Miracle on the Hudson pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger will attend Obama's first SOTU speech tonight as a guest of Nancy Pelosi. No big surprise there. What's really cool is that Sully stuck his neck out for labor rights today when he testified in front of Congress. The AP reports:
[Sully] told the House aviation subcommittee that his pay has been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise "worth pennies on the dollar" from the federally created Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. These cuts followed a wave of airline bankruptcies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks compounded by the current recession, he said.The reduced compensation has placed "pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation," Sullenberger said. "I do not know a single, professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps."
Update: Sully also stood up for the labor rights of crew members in his testimony. --Dana Goldstein
