The airline is waging a slick media campaign to play up the high salaries most pilots earn, in an attempt to cut across broader labor support for their fight. Seeking to pit other union workers against the pilots, Northwest has laid off tens of thousands of mechanics, ramp workers, cleaners, customer service agents, flight attendants, and others.

Most Northwest workers aren't buying this divide-and- conquer line, however. Among the pilots' strongest supporters are the other Northwest employees, whose unions have been negotiating with the company for new contracts for nearly two years. Flight attendants have held rallies across the country, and the ground service workers, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), voted July 29 to reject the company's contract offer and authorize their own strike.

In an attempt to undermine the Machinists' fight, the company has said that it would not resume negotiations before a union representation election for the mechanics at Northwest involving the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA). This company-minded outfit with a union-busting mentality does not support the pilots' strike and seeks to pull the mechanics out of the IAM. AMFA's campaign plays right into the bosses' hands and should be vigorously opposed not only by Machinists but by all unionists.

The entire labor movement should also oppose any and all government intervention in the fight, whether through federal "mediators" or through use of the Railway Labor Act to issue a back-to-work order and impose yet another "cooling off" period. President William Clinton used the law to halt the American Airlines pilots' strike in February 1997, and a federal judge invoked it again last month, declaring a strike by track workers at Conrail "illegal." The purpose of government intervention is to defend the company's profit- making prerogatives at the expense of the workers.

At this point, the Clinton administration has not responded to Northwest's call for the government to order the pilots back to work, hoping the airline bosses can deal a blow to labor that would benefit the employing class as a whole. Northwest management faces fierce competition in the fight for a greater share of the flying market, and, because of its near monopoly of Asian routes since World War II, has been more affected by the economic crisis that is wracking that part of the world.

Like other big businesses, the airline owners push the notion that workers and management are one big family and call on workers to defend "our company" and "our country," against all others. This is a deadly trap, designed to bonvince workers to accept sacrifice to protect the profits of an already wealthy minority.

The interests of Northwest workers and the company are diametrically opposed.

In face of Northwest's attempts to make labor pay the price for its profit drive, workers at the airline can look to each other for solidarity and to the hundreds of thousands of other workers who are resisting the employers' attacks on wages, working conditions, and living standards.  
 
 
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