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@globe.com