American Airlines' Outsourcing of Vital Services at Airports Harms Passengers, Workers and Security

Washington, D.C. – Passengers at airports across America are learning how American Airlines is replacing experienced, trained employees with minimum wage workers under the cover of bankruptcy laws while the airline sits on $8 billion in cash.

Communications Workers of America (CWA) activists, working with American Airlines passenger service agents who want a union voice, are leafleting at 15 airports across the country, alerting the traveling public to the airline’s growing use of contractors for vital services. Paying contract employees poverty wages is bad for passengers, bad for safety and bad for security, CWA said.

American Airlines – whose bank account has grown from the $4 billion on hand the day it filed for bankruptcy protections to $8 billion today - has cited its financial condition as the reason it is outsourcing maintenance, international security, customer service agent and cargo agent positions.   

Cargo agents for example, are being replaced by minimum wage workers who receive no benefits and have a high turnover rate. Also recently, three American Airlines flights had to make emergency landings when rows of seats – maintained by an outside vendor that replaced airline employees in Fort Worth and Tulsa – came loose in flight.

“After 24 years of loyal service, management is kicking me to the curb. My middle-class wage is just too much for them to pay, so instead a low-wage contractor is replacing me. I am 51 and well on my way to planning for retirement one day. But now, I am going to have to start over,” said Freddy Lopez, an American Airlines cargo agent at Miami International Airport.

Leafleting is taking place at the following airports:

Dallas Fort-Worth, Texas

JFK International, New York

Los Angeles International, Calif.  

LaGuardia, New York

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Miami, Fla.  

Logan Airport, Boston, Mass.

Bradley Airport, Hartford, Conn.

Columbus, Ohio

O’Hare International, Chicago

Nashville, Tenn.

Raleigh-Durham International

Sacramento, Calif.

Seattle, Washington

Washington National Airport, Washington, D.C.

American Airlines passenger service agents filed for a union representation election more than 10 months ago. CWA has been working with the nearly 10,000 passenger agents who want a union voice for 15 years. AMR, the parent corporation of American Airlines, has sought to block workers’ democratic right to vote and has thrown up numerous legal and other roadblocks, but last month, the three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, ruled unanimously that the lower court erred in stopping the election and said the election should go forward.

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Contact: Tim Dubnau, CWA District 1, tdubnau@cwa-union.org, 609-658-0033, or Candice Johnson, CWA Communications, cjohnson@cwa-union.org and 202-434-1168