Safety in the Air

The flight attendants who are striking TWA and walking picket lines daily are hard-working women and men, fighting for the right to make a decent wage. Many of them are the sole breadwinners for their families--in spite of (TWA Chairman) Carl Icahn’s claim that many of the women attendants don’t really “need” their jobs.

In light of this, I am astonished and dismayed by Sylvie Drake’s column on her delight at being so well cared for by retired TWA flight attendants. It is ludicrously inappropriate to compare strikebreaking scab laborers with understudies in a play--and even worse taste to rhapsodize about their supposedly graceful “performance.” (How many of them would have been willing to accept a 22% pay cut when they were supporting families?)

Regardless of how Drake feels about laborers and unions, she has no right to trivialize what for many people is a life-and-death issue.

BONNIE K. SLOANE

Los Angeles