04/25/2003 - Updated 09:19 AM ET Workers in limbo; morale 'horrible' By Marilyn Adams and Dan Reed, USA TODAY American Airlines' 99,000 employees have watched the past 10 days of developments at their company with a mixture of disbelief, rage and fear. Thursday evening, hours after an all-day board meeting, CEO Don Carty resigned. But the future of the world's largest airline and whether it will file for Chapter 11 remained uncertain. Along with its passengers, American's employees in the air and on the ground continued their nerve-racking wait on what could come next. "There's a somber mood out there," said Miami-based flight attendant Randy Trautman, a union leader at American's third-biggest hub airport. "I'm running into employees who used to work for Eastern, Braniff, Pan Am" ? all of them defunct. "They ask, 'How could this happen to the greatest airline in the world?' " Early last week, it appeared the company had narrowly averted the fate of rival United Airlines and US Airways: a bankruptcy filing. All of American's unions had ratified contract concessions worth $1.8 billion a year to keep the airline out of bankruptcy protection. Although most of the ratification votes were close, and the flight attendants union had to vote twice to get concessions approved, it appeared the company had returned from the brink. As employees were adjusting to the idea of much smaller paychecks and thousands of furloughs, they learned that the leaders who had begged workers to rescue their company had secretly set aside millions of dollars in executive bonuses and bankruptcy-pro-tected pensions. Just when workers thought the ordeal of a bankruptcy had been averted, it seemed inevitable again. Despite an unprecedented public apology several days ago from Carty, two major unions that narrowly approved the concessions the first time called for a revote based on the new information. They later settled. Although American offered to sweeten all the unions' concession agreements in exchange for canceling new votes, no deal had been struck with the flight attendants union as of late Thursday evening. Now, for many workers, the initial shock at the prospect of bankruptcy is waning, but resentment and uncertainty remain. "We feel like, if you're going to file (Chapter 11), do what you're going to do. Don't keep threatening us with it," says Chuck Schalk, New York-based president of a Transport Workers Union local. "The strongest emotion out there right now is we were duped. They used the fear of bankruptcy to take advantage of us." In the workplace, Schalk says, morale is "horrible." "Guys are depressed. They are in limbo with their careers. They can't handle being blamed for something that's out of their control." Many workers feel something akin to grief. Dallas/Fort Worth-based Capt. Brent Boyd has flown for American 18 years. In airplanes this week, he says he's seen "a lot of sadness" among the employees. "We're facing things we've never faced before. American employees are used to things going well." An abrupt turnaround of fortune Just 19 months ago, American seemed unstoppable. It had acquired TWA to become the world's biggest airline, unseating United Airlines, whose bid to buy US Airways failed. Carty was the industry's senior spokesman, a tall, smooth, Harvard-trained leader in an industry known for caustic and eccentric executives. And although American had had its labor-management wars over the years, most recently with flight attendants and pilots, relations were relatively calm. "We were proud and prosperous," Boyd recalls. "Maybe we took it for granted." If the contract concession agreements recently ratified are implemented, 6,000 workers systemwide are expected to be laid off, and the others will take substantial cuts in pay and benefits. Under Chapter 11, the company says layoffs could climb to 15,000. The resignation of 56-year-old Carty was met with confusion Thursday. There's no consensus among employees that that's the answer to the labor-management rift. Boyd, the Texas-based pilot, says that for the first time, workers he's spoken with do feel leaderless. "Employees are crying out for someone to follow," he says. "A lot of people are saying we should bring (former CEO Bob) Crandall back," says Trautman, the flight attendant. "He was no friend of labor, but he knew how to run an airline." Asked about 44-year-old American President Gerard Arpey, who has been named to replace Carty as CEO, several employees said they knew little about him. "He's young," Trautman says. In American's hangars and break rooms and aircraft galleys, the unfolding drama eclipses all other topics of conversation. "From the moment you pull into the employee parking lot, it's 'What have you heard?' " says First Officer Greg Hudson, a Boeing 737 pilot. "We're all reading, watching TV and waiting." "They've been coming to us for months saying, 'Every penny counts. Don't call the catering truck a second time for water or anything, because it costs extra,' " he says. When employees who had just voted for concessions read about the bonuses and pensions for senior executives, he says, "Everyone was shocked. Now it's hard to trust anybody." Colleagues he talks to are madder about what they view as a betrayal than the executive perks. Not knowing what's next is driving workers crazy. Scott and Marie Tomlinson, both Miami-based American flight attendants, expect to lose at least $20,000 in income between them. They've canceled plans for a backyard pool, a new car, a summer vacation. When they aren't in the air, they are online reading e-mail from the union and friends, checking AMR's share price and fielding calls from colleagues and relatives. "I feel stressed out, fatigued," says Scott Tomlinson, 40. "I have a 9-month-old daughter. We want another child. I can't afford to stay at these pay rates and provide for my family and for college. I've made a decision that we have to cultivate another source of income or leave the airline altogether. Most flight attendants we know are talking about résumés, about going back to school." They are luckier than most. Aircraft mechanic Mario Meza thought things could only get better after he was laid off following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When he was recalled a few months later, American moved him from Los Angeles back to his native New York area to work at Newark International. At Christmastime, his second child was born. But under the contract concessions just ratified by his union, he's likely to be furloughed from Newark because he's worked for American only three years. Unless he can land a job with American at another airport, he'll be unemployed, and his family's medical insurance will stop. "I thought American Airlines represented security," Meza says. "There is no security. Your whole life changes, one day to the next." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.pscutt.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************