"Northwest exec: Strike could doom airline"

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Northwest exec: Strike could doom airline 
USA Today


NEW YORK - A Northwest Airlines executive told a bankruptcy court here
Wednesday that the USA's No. 5 air carrier can't withstand a threatened work
stoppage by its flight attendants.

Julie Hagen Showers, Northwest's vice president of labor relations,
testified in a daylong hearing that any kind of strike could trigger
liquidation of the Eagan, Minn.-based airline.

David Borer, attorney for Northwest's union, the Association of Flight
Attendants-Communications Workers of America, asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge
Allan Gropper not to take away the AFA-CWA's most powerful bargaining tool
by forbidding a work stoppage.

Gropper, who oversees Northwest's Chapter 11 case, took no action. Unless
Gropper acts to bar a strike, or the parties agree to resume contract
negotiations, Northwest's attendants say they will put their "Chaos" plan
into action at 10:01 p.m. ET on Tuesday. 

"Chaos" is an acronym for "Creating Havoc Around Our System," and typically
features strikes against a small number of flights at one hub, or against
all flights for only a day, an hour, or even just 15 minutes. Such
mini-strikes can cause delays that rapidly spread through a carrier's entire
service network, making it undependable in the eyes of travelers.

If not for Northwest's bankruptcy-court status, the legal question at issue
- whether the Railway Labor Act gives the AFA-CWA the right to strike in the
current situation - would go to a federal district judge.

Borer, the union attorney, noted that AFA members haven't conducted Chaos
strikes since 1993, when some Alaska Airlines flight attendants disrupted
that carrier's service network by walking off of a handful of targeted
flights. 

But they have used the threat of such mini-strikes at about a dozen airlines
to win better deals.

"We have no interest whatsoever in putting a company out of business," he
said. "But we do have an interest in getting a fair contract."

Last week, Northwest unilaterally imposed the terms of a contract agreement
initialed by its attendants' former union in the spring. That deal, which
included 21% average pay cuts and other concessions that attendants say
amount to a 40% cut in overall compensation, was overwhelmingly rejected in
June by attendants.

The AFA-CWA, voted in as a replacement union, quickly negotiated a new deal
with Northwest. Management said the second deal still allowed it to reach
its goal of $195 million in annual labor savings from flight attendants, but
flight attendants voted to reject that, too.

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