Ten hospitalized after shaky flight from Greece to PHL

By Jacob Adelman

AUGUST 5, 2017 

Ten people were hospitalized Saturday after landing in Philadelphia on an American Airlines flight from Athens, Greece, that had encountered heavy turbulence.

The three passengers and seven crew members were taken to a hospital for evaluation after Flight 759 landed at Philadelphia International Airport, American Airlines said in a release.

The turbulence was encountered shortly before the plane’s 3:12 p.m. arrival at the airport, according to the airline.

American Airlines spokeswoman Sunny Rodriguez had no immediate details Saturday evening about injuries sustained by passengers or crew members, or whether those injured remained hospitalized.

Jessica Huseman, a reporter with the news website ProPublica who was on the flight, said in a tweet that a flight attendant had dislocated his shoulder during the incident.

“No warning at all. Plane lurched thru the air. Honestly, terrifying,” she wrote in a separate tweet. “Some passengers are injured as well.”

Huseman also posted photos of the airplane cabin’s ceiling splashed with coffee that had just been distributed to passengers when the turbulence occurred.

“We all used our fleece blankets to mop the ceiling of the plane down after drinks went flying,” Huseman wrote.

============================================

Struggling carrier, old airplanes & grandmothers for cabin crew - the outcome injured on duty.

American Airlines delays Boeing, Airbus jet deliveries

by Alana Wise, Tim Hepher

April 27 , 2017

American Airlines Group Inc said on Thursday it had deferred the delivery of several wide-body Boeing and Airbus jets, in the latest sign of oversupply in the market for long-distance airliners.

The decision by American to push back some of its Boeing Co and Airbus orders comes two weeks after Delta Air Lines Inc said it was reviewing wide-body jet orders to address excess capacity, noting that reductions were likely over the next several years.

While demand for smaller and more standardised narrowbody aircraft has proved resilient to economic weakness as leasing companies move them to where they are most needed, the market for the more customised widebody jets is more easily saturated as manufacturers bring out competing models simultaneously.

American said alongside its earnings on Thursday that it was delaying first delivery of its Airbus A350 jets from 2018 to 2020 and deferring delivery of two Boeing 787-9s to the first quarter of 2019 from second-quarter 2018 to "provide widebody capacity flexibility" in its fleet.

"We have some flexibility in how long we retain some of our other widebodies, so by pushing back the A350 we can keep those other planes longer, or not, in line with demand," American spokesman Joshua Freed said.

American Airlines has 22 A350-900 passenger jets on order, according to the latest data from Airbus, which was hit by Delta’s decision to discuss delays in wide-body jet deliveries.

Delta has no wide-body Boeing jets on order, but has unfilled orders for more than 50 Airbus wide-body jets including 25 A350-900s, the same number of future A330-900 aircraft and one current A330-300 model.

Airbus Finance Director Harald Wilhelm said earlier he was not worried about signs of weakness because of a cushion of 6,700 unfilled orders.

"What matters is whether the backlog is robust, whether there are any significant movements in there and I can clearly confirm that this is not the case," he told reporters after posting weaker first-quarter profits.

Boeing said on Wednesday it was seeing "varying levels of near-term demand" for wide-body jets, but predicted a wave of replacement demand at the start of next decade. 

============================================

Struggling carriers - American Airlines it overplayed its hand when Qatar Airways desired to buy a stake. 

Now those ‘Leaders of the big three U.S. airlines and the unions representing their pilots and flight attendants have spoken out against Qatar Airways’ - APA President Dan Carey & John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union - now they look like fools.

The Unions APA & TWU will give the struggling carriers givebacks in their upcoming contracts.

Qatar Air drops plan for American stake

Qatar Airways said it is dropping an attempt to buy a big stake in American Airlines, an audacious bid that had received a chilly reception from American.

Qatar Airways said the investment no longer meets its objectives.

American Airlines said it respected Qatar’s decision and added that the turnabout would not make any difference in American’s plans.

Qatar said in June that it planned to buy an initial stake of up to 4.75 percent of American’s stock, but Fort Worth-based American said Qatar’s goal was to get a 10 percent stake.

It was an odd move. The two airlines are on opposite sides of a nasty fight that has big U.S. carriers complaining that they are unfairly undercut on fares because Qatar and two other fast-growing Middle East airlines get illegal subsidies from their governments.

Qatar Airlines said this week that it changed its mind after a review of the deal’s finances and American’s reaction.

=================================

Now the grandmothers will give back 50/50 to help its ailing carrier.

Layoff

Company	Location	Layoff Start Date	# of Workers	Closure Layoff	Type of Layoff	Received Date
Boeing	Puget Sound	9/22/2017	220	Layoff	Permanent	7/27/2017
APM Terminals	Tacoma, WA	9/22/2017	12	Closure	Permanent	7/25/2017
Le Eco	Bellevue, WA	9/18/2017	25	Closure	Permanent	7/24/2017
Vertafore	Bothell, WA	10/1/2017	121	Layoff	Permanent	7/17/2017
KIK Tacoma, Inc.	Tacoma, WA	8/11/2017	20	Closure	Permanent	7/12/2017
Boeing	Puget Sound Area	8/25/2017	89	Layoff	Permanent	6/30/2017
K-Mart	Tacoma	9/10/2017	67	Closure	Permanent	6/29/2017
Adventist Health	Walla Walla	8/24/2017	371	Closure	Permanent	6/21/2017
Space Needle	Seattle	9/5/2017	153	Closure	Permanent	6/15/2017
Boeing	Puget Sound Area	7/21/2017	337	Layoff	Permanent	5/23/2017
Electronic Arts Inc	Seattle, WA	7/3/2017	45	Layoff	Permanent	5/8/2017
Boeing	Puget Sound Area	6/23/2017	580	Layoff	Permanent	5/8/2017
Spectrum Glass Company	Woodinville	6/30/2017	14	Closure	Permanent	5/1/2017
Railex	Burbank, WA	6/30/2017	88	Layoff	Permanent	4/12/2017
Caradigm LLC	Bellevue, WA	6/14/2017	39	Layoff	Permanent	4/12/2017

Nissan workers reject union by nearly a 2-1 margin

by Sean Higgins 

Aug 5, 2017

In a closely watched vote, Nissan workers at a Canton, Miss., plant rejected the United Auto Workers by a 2-to-1 margin in an organizing vote concluded late Friday, dealing a major blow to the union's hopes to make inroads in the south. The vote was 2,244 to 1,307.

"With this vote, the voice of Nissan employees has been heard. They have rejected the UAW and chosen to self-represent, continuing the direct relationship they enjoy with the company. Our expectation is that the UAW will respect and abide by their decision and cease their efforts to divide our Nissan family. Now that the election is complete, Nissan will focus on bringing all employees back together as one team, building great vehicles and writing our next chapter in Mississippi," the company's North American branch said in a statement.

UAW blamed company opposition for the defeat. "The result of the election was a setback for these workers, the UAW and working Americans everywhere, but in no way should it be considered a defeat," said UAW President Dennis Williams. "Perhaps recognizing they couldn't keep their workers from joining our union based on the facts, Nissan and its anti-worker allies ran a vicious campaign against its own workforce that was comprised of intense scare tactics, misinformation, and intimidation."

The National Labor Relations Board, the main federal labor law enforcement agency, filed an unfair-labor-practices complaint against the company last week acting on allegations by the union acting on behalf of six workers.

Unions have long struggled to build support in the labor union-resistant southern states, a task that has become more urgent in recent years as foreign manufacturers, particularly auto companies, have increasingly located there. UAW's membership currently stands at 415,000, according to its most recent Labor Department filings. That's down from 464,000 a decade ago and over 700,000 in 2001.

In 2014, UAW lost a high-profile effort to organize a Chattanooga Volkswagen plant when workers voted 712-626 against it. That was after Volkswagen gave the union access to the plant and stood neutral in the vote.

UAW was able to secure enough worker signatures to force a federally monitored organizing vote — 30 percent of eligible workers is required — but Nissan has suggested the election was actually a pretext, and the union didn't expect to win. The union's real goal, the company has suggested, was to gain the workers' contact information, which the company must turnover when a vote is ordered regardless of whether individual workers consent to this, and use that to try to build support for a future organizing bid.

What Today Means for Black Women and Pay Equality

By Connor D. Wolf

July 31, 2017

A black woman would have to work seven additional months on average to get the same pay as a white man last year, according to research that was highlighted Monday.

Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is being used to discuss the issue by showing how many more months a black woman would have to work into 2017 to earn as much as a white man in 2016. Labor unions and progressive groups are taking to social media and holding events throughout the day to bring attention to the issue.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive research nonprofit, calculated the pay difference in a study Friday. The research found black women are paid only 67 cents on average for every dollar a non-Hispanic white man makes. Education, years of experience, and location were taken into account to factor for influences aside from discrimination.

“Folks generally understand or know about gender pay equality,” EPI researcher Valerie Wilson told InsideSources. “There are significant differences in gender pay gap when we account for race. So today signifies that day that African American women actually catch up with what white men earned in the previous year.”

Wilson currently serves as the director of EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy (PREE). She was among the team of researchers that helped calculate the pay difference for black women. She hopes the day will draw attention to the issue so that more people are aware and can start talking solutions.

“Getting attention is just the beginning of it,” Wilson said. “The next step beyond that is we want people to take action on closing the gap. It’s one thing to know about it, it’s another thing to move forward with solutions to reducing or eliminating the gap.”

Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is already drawing significant attention. Labor unions have utilized social media to highlight the issue in a series of posts. The Center for American Progress held a panel discussion with several experts to highlight the problem. Tennis legend Serena Williams argued in an opinion piece for Forbes that the day is helping to shine a light on an issue that is often neglected.

Wilson and the rest of the research team based their findings on data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The team used hourly wages to account for hours worked by individuals while also remaining consistent when comparing different groups.

“A lot of that difference can be attributed to discrimination because the other factors that we can reasonably expect to account for differences in pay don’t eliminate the gap,” Wilson said.

The gender pay gap has been disputed by some critics over how much discrimination actually plays a role. They have contested the claim often misses nuances that could account for the difference. Harvard Economics Prof. Claudia Goldin questions the approach of the recent research.

“My views and those of EPI agree on some points and disagree on others,” Goldin said in an email to InsideSources. “In this case, they are looking at lots of raw differences (e.g., by education level; by hours; by weeks). They could do the same for white women versus white men. We shouldn’t attribute all the difference to bias and possibly not even much at all. This isn’t an easy problem and the exercise makes it look far, far easier than it is. It trivializes the issues.”

Lawmakers and researchers have put forth numerous solutions on how to address wage inequality generally. Some have suggested raising the minimum wage while others have looked at underlying economic concerns like productivity. Wilson notes a good first step is simply enforcing the law.

“One part of it is really enforcing the laws we already have in place in this country that prohibit discrimination in pay on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, sexual orientation,” Wilson said. “We have laws already against pay discrimination, yet it still happens.”

Wilson adds pay transparency can help improve enforcement by allowing people to know when their pay is unfair. A worker could find it difficult to determine if they are the victim of wage inequity if they don’t know what their colleagues are being paid. Making it so workers can more easily compare their wages with others could help avoid that problem.

“When you have an issue of pay discrimination it’s specific to your employer,” Wilson said. “It’s one thing to have the national numbers out there for everyone to see, but the individual has to know within their company that they’re not being paid the same.”