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American Morning
America's New War: Hospitality Industry Hurting
Aired September 27, 2001 - 09:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: The travel and tourism industry has been hit hard by the fallout from the terrorist attacks on the United States. The hotel industry alone reports a 30 percent to 40 percent drop in occupancy rates. The airline industry is flying only about 80 percent of its normal flights. Airlines say they are filling about half of the available seats.
And joining me know to talk about this, the economic impact on the hotel and restaurant industry is John Wilhelm, the general president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union.
Sir, we were talking before the break, your union has roughly 300 thousand members. On September 10th they were working. Today?
JOHN WILHELM, HOTEL RESTAURANT EMPLOYEE UNION: Today, between a third and a half of those members are out of work, some of them permanently and the rest for however long this crisis lasts. This is a national emergency and the implications of this are very dire for the nation.
KING: Very dire for the nation. You call it an emergency. President Bush is flying out to Chicago, as we speak, to address airline workers. His number one priority is airline safety. But there are discussions about what can the president and the Congress do to help out here. They bailed out the airline industry. Do you think it's time to help workers, and what specifically should they do?
WILHELM: I think it's vital that the administration and the congressional leadership help workers who are laid off in this catastrophe. And I also think it's vital that they do things that would stimulate demand in the hospitality industry. We think there are some things they can do by way of temporary holiday for payroll taxes, by way of temporary tax credits to encourage travel.
But the employees are very hard hit. We estimate that about three million people will be out of work in this industry in total, and they are mostly paycheck-to-paycheck people. It's not any kind of alarmist reaction to say that many of them will be homeless shortly. So we think two things have to be done immediately in addition to stimulating demand.
First, we think that Congress needs to say to existing health plans that we'll continue to provide health coverage for laid off workers, that those health plans will be reimbursed on a temporary basis, so that people won't lose health coverage for their families, because they will not be able to afford a continuation of health coverage as they're laid off.
Second, we think Congress needs to supplement the state unemployment programs to increase the benefits, to extend the benefits, assuming that this goes on for quite a while, and to shore up state unemployment funds that are in trouble.
But I think health care has to be the focus of the national effort. People can get by, not well, but they can get by in terms of rent and feeding family on unemployment, it's difficult, but they can find a way to do it. But no one is going to be able to afford health care. And we've removed the safety net in this country. Welfare reform was a good thing, but it means that the working poor have no place to go when they're laid off.
The public health system in this country has shrunk to the point where it can't handle these folks. So I think that needs to be the focus of the efforts of the federal government.
KING: And very quickly, your president, if you will, John Sweeney of the AFLCIO, sat in this seat yesterday, said the president needed to help here. A short time later he received an invitation to fly with the president on Air Force One out to Chicago. Are you convinced the president is working with labor and others on this front now?
WILHELM: I certainly hope so. I was heartened by the fact that the president's radio address last Saturday began by talking about the crisis in the hospitality industry. I think that the president and the secretary of labor, with whom I've talk with extensively, and the congressional leadership, with whom I've talked extensively, understand this problem, and I think that need the political courage to attack it.
KING: Thank you very much.
John Wilhelm from the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union.
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