American Airlines:
From nearly bankrupt to nearly prosperous in just over a week!

May 12, 2003

On May 8, American Airlines' new CEO announced that the company might soon return to profitability.

What happened? Only a month ago, American pretended it was on the verge of bankruptcy. And it used that threat to extort concessions from its workers.

Now that concessions are a done deal, it seems that things don't look that bad after all!

Does that mean the bosses will soon start giving back everything the workers agreed to give up?

Wrong. There is nothing in the new concessions contracts that requires these companies to give back the jobs, pay, benefits and everything else they took from their workers when the companies return to profitability. Not right away. Not ever.

Wonder why union officials didn't think about including this when they joined with the bosses to pressure the workers to accept these agreements.