Representative Robert Whitman from an Employee of American Airlines
The "employee" has worked for American Airlines and have been in their employ for over 21 years. Recently American has entered Chapter 11 protection and the reasons they sight for entering are to reduce labor costs and get them in line with other airlines, shed aircraft leases, re-structure debt and create "Next Generation Labor Agreements." Next generation means lower wages, working more hours and paying more for healthcare and losing our most coveted prize of all, our pensions. (if you needed a translation of what they think next generation means!)

Losing our pensions means no further accrual and possibly terminating the plans and attempting to hand them over to the PBGC who as you likely know is strongly opposed to AA doing this or freezing them which stops accrual. In an unprecedented statement from the PBGC last week they categorically let AA know that this was unacceptable and they even requested information from AA via the bankruptcy judge and AA has not been forthcoming with this information to date.

In 2003 AA craftily "encouraged" its employees to give up approximately one- third of our salary and benefits to keep the company from going into Ch 11. with the promise that this was "Shared sacrifice" and if we "pulled together, we could win together." We specifically gave up wages and benefits in order to preserve our pensions because we felt that they were worth keeping and sacrificing today to preserve the future. The company even ran a campaign called "Do the Right Thing" which was to shame other bankrupt airlines for abandoning their employee's pension plans.

Immediately after garnering our concessions the leadership of this company rewarded themselves with a SERP which stands for Senior Executive Retention Program. Essentially a bonus program on the backs of the employees. We were told that "We" needed to do this so that our "Talent" would not abandon ship.

If that wasn't despicable enough, the company began selling parts inventories, fuel hedges, abandoning routes, and other cost cutting measures that directly impacted the operation making the average worker work harder with more stress and wear and tear on our bodies, minds and spirits.

Over the years there have been many mis-steps by our executives and missed opportunities that the average worker has no control over yet we are paying the price for those mis-steps while the executives at our company maintain their salaries, benefits, bonuses and lifestyles. I can assure you none of the lower tiered workers have been able to do that.

There was aslo a well publicized gaff with the FAA over the maintenance of our Boeing MD-80 fleet which cost the company millions in lost revenue when the entire fleet was grounded. Mind you that fleet of nearly 300 aircraft is our bread and butter aircraft handling a majority of our domestic flying at the time.

Also during this period of time, American has been and was successful at creating alliances and Joint Business Agreements (JBA) with foreign carriers telling the public and the employees that these strategic alliances were good for business and good for American Airlines. I beg to differ. We have handed over flying to foreign companies and lost revenue opportunities on both Atlantic and Pacific crossings and have lost US based job opportunities as a result.

I certainly understand the competitive nature of business and we must have our costs competitive but this does not need to come on the back's of the employees. Our executive leadership has been lacking and now the chickens have come home to roost.

Fast forward to now and the company is hiring all sorts of muckity mucks from fancy consulting groups and financial gurus to assist us with our strategies going forward and how to handle the financial aspects of bankruptcy. If we paid all this money to retain our talent, why would we now be spending millions of dollars with all sorts of perks for when we exit bankruptcy? It really doesn't make any sense. Well it does make sense if you are on the receiving end of things. Right?

Congressman Whitman do you see where I am headed with this letter? These executives need to be stopped dead in their tracks before it's too late. I am about to lose the security that I have stayed employed here for this long, enduring management's follies and foibles so they can get themselves and their crony friends richer while I freeze my pension benefits at 20 years instead of going full term to full retirement. This calculates to approximately $14,000.00 per year in lost retirement income and believe me I am being very conservative in my calculations. This is criminal and cruel and these people need to be stopped.

I am urging you as my Congressman to do EVERYTHING in your power to help me and the other employees of this once great company to prevail over evil.

There is so much more I could say to prove my point but I think you can see the picture I have painted.