The employers’ main argument is that workers should consider themselves as part of "the United family" and that when the bosses are losing money, workers must sacrifice for "our" company. Saying the company is on the verge of going broke, the bosses tell workers they have "no choice" but to give up whatever is demanded of them. The federal government is ganging up with the airline magnates against the unions by demanding these union givebacks as a condition for granting more loans to United to stave off bankruptcy.

Workers at one airline after another are facing a similar assault. After the union at US Airways agreed to givebacks, the company filed for bankruptcy anyway and is now using the bankruptcy proceedings as a justification for demanding even more out of the hides of the Machinists and other workers. The record of the past decade shows there is no end to the givebacks--they just whet the bosses’ appetite for more blood. The goal of the companies is to drive wages and working conditions way down, as they have in other industries.

The consequences of accepting the framework that "we" workers and bosses have something in common can already be seen. Unionists at United went through the bitter experience of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) fraud; today they have seen the stock they received in lieu of wages become almost worthless with the plunge in the market. They were told they were part of an "employee-owned airline," but when the chips fall, the real owners--the billionaires--are first in line to get their profits while union members get the axe. All these schemes are designed to tie workers’ hands and subordinate our interests to the profit prerogatives of the bosses. There is no such thing as "equal sacrifice" under capitalism--employers profit at the expense of workers. Relying on the good fortunes of the company has been a road to disaster. As the U.S. rulers drive toward an imperialist war in the Mideast, they will step up even more the demand for "sacrifice" and pressure workers to subordinate themselves to the bosses’ needs.

The crisis of the airlines is not a temporary malfunction, nor is it a result of "9-ll." It is a normal consequence of the decline of the capitalist system. As the airline owners’ profit rates continue to slide, competition among the capitalists becomes sharper, and the employers try to resolve their problems by going after workers.

Rather than tie our future to the employers, working people need a fighting perspective to defend the interests of our class. The road for unionists at United to be able to stand up to the bosses is that of broad working-class solidarity. Their efforts to defend hard-won wages, working conditions, and other rights will be strengthened if they join with other workers resisting the same employer assault--from garment workers fighting for a union to West Coast dockworkers confronting government intervention, to the New York transit workers fighting for health-care benefits and union rights.

In face of growing depression conditions and the looming prospect of massive layoffs, the labor movement needs to wage a fight to demand jobs for all by shortening the workweek with no cut in pay, as well as a massive public works program to create jobs building hospitals, schools, housing, roads, and other needed facilities. Rather than remain at the mercy of individual employers’ cutback plans, the only solution in the interests of our class is to fight to expand social security to include a national health-care and pension fund as a universal guarantee for all workers. Unemployment compensation should be available to all workers for the length of time they are out of a job.

Capitalism offers us a future of widening depression, wars of plunder, and increased brutality against working people. The government, under both Democrats and Republicans, acts as an executive committee for the exploiting class. Working people need to organize a movement to fight to take political power out of the hands of the employer class and establish a government of workers and farmers, one that can join with working people worldwide in fighting for a society based on human solidarity and dignity.
 
 
Related articles:
Bosses at United Airlines demand more takebacks from unionists  
 
 
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