BY JOHN SARGE AND MARY MARTIN
DETROIT - Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) members
joined with Teamster-organized flight attendants, members of
the International Association of Machinists (IAM), and others
at Labor Day weekend events around the country to press their
contract demands. The strike of 6,000 Northwest Airlines
pilots has entered its second week.
After the pilots walked out August 28 over wages and job security, Northwest laid off most of its 27,000 ground operations workers as well as 11,000 flight attendants. All three union groups have been without new contracts at Northwest since 1996, and each is demanding a wage raise and job security provisions.
ALPA also announced it will expand its present picketing locations at airports in Anchorage, Detroit, Honolulu, Memphis, Minneapolis, and Seattle, to include Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Orlando, Florida.
Meanwhile, Northwest took the provocative step of naming the head of its strike preparation efforts, Mickey Foret, as its new chief financial officer. Foret was president of Continental Airlines under Frank Lorenzo, the notorious union- busting boss at Continental and Eastern Airlines in the 1980s.
And the government has sent in federal mediators to press the pilots union for a settlement in the strike.
In Detroit a contingent of 400 striking pilots and supporters led the September 7 Labor Day parade, which numbered in the tens of thousands. They were followed by a smaller contingent of Northwest Machinists members. A Teamster feeder march to the Laborfest in downtown Detroit was led by a sizable group of Northwest flight attendants.
In St. Paul, Minnesota, a September 4 rally called by Northwest flight attendants organized in Teamsters Local 2000 drew 800 participants, including 70 striking pilots and about the same number of laid-off Northwest workers who are IAM members. Popular chants at the rally included, "Don't Stop Now!" and "We are United!" The rally, one of 14 held across the country that day, took place on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol. It was called as a show of unity between the striking pilots and the other union workers at Northwest Airlines in the face of the bosses attempts to cut across support for the pilots through negative advertising in the media. Teamsters and ALPA officials addressed the crowd.
Opposition to government intervention
One of the issues participants discussed was how to oppose
Minnesota governor Arne Carlson's public appeal for
presidential intervention in the Northwest strike under
provisions of the Railway Labor Act.
This law gives the federal government the power to prolong negotiations and thwart strikes by railroad, airline, and other transportation workers. After President William Clinton invoked this act against the American Airlines pilots strike last year and against striking Conrail workers earlier this summer, union officials in both strikes ended the walkouts. No progress is reported in the on-again, off-again government- mediated negotiations between ALPA and Northwest Airlines, which started up again over Labor Day weekend.
So far the Clinton administration has taken the step of sending deputy White House counsel Bruce Lindsey and Trans portation Secretary Rodney Slater to Minneapolis for the negotiations, to put pressure on the pilots to settle.
Government officials also ordered two of Northwest's small affiliates, Mesaba Airlines and Express Airlines I to resume some routes. The pilots on these commuter carriers are not on strike, but they are grounded because of Northwest's layoff of ground staff.
The New York Times reported September 10 that Northwest "said it would offer ground support to Mesaba and Express if the department [of transportation] accepted operating plans of the two carriers that would allow a realistic possibility of recouping their costs." While no details were offered, such language usually means a request to cut corners in operations.
In Atlanta striking Northwest pilots, joined by Delta pilots, set up a picket line at Hartsfield International Airport on Labor Day and also attended a Labor Day speak-out sponsored by the Atlanta AFL-CIO Labor Council. More than 100 Northwest pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, ramp workers, and other IAM members turned out for the meeting that was called to celebrate the recent contract victory of flight attendants at AirTran, formerly Value-Jet. The AirTran flight attendants organized by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) recently fought for and won improvements in wages and work conditions (see article on facing page).
Participants also heard a report on the organizing drive by the Service Employees International Union to organize 400 nonunion contract workers at the airport. These airport workers, whose jobs are often part-time, perform duties such as operating X-ray machines that scan luggage. They are often referred to as "security workers" by the airport authorities, although they are unarmed and have no authority to make arrests. They are also among the lowest-paid airport workers.
At Los Angeles International Airport 40 striking pilots set up a picket line at the Northwest terminal. Pilots from Delta and United Airlines also came out to show support to the Northwest pilots. ALPA spokesperson and NWA pilot Charlie Cutter told the Militant, "This strike is about lowering expectations for all the employee groups. Management has decided to make an example of the pilots.... ALPA has taken the upper road and ending the B-scale [wage rate] is a number one priority. Under the B-scale starting pay for Northwest Pilots is $24,000 [a year]."
Although no Northwest flights are operating out of Los Angeles, about 200 Northwest employees are still on the job at the airport, working the flights of a half-dozen airlines that subcontract their ground operations to Northwest. The bosses' have threatened to dismiss any worker who honors the ALPA picket lines, citing a clause in the IAM's contract agreement with Northwest that prohibits "sympathy strikes." ALPA has not asked the IAM or the Teamsters to honor their picket lines.
IAM members in Los Angeles told the Militant that the question of being forced by the company to work during the pilots strike is a constant topic of discussion. While most support the strike, some are worried that a win by the pilots will lead to the company saying it then has less of a wage "pie" to offer to IAM members who are also fighting for a new contract and wage increase.
Others, like ground service worker Ronnie Sloss, argue for helping the pilots win. He said, "The pilots are taking a stand for all the unions, showing that the company can't get away with what they want. IAM members should march with the pilots."
Another ground worker, Bud Carson agreed. "The pilots are indirectly fighting for us," he said, "especially regarding wages and job security. We should show support."
Bosses driven by capitalist competition
In spite of boasting of record revenues -the company's
profits have soared 325 percent since 1993, topping $1 billion
last year - Northwest Airlines has taken a hard-line stance
against meeting the pilots' demands, preferring instead to lob
millions of advertising dollars at a campaign aimed at
discrediting the pilots' fight. Northwest is trying to wait
out the pilots a little longer in hopes of getting them to
back down, and at the same time shake the resolve of the next
two unions it must face - the IAM and the Teamsters.
This stance is explained by Northwest's position as a capitalist competitor in the intensified worldwide profit crisis. The rate of profit in the airline industry - that is the company's return on investment - is lower than for industrial enterprises overall. And Northwest, which depends on its Asian routes for nearly a third of its revenues, has been affected by the economic meltdown in Asia more than other U.S. airlines.
The sheer mass of profit made over the last 18 months does not provide Northwest the means to oust competitors entrenched in lucrative markets and expand into new areas. Without a rate of profit that can bankroll such cut throat capitalist economic warfare, Northwest won't survive over time.
The company must try to avoid a settlement with ALPA pilots that would be read as a win and a signal to charge forward for tens of thousands of other Northwest workers. This is why cutting costs on equipment improvements and technological innovations, driving down wages and benefits, and doing more work with fewer workers is the only road open to the employer.
"We cannot have costs that are not at substantial parity with our competitors," declared Northwest's chief negotiator Richard Hirst.
But Northwest workers haven't bought that line. NWA pilots, along with the flight attendant and ground operations workers organized in the Teamsters union and International Association of Machinists respectively, gave the company massive concessions in 1993, including a 12-15 percent pay cut. The pilots are asking for a 15 percent pay raise over three years, a retroactive pay raise back to October 1996 when the previous contract expired, an end to the two-tier wage scale, and protection against layoffs that result from alliances the company makes with other major carriers or through affiliation to other smaller commuter outfits.
Northwest's final offer to the pilots included a 9 percent raise over four years, a reduction of the time period in which the B-scale wage is imposed from five years to three years, and a no-layoff clause good through only one year after the proposed contract ended.
Flight attendants press their fight
Flight attendants held protest rallies against the airline
September 4 in 14 cities, from Boston to Honolulu, to press
their own contract fight. In Detroit angry flight attendants
gathered in front of the nearly deserted Northwest Airlines
terminal chanting, "No more greed, no more lies, tell
Northwest it's time to fly." About 30 members of the Air Line
Pilots Association moved their picket line adjacent to the
flight attendants' protest.
While the bosses tried to blame the pilots' strike for the layoff of the flight attendants and ground operations workers, the flight attendants rejected this attempt to pit one union against another. Every flight attendant interviewed by Militant correspondents had nothing but praise for the fight being waged by the ALPA members. Cindi Moir, a flight attendant who has worked at Northwest since 1990, and before that worked at Eastern Airlines, explained, "At Eastern we had [Frank] Lorenzo, who was out to bust the unions. Here, there is a board of directors and stockholders." In describing workers' reaction to the layoff she said, "The company is trying to divide and conquer, and it is not working."
Carl Badynee, who has flown with Northwest for six and a half years, pointed out that after the layoffs "there are no flight attendants to be managed but they kept the flight attendant managers on the payroll."
Janine Richardson, with 18 years seniority at the airline, said, "We've had enough. We gave in 1993 and we plan to take in 1998.... We're here to be treated as dignified employees." She explained that flight attendants get a retirement of $35 a month per year of service, meaning a flight attendant with 30 years seniority gets a monthly pension of just over $1,000 at retirement.
Richardson also described how flight attendant pay is calculated. "We work for free at least one and a half hours before our flights." Their pay starts when the plane takes off. She pointed out that if a plane has to be evacuated for an emergency while loading the flight, attendants have to do it without pay.
Michelle Rueter, a flight attendant for 22 years, called for a moment of silence for the victims of the Swiss Air crash near Halifax two days before. Afterward she pointed out the role of the airline workers in protecting passengers' safety.
The protesting flight attendants' and pilots' spirits were buoyed by the response of people passing by. A high percentage of drivers honked their horns or flashed the thumbs-up sign. A small number of IAM members, mostly ticket agents who are not yet laid off, came out to express solidarity with the Teamsters, even in the face of the company filming the protest. The company has also been filming the pilots' picket lines.
The members of Teamsters Local 2000 organized the rallies to send their bosses "a wake-up call." They set off dozens of alarm clocks simultaneously at the airports to send the message to Northwest bosses that they not only have to deal with the pilots, but will have to negotiate a new contract with the flight attendants. Many made a point that the company could not take them lightly just because 80 percent of the flight attendants are women.
The 27,000 members of the IAM at Northwest have also been in failed government-mediated negotiations for the past two years. Machinists voted July 29 to reject the company's contract offer and have also authorized union officials to call a strike. The IAM has asked the National Mediation Board to be released from these negotiations in a move that would begin a countdown to a strike.
Meanwhile, members of the IAM who are baggage handlers and ramp workers at US Airways voted down a proposed contract September 8, with 81 percent opposed.
John Sarge is member of the United Auto Workers in Detroit. Mary Martin is a laid-off Northwest worker and member of IAM Local 1759 in Washington, D.C. IAM members Arlene Rubenstein in Atlanta; Jeff Jones in Twin Cities, and Mark Friedman in Los Angeles contributed to this article.