From
Captain Sully to the ferry crews, it's union-trained workers who saved the
passengers on Flight 1549.
By
In their ongoing, all-out assault to crush labor unions,
corporate forces have fabricated a cultural myth to undermine popular support
for labor: Unions, they insist, are no longer needed. They tell us that in
today’s entrepreneurial economy, workers must compete with each other, not
cooperate.
Before swallowing that wad of hornswoggle, let’s revisit Flight
1549.
As it took off from New York City in 2009, the jet hit a flock
of geese, lost all power, and had nowhere to try a crash landing. But Captain
Sully Sullenberger knew what to do. He used the Hudson River as a landing
strip. Amazingly, it worked. Dubbed the “miracle on the Hudson,” all 150
passengers were saved.
But no supernatural powers were at work — Captain Sully himself
is not only a member of the Airline Pilots Association, but also served on that
union’s national governing committee and was its former safety chairman.
Indeed, he and the APA union have had to fight airline chieftains who keep
trying to cut back on the safety training programs that teach crews how to save
lives.
Sully wasn’t alone in this miracle.
The cool-headed flight attendants who quickly moved over one hundred panicked people off the plane were members of the Association of Flight Attendants, another union that trains its workers to avert disasters.
The ferry crews that zipped into action, skillfully maneuvering
their boats within four inches of the plane’s wings to rescue passengers —
they’re in the Seafarers International Union, which gave them the safety
courses that enabled them to respond as they did.
The cops, firefighters, and air traffic controllers also
performed marvelously — all union trained.
At a time when corporate interests in all sectors of our economy
are trying to eliminate unions, remember Flight 1549, the union-made miracle on
the Hudson.
OtherWords columnist Jim
Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s the editor
of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
