Outsourcing American Jobs: Unsafe at Any Speed
In a discussion on CNN last week of safety problems posed by AMR’s bankruptcy proposal to outsource aircraft maintenance, TWU International President James C. Little completely turned around an “expert” who started out saying there is nothing to worry about, and ended up agreeing outsourcing is a big problem.
President Little told CNN,
“The airline industry’s dirty little secret is that more and more planes are being flown to third-party offshore locations for major overhauls and repairs. The FAA only inspects these facilities in China, El Salvador, Mexico and elsewhere, at most, once a year—and by treaty must give 30 days notice. A loophole in our laws allows our commercial airliners to be worked on in these poorly secured, largely unregulated facilities, by mostly unlicensed mechanics who lack background checks, who have never had a drug test, and who often cannot read the repair manuals.”
After hearing that, CNN’s “expert” back-pedaled fast, saying, “No, he’s not wrong. And do I like it? No. Not even a little bit. I didn’t like it when some of the other airlines started to do it.”
This should not have been news to anyone who has been paying attention. In last year’s final report of the Future of Aviation Advisory Committee (FAAC) organized by the U.S. Department of Transportation, TWU, joined by representatives of the Consumers Union and other aviation unions, exposed this “dirty little secret” to public view:
…[A] significant number of non-certificated facilities are legally performing work on U.S. aircraft in outsourced repair facilities in the U.S. and abroad. These non-certificated facilities are “black boxes” for aircraft maintenance. Moreover, foreign repair facilities are held to a different set of standards … [C]ritical exceptions are made in personnel and security standards including background checks, duty-time limitations, and alcohol and drug testing. In recent years, outsourcing of aircraft maintenance has exploded while regulatory standards and oversight have stagnated. Academic research and case studies suggest a relationship between these changes and safety. [p. 68. Emphasis added.]
In the same report, TWU and the other aviation unions stated
Air carriers have recently used outsourcing as a systematic way to eliminate jobs and lower costs… The cost savings of outsourcing are generally derived from lower-paying jobs with inferior benefits, resulting in a net degradation of pay and working conditions… Choosing outsourcing as the first option, when it negatively affects lives and livelihoods, sends a message that air carrier employees are merely factors of production, and not valued as important industry stakeholders. [p. 63]
The aviation unions also pointed out in the FAAC report that
Companies have exploited § 1113 [of the bankruptcy code] as a business model of first resort to gain long-term economic concessions by gutting the wages and working conditions of air carrier and other employees. The current bankruptcy process enables employers to impose contract changes through the court and outside the normal collective bargaining process. Recent bankruptcy court decisions have greatly loosened the standards for employers to force economic concessions from workers. As a result, employers have been able to breach their employees’ contracts with impunity, and workers have lost critical leverage in the process, with grossly unfair results. [p. 66]
TWU and its consumer and aviation allies recommended common sense reforms that would have addressed all of these problems. Had Congress acted promptly on these recommendations, and the industry not stonewalled them, AMR might not be in bankruptcy today, and the flying public and aviation workforce would be a lot safer and more secure.
Read the full FAAC report here.
