Crisis
in the Airline Industry The Need to Give the Airline Industry a Nation-Building Aim - K.C. Adams -  October
20, 2020. Airline workers demonstrate on Parliament Hill demanding the
federal government take action to "Save Canadian Aviation."
The necessity for a new direction and aim
for the
airline sector that begins
with nation-building to serve the
people  The current
crisis in the airline sector is the fifth one this
century. The September 11, 2001 attacks on the twin towers and
Pentagon in the U.S. and the SARS outbreak in 2003 disrupted the
airline sector, especially Air Canada. Next came the general
economic crisis of 2008-09 followed by the oil price collapse of
2014 and the continuing crisis in the oil sector that has hit Alberta
and Saskatchewan hard.
The 2020 crisis is the most
severe crisis to date. It
underscores the necessity for a new direction and aim for the
sector that breaks free from the recurring crises and iron grip
of the global investment cartels and their mania for private
maximum profit above all else. The airline sector is a key
component of modern nation-building, in particular in Canada with
its vast land mass, distinct economic regions from coast to coast
to coast, that trade with each other and the world, and with
many in the population having family links and other relations
across Canada and abroad. The airline industry needs cooperation
and a broad aim to serve the people, economy and society, not the
present narrow competing private interests of the global rich to
become richer. Prior to the pandemic and the
ensuing economic crisis of 2020,
more than 50,000 workers were directly employed with Canada's
airlines as flight attendants, pilots, baggage handlers, and in
customer service, maintenance, call centres and security. Today
only a fraction of that number are employed and working. The
major airports in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and
Vancouver prior to the crisis had thousands of workers each but
today resemble ghost towns. Indirectly, the crisis has adversely
affected thousands of additional workers in the tourism,
hospitality and hotel sectors and the taxi industry. 
October 30, 2020. Demonstration at Pearson Airport in Toronto.
The reasons for the crisis in the airline sector are both
objective and subjective. The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated the
immediate crisis but the manner in which the privately owned and
controlled airlines have responded to the pandemic has made it
worse. The response was conditioned by the narrow aim and panic
of those in control not only of the airlines but politically and
the underlying contradiction between the sector's socialized
productive force and its private control by competing
oligarchs.  The ruling elite
in control view the working class as an enemy
and object to exploit and not the determining human factor that
can and should be mobilized to defeat the pandemic and solve
economic and social problems. The reactionary response of the
rich in control and ownership of the main economic sectors is
conditioned by their outlook that the working class is a cost of
production and an object to exploit and discard at will. Their
megalomania is so intense, they believe that only by the rich
becoming richer will the economy prosper and some of their excess
wealth will trickle down to the masses through jobs and their
philanthropic charity. Their narrow aim for private profit cannot
see or grasp the necessity to put the airline sector on an
emergency footing to keep workers active and producing for the
sake of the socialized economy and common good. Instead, the
private interests in control have scrambled to save their private
fortunes and engaged in wrecking of the productive force and then
begging for bailouts from the public purse.
The
response of the ruling elite in the airline sector to the
pandemic has been to lay off workers and reduce flights. They
have refused to mobilize their workers to participate consciously
in continuing to fly in a socially responsible and safe manner
with more flights, less passengers and any additional physical
precautions scientists and airline workers themselves deem
necessary. 
October 30, 2020. Montreal action by airline workers.
Instead,
those in control conspired with their representatives
in the federal government to pay some of their workers a
percentage of their regular wages not to work and to stay in
contact for use when needed while others were dismissed. This
self-serving action of the rich has generated tremendous anxiety,
insecurity and hardship among airline workers at a time their
expertise and sense of social responsibility at work were sorely
needed to keep the industry producing and serving the economy,
people and society. The rich in control of the
sector in addition are demanding
public bailouts such as low interest loans, government purchase
of stock equity in their private companies, and other
pay-the-rich schemes. These demands arise without having done
anything to solve the problem of how to produce during the health
emergency. In fact, the ruling elite deliberately collapsed the
air industry as the numbers show. They demanded government pay
some of their workers a stipend not to work and now in the face
of their criminal wrecking actions want public funds to bail out
their private interests so they can continue in the old way.  Why should such socially
irresponsible
self-serving actions of
the rich be rewarded with public funds? The airline oligarchs
have proved in practice they are useless at solving problems and
detached from the present conditions and the necessity for a new
direction. They are blinded by their greed and hatred of working
people and society. They deserve nothing more than to be relieved
of their positions of ownership and control and thrown into the
dustbin of history.
The refusal to mobilize the
working class throughout the
country to collectively uphold social responsibility towards one
another and society and deal with the pandemic using the
available advanced science and means of production has led to a
deepening economic crisis and resurgence of the pandemic. In
the modern era no economic, political or social problem can
be solved without mobilizing the working class to tackle it by
unleashing the human factor/social consciousness. This requires a
new direction and aim for the economy that upholds the public
good and nation-building to serve one another and society
generally in a spirit of mutual benefit and cooperation. The
control, direction and aim of the global oligarchs to
compete for maximum private profit to become richer through the
expropriation of the value workers produce and their socially
irresponsible exploitation of natural resources are outmoded and
completely discredited and in contradiction with the socialized
productive forces, causing recurring destructive crises and
war. Working people and their collectives must step
up to take
control of the situation for the good of the nation, people,
economy and society. The time is now to build the New!
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 44 - November 14, 2020
Article Link:
Crisis
in the Airline Industry: The Need to Give the Airline Industry a Nation-Building Aim - K.C. Adams
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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