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NWA Union to Vote on Givebacks: Move Comes As Airline Contends With Pilots and Flight Attendants

Posted on: Monday, 16 January 2006, 06:00 CST

By John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press

Jan. 16--Northwest Airlines' biggest union said Sunday it will allow its members to vote on the airline's latest contract proposal in a move that could help defuse a potential showdown in a New York bankruptcy court this week.

Stopping short of calling it a tentative agreement, the International Association of Machinists District 143, which represents ground workers including ticket agents and ramp workers, said Sunday that it had made enough progress with Northwest to put the airline's latest proposal for concessions before its members.

Two other unions, representing pilots and flight attendants, have yet to report similar progress. But the progress with IAM signals that a threatened breakdown of labor relations at Northwest might be avoided. Settlements would end the threat of a strike shutting down the airline in the near future.

Barring settlements with the pilots and flight attendants, Northwest will go ahead Tuesday with a trial in bankruptcy court in New York asking a judge to let it void those unions' contracts. The unions have threatened to strike if the judge allows Northwest to do that.

A strike would shut down Detroit's and Michigan's biggest air carrier, affecting daily life for tens of thousands of business and pleasure travelers. But the worst-case scenario -- a strike that would shut down Northwest during Super Bowl week in early February -- is considered unlikely.

Even if no further settlements are reached before the trial starts on Tuesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper can take until late February before releasing a ruling.

Joseph Tiberi, an IAM spokesman, would not reveal any of the settlement terms Sunday, saying the union wanted to inform its members of them first, probably by Tuesday.

But he said Northwest had backed off many of its most stringent demands. He also said the IAM had saved a large number of jobs that the airline had been seeking to outsource to companies that pay its workers considerably less than Northwest does.

"We've definitely made substantial progress, and the company did move back from their initial demands," Tiberi said.

Bobby De Pace, president of District 143, said in a statement on the union's Web site that many of the union's ideas were contained in the company's settlement proposal.

Northwest issued a brief statement that it was "pleased that the IAM has agreed to present the company's contract settlement proposal to its members for ratification."

Spokesmen for the Air Line Pilots Association and the Professional Flight Attendants Association could not be reached for comment Sunday on the progress of their talks with Northwest.

Tiberi said that the IAM will ask Gropper to postpone IAM's portion of the trial until its members vote on the new terms.

Barring a settlement with the pilots and flight attendants, the trial set to begin Tuesday in New York could reshape not just Northwest but the entire U.S. airline industry. Northwest has been seeking for many months to void what it considers to be high-cost labor contracts that it claims keep it from competing with lower cost carriers.

A key sticking point has been the airline's plan to create two new subsidiaries. One new company, dubbed Newco, would be a feeder carrier flying 76- to 100-seat jets, which would take over many of the routes now flown by higher-paid Northwest pilots.

The other, dubbed Ground Co., would employ gate and ticket agents and ground workers at Northwest's large and midsize destinations, outside its hubs. At smaller destinations, it wants to outsource that work to Ground Co. or another company.

Both plans would whittle the ranks of Northwest's unions by sending jobs out of Northwest to become lower-paying positions at the new subsidiaries. Tiberi would not say if the tentative proposal still includes those provisions.

But if Northwest gets its way, other large carriers would be expected to try the same tactic, lowering wages and union protections across the industry.

Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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