BY TONY LANE AND MARK FRIEDMAN
LOS ANGELES - Twenty-six thousand members of the International Association of Machinists, working without a contract for six months at Northwest Airlines, face serious union-busting demands from management.

Four years ago, Northwest ground crews, mechanics, ticket agents, cleaners, pilots, and flight attendants took a wage cut of 18 percent or more to "help the company come back from the brink of bankruptcy," as both management and union officials put it. Workers received company stock in exchange, totaling $897 million. Other concessions in recent contracts included the introduction of part-time ramp workers, who receive no benefits, as 15 percent of the workforce; a two-tier wage scale that takes five years or more to reach top pay; job speedup while reducing crew sizes; and some forced overtime.

Similar contracts have been forced on workers at United, U.S. Airways, and Trans World Airlines. There is intense competition among the airlines and they are all trying to push down labor costs and increase their profits. Given the huge amount of capital invested in aircraft, however, the rate of profit in the industry continues to fall, even though the total dollar amount is the highest ever. Northwest's profits last year were over $536 million, the largest annual income in the company's history. The company recently announced orders of $4.2 billion worth of new Airbus aircraft.

Extensive speedup and the use of old and broken equipment has resulted in an increase in on-the-job injuries. One accident in an untested and faulty de-icing truck in 1995 resulted in a worker's death. There is less attention to safety on the ground and pressure by management to shortcut or eliminate safety checks and repairs. The size of ground crews has been severely reduced.

In the new contract, Northwest management is demanding an expansion of part-time ramp employees hours from 20 to 39.5 a week, dumping of some meal periods, split shifts, elimination of holiday pay and airline travel benefits, weakening of seniority rights, reduction of sick and occupational injury leave time, reduced rights of older and injured workers to stay employed, physical and psychological fitness tests, cross-utilization of workers in different departments, the right to subcontract-out work, forced overtime, and more.

The central issue is that of outsourcing work to low-paid nonunion workers. The company wants to establish this precedent now. The first proposal is to make air freight facilities nonunion. This would eliminate more than 1,000 union jobs immediately.

Los Angeles union member Erick Kendle said, "We made a mistake when we voted yes on this last contract and the stock-for-concessions program, which did not benefit us. It opened the door to what we're seeing now. We as union members have to demand our right to job security and decent pay."

Northwest has started replacing union members who clean aircraft with nonunion subcontractors in Los Angeles. At the end of February, nearly 25 percent of the cleaners were laid off and replaced with workers from outside contractor Atlas Corporation.

In Minneapolis, Servicemaster, an outside contractor, had been learning how to do cleaners jobs for possible future replacement. Management was forced to retreat on this due to union members opposition.

Northwest is trying to cut aircraft maintenance overtime labor costs by 15 percent, reports mechanic Sean MacGra. "Because of past inadequate staffing, overtime was a necessary ingredient in the operation. At JFK [airport in New York], management began to intimidate, harass, and discipline mechanics... Mechanics responded by affirming that the job would be done right and they will not speed up in such a safety-sensitive area. Unfortunately, union officials and the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] have accepted the company's position that this is a mechanics slowdown to protest overtime cuts. This is not a slowdown by the mechanics but a speedup by management."

On March 21, Northwest management sent a notice to all stations instructing managers to cut thousands of hours of ground service and ticket agent training. Instead of the previous classroom instruction on loading aircraft, where workers were able to ask questions and discuss procedures, employees will now receive a handout, which will be the extent of the instruction.

In response to deteriorating conditions in Memphis, when management tried to lay off eight mechanics this spring, the mechanics joined together to work-to-rule and be especially safety conscious of the aircraft. A number of flights were grounded, delayed, or canceled. The company rapidly canceled the layoffs. Memphis IAM activist Jim Lyle said, "We have to stop looking at divisions that separate us, we have to start uniting all sectors of the workforce, not looking at station versus station or group against group. We can't let management put a dividing wedge between us."

Mark Friedman and Tony Lane are members of the IAM and are ramp workers for Northwest Airlines in Los Angeles and Minneapolis respectively.  
 
 
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