TWA agreement increases economic hardship on workers

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TWA Flight Attendants in 1986. Today, lacking leadership, TWA workers accepted a reality that only they can change.

SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1992 5 Agreement was reached on Aug. 24 between representatives of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and Trans World Airlines (TWA) on a plan to reorganize the bankrupt carrier. Similar agreements were reached with the Independent Federation of Flight Attendants and the Airline Pilots Association.

The "Turn Around Plan" , as it is called, is supposed to put TWA-currently operating at a claimed loss of $1 million a day—in a position to pull itself out of Chapter 11, which it has been in since Jan. 31.

The deal calls for current owner Carl Icahn to give up operational control and his 90 percent share of the company's stock to a new board of directors controlled by the company's creditors and including union representatives. Icahn is also expected to contribute between $150-$200 million of his own money to the airline.

Under the new arrangement, the creditors will gain 55 percent of TWA's stock in exchange for forgiving $1 billion of the carrier's $1.5 billion debt. The unions will gain 45 percent "ownership" of the airline in return for major wage and benefit concessions.

TWA's workers already gave important concessions in the name of saving the company in their latest contract, ratified only six months before. (See my article in the April 1992 issue of Socialist Action.)

Givebacks from the workers This agreement includes a wage reduction of 11-15 percent, the loss of two paid holidays, an increase in the deductible for Major Medical from $200 for individuals and $400 for families to $500 and $1000 respectively, a reduction in overtime, and some other losses in benefits.

The raises due in 1993 and 1994 under the present contract, which the agreement amends, will be put back at least a year. A buy-out plan and other incentives for early retirement are being offered.

Even this may not be the end of givebacks, however. The agreement calls for quarterly review of TWA's financial situation by the new board of directors. If one of these "look back determinations" finds that savings that quarter are below a set figure, additional concessions can be imposed to make up the shortfall.

Thus, workers at TWA will be facing increasing economic hardships. Some of •On Sept. 4, 1992, a number of Steelworker local union officers gathered in Pittsburgh to count the mail ballots on the recently negotiated tentative labor agreement with LTV Steel. To no one's surprise, this concessionary agreement was approved overwhelmingly. The official vote count was 6503 to 1505, with slightly over 60 percent of the eligible voters returning ballots.

In June 1991, LTV gave the Steelworkers a list of demands for severe benefit cuts. In December, the company added demands to gut work rules, This spring, job losses and undermining retiree benefits were added to the list. Faced with a determined opposition by the union membership, LTV withdrew its worst demands. Most workers were so relieved that they were willing to accept minor concessions, The company received help from the federal government in imposing this agreement.

On July 15, 1992, Federal Bankruptcy Judge Burton R. Lifland ordered attorneys for the company and union to reach an agreement, claiming they were facing a "meltdown" situation. He strongly implied that unless an agreement were reached that day, he would liquidate the companywhich has been operating under Chapter 11 the reservationists and passenger service agents, just unionized with the latest contract, will earn less than when they were non-union. This review process will be both open-ended and outside the control of the workers. This amounts essentially to working without a contract, or rather with one that can be changed at will every three months.

This will be in addition to the effects of other cost-cutting measures by the company. On Aug. 26, TWA announced that its reservations office in New York City will be closed and 450 workers laid off. An expected contraction of the airline by 20 percent-through the elimination of unprofitable routes and sale of aircraft-is expected to result in the layoff of 3000 IAM members (some of these will be made bankruptcy protection for six years.

The company was also aided by Steelworker international union officials. From Aug. 15-22, these officials travelled to various cities with LTV facilities to "explain" the tentative agreement. This explanation emphasized the pension improvements while downplaying the job losses and the benefit and work-rule concessions, Written material distributed at these meetings-and mailed to all members with their ballots-boasted, "We won a contract that addresses our most pressing needs while preserving our right to engage in across-the-board bargaining on wages and other matters during the 1993-1994 round of negotiations."

This written material also played on the membership's fears. It stated: "If a majority of voting members turns down this settlement, the Company will return to the bankruptcy court and seek approval to reject our contract. As we have reported from the beginning, we expect the bankruptcy court to grant this request. Our only recourse then will be to carry out our promise to conduct an effective work stopATTENDANTS through retirements and buyout plan).

A bankrupt union leadership The IAM held ratification meetings for its members on Sept. 2, one day after TWA's management began implementing the terms of the agreement. This fact highlighted in the most grotesque way the complete bankruptcy of the union leadership. While billionaire Carl Icahn will get away scot-free, leaving the mess he created to the creditors, the billionaire creditors will make up for this by taking from the workers.

The union bureaucrats focussed on trying to sell their members on the idea that what was important was to "get rid of Carl" by paying out of their own pockets. page."

During the Aug. 17 contract explanation meeting in Cleveland, one steelworker asked if a "no" vote wouldn't simply allow the current agreement, which doesn't expire until August 1994, to remain in effect This questioner added that he assumed both sides would then resume negotiations.

But Anthony Rainaldi, chairman of the negotiating committee, downplayed this possibility. He described a scenario in which the company received approval from the bankruptcy judge to void the current agreement and to unilaterally impose concessions. He then described a lengthy company lock-out followed by forced liquidation.

Not everyone accepted the international union's claim that this was the best possible agreement that could have been negotiated. Following brief welcoming remarks by District 28 Director Frank Valenta, Rainaldi asked the media to leave so steelworkers could conduct the business of the meeting in private. Retiree Joe Matovich, a former Local Union 2265 president, objected, demanding to know Get the "bad" boss Icahn out and look around for a White Knight, a "good" boss who would infuse the needed cash into the airline to keep it afloat. That, of course, would require the carrier to be "cost-effective," which ultimately comes down to cheaper labor costs.

Meanwhile, the union tops will be colluding with the creditors in attracting a buyer through devaluing the labor of their own membership. Meanwhile, the stock ownership and board representation scheme will make the unions the supposed partners of the creditors as co-owners, and therefore Jointly responsible for any future takebacks. This can only confuse and demoralize the rank-and-file workers.

The agreement was eventually approved by the union's membership despite a great deal of resentment and anger at the givebacks and the expectation of more to come.

On Sept. 11, the plan was approved by the bankruptcy court overseeing TWA's Chapter 11 status. It must still be approved by the Pension Benefits Guarantee Corp, (PBGC), which insures the company's pension fund. The PBGC claims that Icahn has underfunded the pension fund by $1.2 billion.

The agreement at TWA, like similar concessionary deals being made across the country in many industries, is the product of three main factors:

1) The massive economic crisis capitalism is suffering today, which is driving company after company out of business and forcing the rest to sharply attack the living standards of their workers to keep up their rate of profit.

2) The bureaucratic, defeatist, and collaborationist attitudes of the leaderships of the labor unions, which have led to acceptance of concessions without a fight and defeats where fights were made.

3) The atomization and demoralization of the broad masses of workers resulting from the conditions created by the first two factors. This has held back the development of a real fighting leadership that could begin to turn things around.

Labor needs to relearn the lessons of solidarity and to begin putting our common interests as working brothers and sisters ahead of those of "our" companies.

Airline workers should demand that the federal government take some of the money it spends on "defense" and use it for the defense of union jobs by nationalizing bankrupt airlines like TWA as the first step toward nationalizing the whole industry. This should be under workers control; not some phony stock-owning scheme, but real decision-making control and management by those who actually make the industry run.

Only when the unions start acting like unions again can we avoid having things like the TWA deal foisted upon us.

why the media "can't stay and hear how you sold us down the river." He stressed the 218 jobs that had been negotiated away, asking what type of union person could stand up and argue for a contract with such job losses.

Several of those attending this meeting sported T-shirts urging a no vote, Several Executive Board members from Indiana Harbor distributed a flier urging a "no" vote. Most questioners prefaced their remarks with reference to the "concessionary agreement." Rainaldi reacted angrily, stating, "It's not a concessionary agreement; it's an innovative agreement."

Actually, the concessions aren't even very innovative job cuts, decreased medical benefits, a wage freeze, job combinations, and work rule changes.

Although the new agreement was overwhelmingly approved, most steelworkers reluctantly voted "yes," relieved that it wasn't worse and fearful of the consequences of a "no" vote. As more details become known, disapproval will grow.

Within days of the contract approval, on Sept. 16, LTV Steel signalled its continuing assault on steelworkers by announcing plans to shut down its Cleveland coke ovens by the end of the year. The company blamed "strict environmental regulations." This will cost another 300 jobs.

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...Columbus Day (continued from page 1: “Bush & Clinton: They should run on the same ticket”)

Ridge Indian Reservation.

Serving two life terms, Peltier has continually proclaimed his innocence. This belief is also held by civil rights activists who have tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain a new trial on the grounds that Peltier was convicted on evidence manufactured by federal authorities.

Every year, month after month, suits are brought in both state and federal courts appealing unjust and treaty-breaking governmental actions. Protests, demonstrations, mass rallies, highway blockades, picket lines, and other acts of defiance take place continually in this country. Rarely are they reported in the press or televised on national news programs. Only in newspapers run by and for Indians does one find coverage of all the governmental anti-Indian actions and the resulting tribal responses.

The battles go on, the resistance continues. The court systems use the law to erode, diminish, and sometimes to end entirely the rights agreed upon historically-most often by treaty agreement.

No longer having the numerical strength of past history, Indians also turn to the legal system to protect and maintain these rights. Only too often, however, do they find again that the courts of justice in this land are, in truth, unjust. Court decisions sometimes interpret past laws with new arcane meanings and sometimes overtur past laws and agreements-as in the August 1992 New York State sales tax case. Or sometimes a favorable or just court decision is merely ignored by those agencies who should be enforcing the court decisions-as in the recent Oregon fishing rights case.

In New York, by the state Supreme Court Appellate Division, authorities are trying to collect fuel and cigarette taxes on New York state Indian reservations, in spite of treaties dating back to the 1700s prohibiting such tax collections. Of course, the Seneca, Iroquois, and other tribes and nations are refusing to cooperate. Holding that such tax collection is illegal, Indians are continuing to sell fuel and tobacco without collecting taxes.

In Oregon, state and federal agents, in joint action, are arresting Wanapam (Sohappy) Indians for fishing "illegally" in Columbia River waters. However, past treaties giving such rights were reaffirmed as recently as 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sohappy v. Smith that the states of Oregon and Washington were prohibited from interfering with Indian fishing.

What is most damaging in the present governmental anti-Indian "legal" assaults is probably the contlict over Indian gaming. First of all, it is a concerted action in many states affecting much more than merely the reservations located within one state. Consequently, it affects many, many more Indians. Secondly, and more important, is that the potential loss of funds will decrease present benefits to Native Americans—as well as future funding, which would provide tremendous benefits to many tribes.

Indians casinos are raided The issue is one of tribal sovereignty. The federal law passed by Congress in 1988 permits Indian tribes to offer gambling upon their lands provided it is the same type of gaming permitted by the state elsewhere. In addition, the act requires state authorities to negotiate with the Indians concerned in "good faith."

But there's the rub. Just as the vague term "good faith" is open to all sorts of interpretations, so too are other problems of definition within the act. And when state/Indian accord is not reached, and no pact results, then the 1950s Johnson Actwhich prohibits gambling on Indian reservations-takes over and the federal agents raid Indian casinos for violation of that act.

The result of all these conflicts has been state and federal raids upon casinos, confiscation of machines and gambling equipment, prohibiting of gaming of similar nature but different names (i.e. bingo vs. keno), and seizure of property at gunpoint with "cops for rent" accompanying the FBI SWAT teams.

But, perhaps the most amazing-and potentially the most fearsome-story is the recent Associated Press release datelined: "SEATTLE (AP) 7/2/92," which stated that "the Bush administration has quietly asserted that it has the power to declare any Indian tribe in the nation extinct," even if the tribe has been recognized by a congressionally-ratified treaty.

This policy, reported in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, was buried in a Bureau of Indian Affairs decision barring recognition to the Miami tribe of Indians. The Department of Interior later acknowledged that the Bush administration has asserted its power to declare any tribe extinct, although American governmental policy in the past has been that only Congress has had the right to such determination.

Of course, this evil and potentially catastrophic policy has been protested by the Miamis and will, no doubt, be the subject of much more protest by various organizations of American Indians in the near future. The resistance continues.

Dr. Lee L. Schreiber teaches American history at Temple University's Ambler, ra., campus.