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Northwest Reservation, Gate Agents OK Contract

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 21:01 CST

DETROIT _ Gate and reservation agents at Northwest Airlines Inc. approved a new contract that cuts pay by 11.5 percent. But ramp workers rejected the airline's proposal, sending their fate back to a bankruptcy judge who could decide to void their current contract.

Northwest said Tuesday that it plans to ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper to reject contracts for 5,700 ramp workers, stock clerks and aircraft simulator technicians so the airline can impose new wages and work rules for those employees.

That prospect resurrects the potential for a work stoppage. Ramp workers voted to strike if Northwest enforces new wages.

The airline in February concluded a month of similar hearings involving its pilots and flight attendants. The airline reached tentative deals with both groups last week, meaning Gropper didn't need to decide whether to kill Northwest's attendants contracts and pilots contracts.

The union "is prepared to meet Northwest Airlines at the bargaining table and in the courtroom," said Bobby De Pace, president of the Northwest arm of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

The union represents more than 13,000 ground workers. The voting concluded Monday, with a 75 percent voter turnout.

Workers who approved their contracts include:

Reservation agents, office clerks, quality service agents, sky caps and customer service agents, including gate agents and ticket agents, who approved their contract with a 67 percent vote.

Security guards, who approved their deal with a 53 percent vote.

Workers who rejected their contracts include:

Ramp workers _ whose duties include loading and unloading luggage on planes and towing planes from the gate _ and stock clerks, who rejected their contract with a 60 percent vote.

Aircraft simulator technicians, who rejected their contract with an 88 percent vote.

The airline's gate and reservation agents approved a contract that includes an 11.5 percent pay cut, scaling down a temporary 19 percent pay cut all ground workers took in November, after Gropper allowed Northwest to implement emergency wage cuts.

That brings the top wage for a ticket agent from about $20.70 an hour, before the short-term wage cut, to about $18.30 an hour.

Pending Gropper's approval, nearly 7,700 workers with a deal will see a 1 percent raise in 2008 and a 1.5 percent raise in 2009. The contract freezes their pension while Northwest is reorganizing in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After that, their pension plans will shift to the union. Their contract could lead to 1,000 to 1,500 job losses, mainly at small airports where Northwest operates fewer than 50 flights per week, De Pace said.

De Pace said distrust of management led ramp workers to reject their contract. He specifically referred to Northwest's decision not to buy back stock from employees in 2003, which the company agreed to do in a 1993 concessionary contract with workers.

"They're still angry at Northwest," De Pace said.

Northwest has said that laws in Delaware, where it is incorporated, keep companies in financial trouble from buying back stock.

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(c) 2006, Detroit Free Press.

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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