MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Baggage handlers tried to yank Northwest Airlines Corp. back to the bargaining table by voting down its proposed pay cut and authorizing a strike.þþNorthwest said after the vote Tuesday that it would restart the bankruptcy court process in which it's seeking to reject its union contract with those workers.þþThe International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said it expected negotiations to resume, though Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch declined to comment on that.þþIAM ticket agents and reservations workers accepted their pay-cut contract in a separate vote.þþThe rejected contract would have imposed an 11.5 percent pay cut and numerous work rule changes on baggage handlers who made roughly $20 an hour before Northwest filed for bankruptcy protection Sept. 14. Temporary pay cuts of 19 percent will remain in effect.þþThe union held Northwest's proposal at arm's length all along. It never recommended which way members should vote. It never even called it an ''agreement.'' Instead, the union said it was just letting members vote on the best offer it could get, under the threat that Northwest could impose terms that were even worse.þþ''If this was regular negotiations, the committee would have turned this down. We would have said `No,' we would have been on strike,'' said Bobby De Pace, president of the IAM district that includes Northwest workers.þþThe union won some victories in the talks. The rejected contract would have scaled back Northwest's outsourcing proposals, and shifted the airline's pension plan for IAM workers to the union's plan. Union leaders also said the proposal would have saved 649 of 733 jobs that Northwest wanted to outsource, and kept 82 percent of its jobs overall.þþDe Pace said the strike vote and rejection will give the union the power to get a better deal.þþNorthwest said it was disappointed with the vote.þþVoting on the Northwest proposal wrapped up on Monday. The union said three-quarters of its roughly 14,000 members cast paper ballots that had to be counted by hand. About 5,600 of them are baggage handlers; the balloting ran 60 percent against the contract for that group. Sixty-seven percent of voters among the airline's 7,600 ticket and reservations agents voted to approve their contract.þþNorthwest has been pushing for $1.4 billion in permanent pay cuts and rule changes for its workers. In January, the IAM became the first of the large unions to agree.þþFlight attendants and pilots made deals on March 1 and 3 which could go to members for ratification in coming weeks. Both have authorized strikes if the tentative agreements are not ratified.þþThe IAM rejection comes at a delicate time for Northwest.þþIf it sweetens its offer to baggage handlers, it could entice pilots and flight attendants to reject their agreements and hold out for better offers, said University of Minnesota labor relations professor John Budd. But if Northwest rejects the baggage handler contract it risks emboldening the other unions to vote down their tentative agreements, too, he said.þþ''The airline needs to choose its next steps exceedingly carefully,'' he said.þþSeparately Tuesday, the judge overseeing Northwest's bankruptcy case in New York ruled that attorneys, bankers and consultants in the case will have to wait for some of the nearly $15 million in fees they seek for 3 1/2 months of work.þþMeanwhile, the carrier was given until May 1 to provide a new list of its assets and liabilities.þþ
Source: NY Times
