Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2001 08:58:02 -0700
Subject: FW: United We Stand, Except at the Unemployment Line (fwd)
From: "CZimmerman" <racaz-AT-earthlink.net>
To: valston-AT-u.arizona.edu



----------
From: Dereka Rushbrook <dereka-AT-U.Arizona.EDU>
To: <progalliance-AT-yahoogroups.com>
Subject: United We Stand, Except at the Unemployment Line (fwd)
Date: Thu, Nov 1, 2001, 7:03 AM




---------- Forwarded message ----------

"One example is the $175,000 severance package for Virginia Buckingham, the
outgoing executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority."


United We Stand, Except at the Unemployment Line

Buckingham's lucrative landing
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Staff, [Boston Globe, Oct. 31, 2001]

UNITED WE STAND, except at the unemployment line. One example is the
$175,000 severance package for Virginia Buckingham, the outgoing
executive director of the Massachusetts Port Authority.

Buckingham resigned her post last week, six weeks after two passenger
planes from Logan Airport were hijacked, destroyed the World Trade
Center towers, and killed more than 5,000 people. The sum Buckingham
will receive from the Massport board includes nine months' pay,
$112,000, and $62,500 in the form of a two-year consulting contract
to continue to assist Massport (even though Buckingham had no prior
aviation experience). Buckingham will also get $5,850 in unused sick
leave pay. This is after Joseph Lawless, Logan's security director on
Sept. 11, was bailed out by Acting Governor Jane Swift. Swift, who
herself once landed a job at Massport after losing an election - and
who also had no aviation credentials - made Lawless the security
director of the Port of Boston at his old yearly salary of $120,000.
That must make ship captains feel real secure.

Thus, Boston contributes to the national story of top executives
getting  parachutes to escape Sept. 11 while workers claw their way
through the  economic rubble.

While Buckingham gets nearly $6,000 in unused sick pay, some former
employees at US Airways in Pittsburgh are using their severance pay
to pay for a $4,000 associates-degree program at a local community
college. While Buckingham is retained to help fix Massport, Dave
Dumas, 31, who is retraining to be a computer technician, told The
New York Times, ''It's going to be a long time for me to be able to
say I don't fix airplanes anymore.''

Airline CEOs got a $15 billion bailout from Capitol Hill even though
they hired airport checkpoint security companies that sometimes paid
less than the fast-food restaurants in the airports. There was no pot
of billions of dollars for most of the 100,000 people laid off by the
airlines. There was no pot for the 100,000 workers that the Hotel
Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union say have lost
their jobs since Sept. 11. A healthy Buckingham gets $175,000 and her
sick pay while tens of thousands of immigrants who make minimum wage
in serving and pampering the business world to are about to lose
their health insurance. Buckingham keeps her consulting job while in
Las Vegas, which has seen a severe drop in tourism after the attacks,
Lucy Cedeno, 42, who made change at a casino, told the Associated
Press, ''I'm probably going to have to sell my house.''

The Republican-majority House last week passed a $100 billion
economic stimulus package that was a giant corporate tax break. House
Majority Leader Dick Armey said, ''This bill provides a reward for
the risk-takers who create jobs in America.'' Armey's ''reward''
would reportedly give breaks of up to $2.3 billion to Ford, $1.4
billion to IBM, $832 million to General Motors, $671 million to
General Electric, $314 million to Chevron, $254 million to Enron, and
$102 million to Kmart.

The bill means virtually nothing for the thousands of people in New
York who lost their jobs as a result of Sept. 11 and have stood in
line for hours at job fairs this month, with thousands more being
turned away. As those people applied for jobs that would likely pay
less than their prior jobs, Democratic proposals in the House to add
a half-year of unemployment benefits and provide federal matching
benefits for health insurance were defeated. House Minority Leader
Richard Gephardt said, ''The workers who have lost their jobs get
bread crumbs.''

Some people like Jose Avelar cannot even find the crumbs. Avelar, a
28-year-old Mexican immigrant, worked banquets in luxury hotels in
Santa Monica for nearly $10 an hour. After Sept. 11, he lost his job.
A father of four, he has received an eviction notice for his
apartment. His phone service has been cut, and his car is about to be
repossessed. He is married to a legal US resident and has filed for
legal residency. But because he is on a temporary work permit that is
about to expire, he cannot collect his $171 in weekly unemployment.
While Buckingham floats away from Sept. 11 toward a soft landing,
Avalar, a collateral victim of the planes that took off from
Buckingham's airport, is preparing to plunge into the underground
economy.

Avalar told the Los Angeles Times, ''We can make tamales.'' For all
that  the nation boasts ''United We Stand,'' no aviation executive is
standing  in line for Avalar's tamales.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson-AT-globe.com
=A9 Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.

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