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NWA flight attendants reject contract extension

Posted: July 31, 2006 - 11:49pm

MINNEAPOLIS - Northwest Airlines Corp. flight attendants rejected a wage-cutting contract on Monday and warned of random, unannounced strikes as early as mid-August.

Northwest said a strike - which could spook travelers and hinder the airline's bankruptcy restructuring - would be illegal and that it would seek a court order to block one. The union pledged to give 15 days' notice before any strike, a move it had not made as of Monday night.

Northwest has sought $1.4 billion in annual labor savings as it reorganizes in bankruptcy court. Flight attendants are the last union at Northwest, the nation's fifth-largest carrier by the standard industry measure, without a wage-cutting contract. But the airline's deals with pilots and ground workers don't take effect until there's a new contract for flight attendants, too.

Northwest, which operates daily flights to Detroit and Saturday service to Minneapolis from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, moved quickly to impose a new contract after 55 percent of flight attendants voted down the tentative agreement on Monday. Flight attendants had rejected a slightly different tentative agreement in June.

"This decision is an example of the flight attendants' determination not to watch their livelihoods be squandered by management," said Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants.

Before Monday, Northwest already had permission from a bankruptcy judge to impose the terms of an earlier tentative agreement that 80 percent of flight attendants rejected in June. Northwest has been seeking worker pay cuts since 2003, and on Monday it said time was up.

"Notwithstanding the results of the flight attendants' contract vote, Northwest must continue to move forward with its restructuring efforts," Mike Becker, senior vice president of human resources and labor relations, said in a statement.

On Monday night the union asked a bankruptcy judge to limit Northwest to imposing the terms rejected on Monday, rather than the terms rejected in June. Both would save Northwest $195 million a year, and both include pay cuts of roughly 21 percent. The union said the reduction amounted to 40 percent once health care costs and other givebacks were factored in.

"People are angry," said Mollie Reiley, interim president of the union's Northwest branch, which had recommended passage of the tentative agreement.

"This is about justice. When you're making 28, 29, 30 thousand dollars a year and you're being asked to take close to a 40 percent cut in wages, benefits, overrides, et cetera, people can't afford it. They're going to lose their homes. They won't be able to afford to stay. I think a lot of our people just said, enough's enough."

The union said the imposition of those terms would be its trigger for what it calls CHAOS, for Create Havoc Around Our System. The union has described the tactic as using random, unannounced strikes on certain flights or certain gates.

It's a way to disrupt a carrier without gambling on shutting down the entire airline - a gamble flight attendants might lose. However, the AFA said it would give 15 days notice before any strike, under an agreement its predecessor union made with Northwest.

The union has said it has a list of flight attendants who have volunteered to conduct limited strikes against the airline. But Bradley Bartholomew of The Newfoundland Group, which does airline labor consulting, questioned whether job actions by the union would do anything more than start a test case in the courts.

"It certainly could impact the schedule for a day or two," he said. "The actual impact would probably be minimal, because it would immediately be enjoined then move into the court system, and then be there for years."

A flight attendants walkout would be Northwest's second strike in less than a year. Mechanics struck in August 2005 rather than accept pay cuts. Northwest hired replacement workers and sent the work to outside contractors. Before that, the last major airline strike was Northwest pilots in 1998.

Flight attendants don't like having terms dictated to them, either, Bartholomew said.

"When you had poor relationships to start with, and you had financial stress, and the reputation they had, I suppose this isn't a surprise," he said. "But it's certainly a sad ending."

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