As we sit by and watch the search for victims of the terrorist attacks, I am left speechless by what I see happening to workers of the airline industry. How is it possible for the corporate officers of these airlines to lay off, without severance packages in some cases, thousands of their employees while at the same time they ask the federal government to bail them out of their current financial crisis?
As a very pro-business citizen, I am angered over what is being done to those workers by those who would cast them off in this time of national grief. The airlines would have us believe that without federal mone, they will go under financially, yet they have consistently opposed any federal interference in their industry, including airport and airline security. By contracting out the lowest bidders, they have undermined the very security they were supposed to provide.
I’m all for the government letting the airlines reap what they sowed, and giving them the option of either paying for federally-operated airport and airline security or explaining to their shareholders why their stocks are now worthless. The airline companies tell us theirs is an industry vital to the national interest, one we cannot possibly allow to fail. If that is the case, why are we leaving that interest in the hands of the most underqualified to provide security, the shareholders, whose main concern is not our safety, but their bottom line?
Marysville
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