Bankruptcy Reform Needed Now

Congress Must Stop Airlines from Exploiting Workers
May 25, 2010 - In testimony (oral testimony | written submission) before a U.S. House Subcommittee today, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA), called on Congress to comprehensively reform the U.S. Bankruptcy Code to better protect workers and stop companies from manipulating the bankruptcy process to garner huge bonuses for executives while stripping workers of their collective bargaining rights.

“Despite the original intent of Congress, Section 1113 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code today fails to protect workers or serve as the mechanism of last resort to save a failing business,” said Capt. John Prater, ALPA’s president, to members of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. “Instead, it has been exploited as a business model of first resort for companies to gain long-term economic concessions by gutting the wages and working conditions of airline and other employees.”
• View a slideshow presentation on the results of airline bankruptcies on ALPA.
• View a photo slideshow of the hearing.