Workers at many airlines have taken huge pay cuts in recent years, and they have watched 100,000 or so of their colleagues lose their jobs. But for many workers, the financial troubles of the industry have taken another toll: a sense of love lost for the business. Many of those laid off landed in poorer-paying jobs. And those who have kept their jobs lead a more stressful life, often doing more work for lower pay, and with stripped-down retirement benefits. Workers in the U.S. automobile industry, many of them car junkies, are going through the same painful process - a wrenching separation from an industry that employed generations of families.
See "Airline industry troubles take toll on workers with 'jet fuel in their veins'", Jeff Bailey, International Herald Tribune, May 14, 2007