Published 15 Apr, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 15, 2016
CONTACT: Ori Korin
DOT NAI Decision Bad for Business, Bad for Workers
Following the U.S. Department of Transportation’s tentative approval of a foreign air carrier permit for Norwegian Air International’s (NAI) Irish-flag subsidiary, which would allow the carrier to provide service between the United States and the European Union, Transport Workers Union International President Harry Lombardo issued the following statement:
“Today’s DOT order sets a very dangerous precedent in U.S. aviation policy, and highlights the serious flaws with our current Open Skies trade policies. When we open up certain routes to these flag-of-convenience subsidiaries that are set up to explicitly violate labor laws, we weaken what little labor protections our trade agreements already have. Plus, we risk thousands of U.S. airline jobs and drive down standards even lower in the airline industry.”
“At the end of the day, this is yet another example of how free trade agreements leave American workers high and dry, and how the labor protections in these agreements are basically unenforceable. We won’t stand by while this administration pushes the airline industry further into a low-wage, bottom-of-the-barrel employer.”