Northwest Airlines Flight Attendants Switch Unions

By Dan Reed

Flight attendants at Northwest Airlines, pressed to the wall in a contentious wage dispute with management, on Thursday threw out the union that’s represented them for just three years.

But the new union that flight attendants authorized to represent them — the Association of Flight Attendants-Communications Workers of America — has just 10 days to negotiate a new contract with the airline before management can impose lower pay and more restrictive terms on its 9,300 active and furloughed attendants.

The attendants are the last holdouts in the company’s drive to get labor concessions worth $1.4 billion a year. Of that, $195 million a year would come from flight attendants.

Pilots and ground workers have voted to approve concessionary contracts, but those cuts could take place only if they apply to all work groups. Northwest has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since last September.

The AFA-CWA said a negotiating team is ready to begin contract talks with management as soon as meetings can be set up.

But union spokeswoman Corey Caldwell would not speculate on whether the attendants would strike if management moves to impose a new, cheaper labor contract. The union that flight attendants voted to oust — the Professional Flight Attendants Association — had made such a threat. “Our focus is entirely on getting into negotiations and reaching an agreement” by the July 17 deadline, Caldwell said.

Last week, bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper of New York approved Northwest management’s request to impose the terms of a contract that the attendants previously had rejected by an overwhelming margin. But Gropper told management that it could not act until July 17 to give the parties one last chance to reach a settlement.

But the prospects of reaching a deal by then never were good because of turmoil within the attendants’ ranks.

Three years ago, the PFAA replaced the Teamsters union as the Northwest attendants’ representative, winning election on the strength of its call to local union control and union democracy.

But it ran into trouble from the outset when Northwest declined to collect members’ dues through payroll deduction. Many members fell behind in their dues, and the PFAA struggled financially.

PFAA President Guy Meek said the vote results were disappointing but pledged to support the AFA-CWA. “We must unite behind our new union … to make sure our careers at Northwest Airlines remain safe and secure,” he said in a statement.

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