The makings of an old-fashioned airline labor standoff will come together today in federal court in New York, with an angry flight attendants’ union threatening to disrupt Northwest Airlines, a cost-cutting management calling such an action illegal and the federal government asserting that a strike would disrupt national air travel.þþMissing, however, is an airline financially healthy enough to weather a sustained work stoppage by the union, which represents 8,700 flight attendants.þþThe workers know it and are thus threatening for the most part only scattered and small disruptions to flights should Judge Victor Marrero of Federal District Court rule that they have a legal right to strike. Management knows it and is therefore doing its best not to further anger its workers.þþRegardless of how the judge rules, Northwest’s management and the flight attendants are largely stuck with each other. And unless events take an unexpected turn, the airline’s operations will continue with few interruptions, and the flight attendants will continue to receive paychecks, albeit ones that have been reduced since they rejected a tentative concession deal earlier this month and Northwest imposed terms that gave it $195 million in savings.þþ“Some qualified muddling with some rhetoric and fireworks surrounding it,” predicted Philip Baggaley, an airline analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Some steam has built up. There may be the need for some release and pounding the table.”þþThere remains, to be sure, a slim chance that tempers could flare and a general strike could be called, should the judge permit it. Judge Allan L. Gropper of Federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York ruled last week that he did not have the jurisdiction to stop a labor action. Judge Marrero will hear Northwest’s appeal of that decision. þþThe United States attorney’s office in New York joined the fray on Wednesday, arguing that the airline and its flight attendants were required to bargain, by a law that generally bars strikes. þþA long strike could easily lead to a liquidation at Northwest, the country’s fifth-largest airline. And that would be even harder on flight attendants and fellow workers.þþMechanics at Northwest badly misjudged their leverage in a strike by 4,400 workers that began a year ago. The airline outsourced most of their jobs and kept flying, defying union predictions. About 500 members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association crossed the picket line to keep working. That episode helped cement Northwest management’s reputation as one of the most confrontational in the industry.þþIf Judge Marrero turns down Northwest’s motion to bar any strike, flight attendants, represented by the Association of Flight Attendants, have said they could start random unannounced work stoppages or disruptions as early as 9:01 p.m. Central Time.þþ“We’re looking at pulling a few flights here and there,” said Ricky Thornton, a spokesman for the union. On some flights, attendants might assure safety but then refuse to serve drinks or meals, he said. Tokyo and Detroit, two big, profitable hubs, are likely targets.þþNorthwest, which is based in Eagan, Minn., said it had contingency plans for such work stoppages but declined to discuss details. It said flight attendants were being offered a wage competitive with those at other airlines.þþParticularly galling to flight attendants is that Northwest’s operations were profitable during the second quarter and will probably be in the black this quarter, too. The entire industry is doing better. Northwest’s cash on hand rose to $1.58 billion on June 30, from $1.28 billion at the end of the first quarter. It hopes, however, to use its improving financial condition to buy airplanes and improve operations as it exits bankruptcy early next year — not to absorb more losses from work stoppages.þþThe bankruptcy proceedings, which Northwest entered nearly a year ago, give management considerable power to impose lower wages and benefits on workers. The airline is insisting on the $195 million in annual concessions from flight attendants as part of an overall $1.4 billion-a-year reduction in labor costs. þþNorthwest cannot accept less in concessions from flight attendants without having to grant other work groups similar relief. Given those conditions, some question why Northwest flight attendants have twice rejected contracts reached by their union leaders that would have given the airline those savings.þþ“It’s a lot of frustration,” said Duane E. Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, the union representing most of the industry’s pilots. He said he sympathized but expected flight attendants to eventually agree to a package of concessions valued at $195 million.þþ“Everyone knows where this has to end up,” he said.þþStill, Shannon Wareham, 29, a Northwest flight attendant for seven years, said she simply could not live on what the airline wants to pay her and so twice voted against proposed contracts. Ms. Wareham, who started as a part-time attendant, said she made more than $30,000 last year for the first time, working full time, but she expects to make closer to $21,000 this year with the wage cuts.þþ“I am an expert at living within my means,” Ms. Wareham wrote in a letter this month to Judge Gropper. “I have no air-conditioning, cable, call waiting, high-speed Internet or car. I live in a 230-square-foot studio on 142nd Street in Harlem. Yet over the last couple of months, I have had no money left after paying my bills to buy food, and have had to resort to using my credit card to eat.”þþIn a phone interview, Ms. Wareham said, “We feel like we’re being pressured to quit.” A college graduate who chose flying over other work, she said, “I really like the job. I really don’t want to be forced out of this profession because of money.”þþRichard McBride, 41, a Northwest flight attendant with seven years of seniority, said he would need a second job to live if the cuts became permanent, so he voted against both contracts.þþ“I would be subsidizing Northwest Airlines,” said Mr. McBride, 41, who quit teaching to become a flight attendant. “If the contract turns out really, really bad, I will leave.”þþAt the other end of the seniority spectrum, Maroulitsa Mizelle, 60, has worked as a Northwest flight attendant for 40 years and said she planned to retire by the time she was 65. But she voted against the second proposed contract because she felt it would leave younger workers vulnerable to losing much of their seniority in a merger with another airline. She was also angry that it cut her vacation to three weeks from six after all her years of work.þþ“Everyone looked at us and said, ‘Are the flight attendants crazy?’ ” Ms. Mizelle said. A former union official, she is willing to take some risks in hopes of gaining contract language important to her.þþ“A lot of us are nitpickers,” she said by phone before one of her regular trips from Seattle to Honolulu and back.þþKerri Barz of Indiana, 30, expected to make $42,000 this year, her sixth at Northwest. But instead of a big raise, as the previous contract offered after five years, her pay was cut 40 percent, she said, which made it less than her starting salary. “It’s insulting what they want us to make.”þþ“I’m not asking to make $100,000 a year,” Ms. Barz, who has a 2-year-old daughter and a husband who works as a car salesman, said after arriving on a recent flight to Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “I just want to be able to have a house and a car and be able to put money aside for my daughter to go to college.”þþ
Source: NY Times
