Would You Give This Man $29?

WHEN Professor Anna Chave announced that students should take advantage of Eastern Airlines $12 fares to visit New York's Museum of Modern Art, some students in "Modern Art and Abstraction" cried out in protest. When The Crimson continued to run Eastern Airlines advertisement throughout the machinists strike, some Crimson editors attempted to pull the ads. Why? Why does the act of flying Eastern Airlines anger so many students?

It is impossible to answer this question without destroying two myths about Frank Lorenzo, Eastern Airlines and the machinists' strike.

Myth number one: crossing the picket line and riding Eastern Airlines is not a political act. The fact is that when you fly Eastern Shuttle to New York, you are making a $29 donation to Frank Lorenzo's fund to bust the machinists. The strike is extremely expensive for Lorenzo, and for Texas Air, of which Lorenzo is chair. Eastern, before the strike, was losing $1 million per day. Now its losses are enormous.

Before the strike, Lorenzo was selling off Eastern's assets in order to keep the airline in service. Now Lorenzo, under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code, cannot sell assets without the approval of a Federal bankruptcy judge, and his sale of the Eastern Air Shuttle to Donald Trump is stalled. Lorenzo can draw on the assets of Continental Airlines and Texas Air to keep up the fight, but you can be sure that every $29 you give to Lorenzo goes straight into the unionbusting side. Every passenger must ask him or herself, in the words of the famous union song, "Which side are you on?"

Myth number two: the machinists' demands are unreasonable and the wage concessions which Lorenzo wants are in the long-term best interests of the airline. The fact is that Lorenzo does not care about Eastern's survival, nor about his employees' jobs. This is why they hate him and call him the "AIDS of the working people," among other things.

Lorenzo has been selling off Eastern's most important assets ever since he acquired the airline in 1986. Lorenzo has been using the revenue from the sale of Eastern assets to fund the expansion of Continental Airlines, which he also owns, and whose unions he broke in 1983. As you may have noticed, Lorenzo has been expanding Continental's flight schedule, most recently adding five new flights to Atlanta.

LORENZO clearly wants to destroy Eastern Airlines. As Roy H. Anderson, General Chair of District 100 of the International Association of Machinists, said, "This is the first time in history that labor unions have gone on strike against the employer to save their own company."

Why does Lorenzo want to destroy Eastern, the seventh largest carrier in the United States, or at least reduce it to a shell of its current self? Lorenzo answered this question himself when he bought Eastern in 1986, "We're going to paint the tails of the airplanes and move them over to Continental."

Lorenzo broke the Continental Airlines unions during a 1983 strike. Continental machinists now make a maxiumum of $16 per hour, $2.50 per hour less than machinists in the rest of the industry. Some carriers pay their top machinists more than $19 per hour. Lorenzo wants to run a non-union airline and reap windfall profits for himself and Texas Air. The man is a greedy slime.

Current capitalist philosophy says that one man's greed will benefit the masses. Is Frank Lorenzo fighting our battle, the battle of airline passengers, against recalcitrant and over-paid union members? No.

First, changes in labor law since the 1983 Continental strike have made it more difficult for airline owners to bust unions. Every other major airline operates profitably in cooperation with its unions, and will continue to do so, eliminating the possibility of a general reduction in airline fares through deunionization of the industry. Continental will remain the only non-union airline.

Second, look at Continental Airlines. Although Continental has lower operating costs than other airlines, these savings are not passed on to its passengers in a significant manner, but instead they accrue to Frank Lorenzo's unionbusting coffers and personal bank account.

Frank Lorenzo is not an innovative capitalist crusader. He is a violently anti-union, cynical man who sees the world through green-colored glasses. He wants your $29 to break the backs of 8500 machinists, to eliminate their jobs. He'll scratch your back if you scratch his. Don't touch him.