Tulsa Employers Help Workers Cut by American Airlines

The news about the massive job cuts to come with the recently bankruptcy filing of American Airlines is not new, but for those of you need to be caught up to speed here is an excerpt from some of the earlier coverage here on Layoff Watch:

“The layoffs are expected to affect up to 20,000 workers.  While that number is massive, it is by no means the entirety of the company’s workforce. AMR actually employs about 87,000 workers between the two airlines, so the cuts will end up being about one quarter of the total staff.  That is, if the numbers are as high as is expected. At the current moment there is no official statement with a solid number on the layoffs that are coming.”

These numbers, which are truly frightening for workers in the company, are hitting a lot of areas in the world hard. Take, for example the community of Tulsa, Oklahoma. You might not think that they have a lot to do with the airline industry. After all, they’re not a major flight hub. What they however is a cit that hosts one of American Airlines maintenance bases. The base, which has been in operation more than 60 years, is about to lose about 2,100, thanks to the fiscal issues with American Airlines. In a city with an overall population of 605,418, according to the 2010 census, you can see how this is a significant number of the cities workers. It is already being estimated that these cuts will impact up to 10 percent of aviation field workers in the region.

When some cities are faced with this kind of an issue they try using money to plug up the holes, by making tax credit deals with companies to keep their facilities in the state. These tactics have worked, with mixed results, in the past. In the case of a massive bankruptcy, prompted by the loss of more than $11 billion over the last 11 years, that offer was unlikely to be helpful.

Help instead is coming from other employers in the area. Apparently Mike Neal,

The CEO of the Tulsa Metro Chamber has been getting calls from employers, primarily in the energy and aviation fields, looking to hire on at least some of the soon to be displaced workers.  While at the moment the names of the companies willing to take on displaced American Airlines workers have not been disclosed, but the office hopes to be able to notify displaced workers about options in the next couple of weeks.

These are not the only job saving tactics that have been going on thanks to the American Airlines cuts. Some of you may recall our earlier coverage about how flight attendants are looking to save positions via job sharing. For those of you who did not catch it here is an excerpt:

“…a job sharing program that will allow workers to keep their jobs, while still accommodating the lower needs for staff on the fewer flights run by the airline. While this will technically save jobs the problem is that these workers will not be working full time. Basically two, or more, workers will share the same full-time job, basically making each of them a part-time worker in terms of salary. There is no word given yet about how entering the job-sharing program will impact the benefits of these workers, both now and for their retirement.”