Feb 14, 2006 11:21 am US/Central
Flight Attendants, Pilots Begin Strike Vote
by Rick Fuentes
Minneapolis (WCCO) ―
When mechanics at Northwest Airlines walked off the job, the airline used replacement mechanics to keep the company flying. If pilots walk off the job, as they are threatening, it won't be as easy for the airline to replace them.
On Monday, members of the pilots' and flight attendants' unions started voting on a possible strike.
On Friday, the bankruptcy judge in New York is expected to rule on Northwest's request to nullify the airline's current contracts.
"The flight attendants are angry, they're upset about the proposal that's on the table," said Guy Meek, the president of the flight attendants' union.
That proposal is what a bankruptcy judge may order workers be paid, which would include a 21 percent pay cut. Also in the proposal is that flight attendants would lose $21 million in health benefits and 30 percent of international jobs would go to foreign nationals.
"The flight attendants have really been driven to the breaking point of being able to survive personally," said Meek.
The head of the pilots' union is also pushing for a walkout, but Northwest said employees cannot strike, no matter how they vote. The airline has said it will go to court to get an injunction to stop a strike if it happens, because Northwest can prove a strike will doom the airline.
"They might be able to find a federal judge to say, 'Yeah, you're going to be irreparably damaged by this strike,'" said John Remington, a labor expert at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.
Remington said the law is vague and it may still be up to President Bush to intervene. Remington said if Bush intervenes, the time it would take would still cost Northwest millions.
"They can't survive a strike by the pilots for more than 24 hours," Remington said.
The earliest some employees could walk off the job is Feb. 28.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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