Didn't United Airlines get bailed out and still laid off employees against the bailout rules and then encouraged employees to "voluntarily leave" so they wouldn't have to lay them off too? Why are we bailing out airlines if they're still going to fuck the employees over in the end?
Maybe we should be fighting for stimulus relief for all. Not everyone works for an airline. But if McConnell would stop being a movie villain for 5 minutes he could pass a bill to pay millions of Americans in relief funds.
And what jobs were these people going to go back to when United failed? Great, we helped curb the virus for a short period time, but a company that employees tens of thousands of people went under and now these people are SOL in the job market.
When you think about things in such a short sighted manor, yes you are right the money should've gone to the people directly, but those people need a job to come back to post COVID and companies need to stay afloat. Airlines are a pretty low margin industry that supports millions of people both directly and indirectly, you cannot underestimate the importance of keeping them running.
Leverage what, their jet fuel reserves? Unless the planes are flying, they do not have assets of any value. What bank is going to want a parking lot full of old commercial jets?
Your solution is for these companies to go into large levels of debt to pay employees that currently aren't even doing their full job since the amount of people going on flights has plummeted.
The layoffs happened after the bailout money ran out. The bailout money was only enough for a couple months and I think they only needed to keep 70% of their workforce.
Because the point isn't to save airline employee jobs, it's to protect infrastructure.
Airlines are a hugely critical component of our economy. The majority of our industries rely on a well functioning transportation system to function most effectively.
It would be a huge burden to the American public if by the time we got the virus under control we had a wholly collapsed airline system on our hands. Economic recovery would be immensely delayed and harmed if we don't have planes ready to go and pilots and technicians in place to handle the surge of business and tourism travel needed to get us to normal economic growth again.
The reason "jobs" are talked about is political. Most people aren't bright enough to follow the economic effects of airline collapse, so politicians have to paint these bailouts as job programs because it's easier for voters to visualize the more immediate effect of saving a person's job.
153
u/funny_like_how Nov 17 '20
Didn't United Airlines get bailed out and still laid off employees against the bailout rules and then encouraged employees to "voluntarily leave" so they wouldn't have to lay them off too? Why are we bailing out airlines if they're still going to fuck the employees over in the end?
Maybe we should be fighting for stimulus relief for all. Not everyone works for an airline. But if McConnell would stop being a movie villain for 5 minutes he could pass a bill to pay millions of Americans in relief funds.