Like its competitor United, Southwest Airlines had some bad PR last year when police drug a woman off an airplane after telling the crew about a life-threatening pet allergy. By the end of the year, however, tax reform has allowed them (and countless others) to try to repair that public image in the form of increased spending on employees and wages.
According to King 5 News,
Southwest Airlines is using the extra cash it got with the passage of the Republican tax reform bill and giving it back to employees and their communities. In a video posted to the company’s Facebook page Tuesday afternoon, CEO Gary Kelly said Southwest will give each of it’s roughly 55,000 employees a $1,000 bonus on Jan. 8.
“Southwest Airlines has long been an example in corporate America of a company that puts people first by taking care of our employees, our customers, our shareholders and our communities,” Kelly says in the video. “Today’s news is a wonderful example of that leadership and commitment.”
Other airlines, like American, are following suit with the $1,000 bonuses.
In addition to the bonuses, Southwest is earmarking another $5 million for charitable donations.
Immediately after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, a number of companies (beginning with AT&T) announced that they’d be giving their employees $1,000 end-of-year bonuses thanks to the bill. As one of the nation’s largest employees, AT&T dished out those bonuses to 200,000 of their employees, and also pledged to increase its capital expenditures by $1 billion in the U.S. Other companies that issued bonuses to employees after the tax reform package passed included Comcast, Boeing, Sinclair, Turning Point Brands, and others.
A number of banks including Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bancorp announced that due to tax reform, they’d be raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour, thus raising the minimum wage for more people overnight than years of liberal activism.
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