Hero Pilot Sully Says "Pay Cut, Pension Gone"

Under the headline My Pay Has Been Cut 40 Percent In Recent Years, Pension Terminated Sullenberger's became a hero again in a more quiet sort of way.

"Sullenberger, a 58-year-old who joined a US Airways predecessor in 1980, told the House aviation subcommittee that his pay has been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise "worth pennies on the dollar" from the federally created Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. These cuts followed a wave of airline bankruptcies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks compounded by the current recession, he said.

"The bankruptcies were used by some as a fishing expedition to get what they could not get in normal times," Sullenberger said of the airlines. He said the problems began with the deregulation of the industry in the 1970s."

Wow. Not just excellence at flying, but an awareness of what's going on in the industry and what it means to employees AND passengers.

According to Sullenberger "the reduced compensation has placed "pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation, ... I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps."

His co-pilot supported his testimony.

"Sullenberger's copilot Jeffrey B. Skiles said unless federal laws are revised to improve labor-management relations "experienced crews in the cockpit will be a thing of the past." And Sullenberger added that without experienced pilots "we will see negative consequences to the flying public."

"Sullenberger himself has started a consulting business to help make ends meet. Skiles added, "For the last six years, I have worked seven days a week between my two jobs just to maintain a middle class standard of living."

Obviously, this is not a problem isolated to the airline industry. We've been talking about employers who have thrown their employees' pension plans to the government for some time. Pensioners get far less than they originally contracted for.

As we look at the possibility of bankruptcies for major industries in the near future, will Congress really listen to what professionals like Sullenberger and Skiles are saying? Or will we once again solve corporations' problems on the backs of the worker?

I think Sully and crew are again heroes for this testimony.

By ksh01's diary of Daily Kos.