American Airlines Union Vows to Protest Romney in Florida
The bankruptcy-protected airline wants Bain & Co. to help it save American Eagle
Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney makes a point as former House Newt Gingrich looks on during the NBC News, National Journal, Tampa Bay Times debate held at the University of South Florida Monday night in Tampa.
Mitt Romney took some shots on stage from his political presidential rivals Monday night – and some off stage, from a large labor union with lots of members in South Florida.
American Airlines, a key company in the region, is in bankruptcy protection. It has asked a judge to let it hire Bain & Company, the consulting and investment firm Romney cofounded, to help it save subsidiary American Eagle.
But the airline union for mechanics and ground crew objects – and is vowing to protest Romney’s appearances throughout Florida beginning Wednesday.
The 24,000-member Transportation Workers Union is demanding the bankrupt airline halt its plans to hire Bain – for what it calls a “blatantly excessive and unfair” $525,000 per month – to extract concessions from current and retired employees, the TWU says.
“They're solely there as a vulture just to eliminate jobs,” said TWU local union President Sidney Jimenez.
“When a presidential nominee is running for president and he's lining his pockets and actually still deriving a lot of his wealth from Bain & Company, I think that needs to come to the public foreground,” Jimenez said.
But sources with direct knowledge say American wants to hire a division of Bain that had little or no link to Romney, and that Bain does a lot more than just identify job cuts, a normal part of bankruptcy.
And on its website, Bain boasts that it helped save Continental Airlines from bankruptcy in the 1990s.
For his part, Romney has vehemently defended Bain as a job creator and corporate savior.
Meantime, an American Airlines management memo obtained by NBC Miami Monday night says that 90 percent of employees’ vested pensions will be paid in full.
Posted Monday, Jan 23, 2012 - 11:34 PM EST
Top Stories
