Michelle Soto de Carvalho

Dear President Obama,

As a supporter of your administration, I would like to send a letter explaining my position on the possible AA/USAir merger and bring it to your attention as most of the employees at American Airlines are now engaging in the fight of their lifetimes. I also suggest you may want to take an in depth look at the problems we at American are facing as it is so indicative of corporate greed, incompetence and the American Worker being forced to give away jobs and work for meager wages to support a bottom line that gives nothing in return to his/her contributions.

I have been a flight attendant for 25 years at American Airlines. In November of last year AA filed bankruptcy which was subsequently followed by a Sec. 1113 filing to abrogate all of their unions contracts. The Terms that they have offered nearly 60,000 of their employees are deplorable, unconscionable, and draconian at best. It took me several days to digest the lack of value they place in their employees and discard the contributions we made with more than a 30% voluntary reduction in pay and benefits by all of labor groups at AA in 2003, which have never been recouped to this day.

I could start with following the "life isn’t fair" mantra but all of this happening has brought what I believe is terrible public policy to the forefront. A couple of examples could begin with the fact that AA wants to send 6000 of our American jobs to China. They want to close down maintenance facilities in both Dallas and Tulsa and have all major maintenance performed in China!! How on earth does an industry who is governed by the FAA allow our planes to be worked on by cheap labor in another country? Where is the oversight? Where are the certifications? Where is our government in protecting American jobs and skilled trade? Our governments job should be to protect the American worker and not give our country away as it has been doing bit by bit for the last few decades. I would follow this up with out-sourcing. AA is going to be laying off a great deal of agents and ground personnel. The agents then have the opportunity to reapply for their job with the out-sourcing companies that will hire them back at hourly wages with no benefits. Once more, the Wal-martization of American labor. Never enough hours to qualify for benefits but cheap enough to qualify them for public assistance. These issues most certainly need to be addressed by our representatives. It cannot always be about the bottom line. Just like my company who was once #1 in the world, our country has also fallen from grace by not recognizing that investing in it’s people is the road to success.

Now, to the current issue at hand: American employees have lost complete faith in their management. Given several billion in contract savings over the last decade, our management team decided on a path of hefty retention bonuses on the backs of their employees and minimal attention to the product. There was no investment in technology, route growth, or modernization of it’s infrastructure. Rather, it was to assess fee’s upon fee’s to the flying public and offer them as little as possible in return. In an unprecedented move, the three labor groups at AA were approached by USAir and shown a viable business plan that grows a network, retains employee pay and benefits at it’s current levels and proudly brands the product with this country’s flagship name: American Airlines. After meeting with the USAir management team, our representatives signed letters of agreement with USAir supporting a merger because for the first time in over a decade, we can stand behind a business model that has the possibility of returning our company to a market in which we are no longer competitive.

As I mentioned earlier, this also maintains an investment in the American Worker. The 13,000 layoffs that AA has proposed will be minimized to half and livable contracts will be preserved so that we may keep our homes, our children in school, and out of the unemployment lines.

I, and the employees of AA, ask your support in the merger of AA/USAir in bankruptcy. We all believe in the business plan put forth by the USAir management team and have pledged our support to the rebirth of The New American Airlines.

Michelle Soto de Carvalho
LAX International Flight Attendant