Labor & Employment Law

Airline Pilots, AFSCME Come to Haiti?s Aid

By James Parks

Capt. Dan Jones, right, and Flight Engineer Jeremy Studney, center, are part of the First Air crews flying relief supplies to Haiti.

Wherever there is a need for help, union members are quick to respond. With estimates as high as 100,000 killed and 40,000 buried during this week’s earthquake in Haiti, three crews of pilots and flight engineers of the Canadian airline First Air, all members of Air Line Pilots (ALPA) Councils 240 and 241, are flying relief supplies to the Caribbean for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The First Air crews, who normally work in the arctic, are flying two Hercules aircraft, which have 6,000 cubic feet of capacity and can carry more than 45,000 pounds of cargo. First Air said it also will send a Boeing 767-223 Super Freighter this weekend to deliver relief provisions from Toronto to Haiti. The Super Freighter can haul 98,700 pounds.

You can help Haitian workers in distress by donating to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers’ Campaign. Click here to make a donation and here to learn more about how the center is working to help Haitian workers.  More donation and volunteer options here.

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee announced that the union is donating $25,000 to the Solidarity Center relief fund. He says the upcoming Martin Luther King holiday is

a reminder of what this great man stood for, and of our ongoing responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves. That is why this day has become a day of service.  I can think of no greater service than helping the survivors of the earthquake that hit Haiti.

The New York State AFL-CIO also is asking all its affiliates to do all they can to help Haitians survive the earthquake and to donate to the Solidarity Center’s relief fund.

These relief efforts are the latest in an outpouring of union support for those affected by the earthquake. Yesterday, the AFL-CIO called for the United States and the entire international community, including the global union movement, to “do our utmost to aid our Haitian sisters and brothers in their moment of extraordinary need.” 

To learn about what some other unions are doing to provide aid to Haiti, click here and here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).