More Turbulence in the Air

    The life for airline workers is just getting worse. As reported today in the major newspapers (see The New York Times--registration required), Northwest and Delta are poised to file for bankruptcy as soon as today. What will likely come in pretty quick succession is further demands for wage and benefits cuts, particularly termination of the airlines' pension plans.

    Seems to me, again, that the attack on pensions, in particular, is an issue that should be ripe for massive demonstrations--this is money that belongs to workers, wages they deferred to a later date. By the way, airline executives are still pulling down large pay, benefits and, yes, pension credits.

    The situation has gotten even more dire for the striking Northwest mechanics: the company has now started to offer permanent jobs to the strike-breakers (by the way, just as a historical reminder, when the bill to ban permanent replacements came to a vote in the Senate, it did not pass because Democrats could not get two more votes to break a filibuster. The two? Bill Clinton's home state senators from Arkansas, Dale Bumpers and David Pryor).

    The only little silver lining: I'm glad some of my dues money is going to the strikers--as reported by the Associated Press yesterday, the United Auto Workers has donated $880,000 to assist striking mechanics at Northwest Airlines. "Northwest Airlines' behavior toward AMFA is blatant union-busting and an insult to every American worker," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said in a prepared statement.

Comments

[bigfall]

This is really a sidelight to the main horror here, but would the '93 ban on permanent replacements have applied to the RLA as well as the NLRA?

[john williams]

NWA going into bankruptcy underlines why we need a careful multi-union approach to the airline industry. A more effective mechanics strike at NWA wouldn't have won anything, it would have driven NWA into bankruptcy a week faster. No strike at all would only have let NWA function for an additional week before filing. Meanwhile, the IBT and IAM hold a $100 million judgement against NWA that will be worth pennies on the dollar. I say good riddance to NWA but of course the 30,000 workers there have another opinion.

[Tasini]

Bigfall: I believe the answer is yes but I'm not 100 percent sure. I'll ask someone though--who actually went to law school, as opposed to me, who just plays lawyer.

[Tasini]

Bigfall: my labor lawyer expert gave a typical lawyer answer "depends on how bill was written." I did not recall that it excluded railway workers but, heck, why don't you check it out and report back?

[aje]

AFA-CWA is going after the NWA flight attendants.

See
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1778/5614429.html

[bigfall]

Alright, Tasini, you win. I spent a few minutes on Thomas.gov and found Moakley's speech introducing the "Cesar Chavez Workplace Fairness Act" on June 15, 1993. Here is the speech for those who want to inspire (or maybe torture) themselves.

The bill would have applied to both the RLA and NLRA.