TWA workers fight back after demotions, pink slips By Dan Reed, USA TODAY Sally Young is trying to save money before she is laid off =97 probably=20 permanently =97 in two weeks, but at least she won't have to sell her home.= =20 Young, a single mother of two preteen boys, made captain at TWA at about=20 the same time her chronically ill carrier was bought out of bankruptcy by=20 American Airlines. She never really had time to buy a big "captain's=20 house," and after problems combining the two carriers' workers began to=20 crop up, she decided to play it safe. "I lease," Young says with a mixture= =20 of relief and resignation. "After 18 years in this business, and at age 43,= =20 I still don't own a home. I had thought my time had come. But it passed me= =20 by." For Young and most of the other nearly 20,000 former TWA workers who=20 joined American two years ago, their hopes of better pay, better benefits,= =20 better working conditions and a better future with the world's largest=20 airline have faded into sadness and bitterness. Thousands of them already=20 have lost their jobs. Most who remain will be out by next spring. Young is one of the named plaintiffs in a federal class-action suit brought= =20 by a group called TWA Pilots for Justice against American, its pilots=20 union, the Allied Pilots Association (APA), and the pilots' former union at= =20 TWA, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). The suit alleges that American= =20 and the two unions stripped the former TWA pilots of their seniority rights= =20 by placing many senior TWA pilots behind American pilots with fewer years=20 flying for a major airline. They were among the first to go in the=20 furloughs when air travel dropped dramatically after the Sept. 11 attacks,= =20 when two American and two United airlines' jets were hijacked. Two other=20 class-action suits have been filed against American, its unions and the=20 unions that represented TWA's flight attendants and ground workers. Those=20 suits allege that American bowed to its unions' wishes to append most of=20 the former TWA workers to the bottom of American's seniority lists,=20 reneging on promises that it would assure a fair seniority integration=20 process. Putting them at the bottom, the former TWA workers claim,=20 guaranteed that they would suffer disproportionately in a downsizing. American's unions defend their actions regarding integration of TWA's=20 workers. "We took great care to preserve, to the extent possible, the=20 pre-merger job expectations of the TWA and American pilots," says Gregg=20 Overman, a spokesman for the APA. "The cold hard facts are that American=20 acquired TWA on the bankruptcy court's steps," he says. Without that=20 acquisition, no TWA worker "had any career prospects going forward." Even= =20 if TWA could have stayed in business, it would have been a weak competitor= =20 with no chance of growing, Overman says, giving TWA's pilots little or no=20 chance for career advancement or increased pay. American managers contend=20 that they have lived up to all the commitments made to the former TWA=20 employees and that they're as shocked as anyone by the turn of events at=20 American and in the airline industry over the last two years. "This is a=20 horrible situation for them to be put in," says Jeff Brundage, American's=20 head of employee relations. "But American Airlines didn't put them in it.=20 Remember, we were the white knight here. TWA had talked to everyone in the= =20 industry about buying them, and only American would step up. The=20 (bankruptcy) court ruled that TWA didn't have enough cash money left to=20 operate one more day." American, Brundage says, believed the addition of=20 TWA's 180 jets to its fleet of more than 700, and TWA's valuable St. Louis= =20 hub and access rights to key airports around the nation, would cause the=20 combined carrier to grow even larger and more profitable. An unforeseen outcome "No one knew back when we were doing this transaction= =20 two years ago that four planes would be captured by terrorists and used as= =20 weapons against our country, that the economy would change as much as it=20 did, or that demand (for air travel) would change so much," he says.=20 Regardless of who is responsible, the circumstances in which many ex-TWA=20 employees of American now find themselves are serious, and painful. Unlike= =20 Young, Jim Arthur, another named plaintiff in the pilots' suit, says he is= =20 trying to sell his Indianapolis-area home. He already sold two vehicles.=20 "We're cutting back on everything," says Arthur, who will be demoted to=20 first officer in July and expects to get his pink slip by Christmas. To=20 prepare, he is launching a graphics design and aerial photography company.= =20 But he knows that it's hard to find work that will pay "anything close to=20 what those of us who were captains with lots of seniority earned." "I have= =20 15- and 17-year-old boys we've been putting through private school," he=20 says. "We're looking at somehow supplementing that or even pulling them=20 out." College planning for his oldest son, an incoming high school senior,= =20 also has been jeopardized. "Maybe he won't get to go to the school he=20 wanted. Worst case, maybe I can't afford to put him in college at all." Kurt Anderson, a TWA pilot from Ann Arbor, Mich., is thinking about real=20 estate, too. He has refinanced his "perfect little red farm house" and=20 hopes to hold on to it by selling real estate in his hometown. He already=20 has his Realtor's license and is building a client list. However, with his= =20 layoff looming on Aug. 1, he has yet to earn a dime from real estate sales. "I've been flying all my life; I started when I was 16," says the=20 39-year-old. "I won't move my family to chase a flying job, so I'm looking= =20 elsewhere. Still, it's hard to believe that it's happening to me. I was one= =20 of the youngest captains at TWA. I won the highest award ALPA gives in=20 1998" for bringing a plane that lost an engine on takeoff back around for a= =20 safe landing at Tel Aviv, Israel. "Now I'm selling real estate. As a=20 captain I made well over $160,000 a year. Then I got pushed back to first=20 officer, and I went to around $120,000 a year. And in a few weeks I'll be=20 making zero unless I can sell some houses." But Anderson said he "feels=20 guilty even telling my story when I hear about some of the hardships other= =20 former TWA people are facing." Last week, 28-year flight attendant Karen Schooling testified before a=20 Senate panel about her situation. Schooling, who will be laid off on July=20 2, lost her husband to cancer three years ago, and has since been the sole= =20 support of her disabled 17-year-old son, whom she said weighs only 32=20 pounds, is fed through a tube and needs constant care. She faces losing her= =20 medical insurance as well as her income. "I am facing total and complete=20 financial devastation," Schooling said in her widely reported testimony=20 last week. "I can tolerate economic hardship. ... What I cannot tolerate is= =20 the fact that American Airlines has broken its commitment to all former TWA= =20 employees when it promised a fair and equitable process to determine=20 seniority integration. I cannot tolerate the life-threatening hardship that= =20 it will cause my son, Ryan." Despite the emotional testimony of Schooling and other former TWAers,=20 they're unlikely to get any help from Congress. The only two senators to=20 show up at the hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions= =20 Committee were Missouri's two Republicans, Kit Bond and Jim Talent. Bond=20 hosted the hearing but is not the committee's chair. Talent is not a member= =20 of the committee but was allowed to participate because of the impact on=20 Missouri, home base to more than 10,000 former TWA workers at American. The legal path doesn't offer former TWA workers much hope, either. American= =20 is trying to get the suits dismissed. Even the lawyer for the former TWA=20 pilots says the case won't go to trial before 2004, if it survives.=20 Schooling's plight may represent the extreme, but she's not the only one=20 hurt. "It's incredible to think about what's happened in the airline=20 industry in just two years: 100,000 jobs lost," American's Brundage says.=20 "This is not about what's happened only in the integration of TWA into=20 American. It's about what's happening far and wide across this industry."=20 Indeed, other carriers and their workers have been hurt worse than American= =20 and its employees. US Airways and United both sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy= =20 protection. United is still operating under bankruptcy court supervision.=20 Delta, Northwest and Continental are in marginally better financial shape,= =20 but they, too, have laid off thousands of workers. And, like the others,=20 they have burned through several billion dollars of borrowed money to stay= =20 afloat. A rapid downfall Still, American's fall has been, in some ways, the most dramatic. Long=20 considered the most formidable competitor in the business, American's=20 relatively cheap $742 million acquisition of TWA's assets allowed it to=20 blow past United to become the world's largest airline and positioned it as= =20 a global titan with a seemingly unlimited future. Instead, it has lost $6.3= =20 billion since the acquisition plans were announced in January 2001. The=20 company dodged bankruptcy protection in April only after pleading=20 passionately with its unions for big pay and benefits cuts and new work=20 rules. American officials warn that even after cutting costs by nearly $4=20 billion annually, the airline could be pushed into bankruptcy court if=20 business doesn't pick up significantly. American has cut 20,800 jobs since= =20 July 2001, and based on its fleet plans for 2004, an additional 14,000=20 American employees could be cut loose. Coming on top of more than 100,000 layoffs industrywide in the past 21=20 months, those cuts make job prospects in the industry dim. With=20 unemployment rising, getting a job outside the airline industry, especially= =20 one paying close to what airline workers are used to earning, could be=20 tough. "It would have been better if American had not bought (TWA) two=20 years ago, and our company had gone out of business," Anderson says. "There= =20 are no pilot jobs out there now. At the very least, I would have gotten a=20 two-year head start on my real estate career." Young doesn't know yet what= =20 she will do. "It will be years before I get recalled, if I ever get recalled," says the= =20 former high school chemistry and physics teacher who abandoned the=20 classroom for piloting in the late 1980s. "Flying is the only thing that I= =20 ever loved to do. I just hope I'll be able to find something that I halfway= =20 enjoy. 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