Originally Posted by
MaxPowerSet
If this headline got your attention, it should, because it's what could happen if we don't speak up.
There is a huge storm brewing that could potentially devastate the U.S. airline industry and thousands of American jobs if not stopped. The U.S. merchant marine industry was decimated decades ago when cruise lines were allowed to register their ships in foreign countries with the most favorable (i.e. non-existent) labor laws, using what is known as a “flag of convenience”. This allowed the cruise lines to hire foreign workers for a fraction of what they would pay an American crewmember, forever “off-shoring” that American job. While everyone celebrated lower cruise fares, you don’t have to look hard at the cruise industry to see stories of how decision has come back to haunt us. Poor maintenance, ships dead in the water without power, illness spreading through entire ships at sea and the like are just a few of the stories of late about how cheap labor isn’t always better and you do get what you pay for.
Now imagine that foreign airlines are about to use the same scheme in the airline industry to compete with a huge advantage over U.S. carriers. The first to try this is a company called Norwegian Air International (NAI). They plan on registering their planes in Ireland (even though they never plan to fly there) and then contracting out their flight crews from a Singapore crew leasing company. This is all so that they don’t have to comply with more stringent laws and regulations of their own country or the U.S.
While being stranded for a few days on a foreign-flagged cruise ship that cut one-too-many corners may seem bad, I would gladly take that over being 30,000’ in the air when something goes wrong on a foreign air carrier that contracted out for the cheapest labor it could find. Asiana Airlines recent crash could be a foreshadowing of what is to come if this is allowed to happen on a larger scale. The losses of U.S. jobs coupled with a reduction of the level of safety of carriers flying to and from the U.S. make this proposition unacceptable.
The U.S. government can put a stop to this threat by denying Norwegian Air’s application for a Foreign Air Carrier permit. A petition is already being circulated trying to accomplish this at this web address, http://takeaction.alpa.org/ Without broader support from all of us, we may see a repeat of what happened to our merchant marine industry and thousands of us could be unemployed.
Well said and thank you for continuing to spread the word. I am already involved in this fight and will help anyway I can!