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More Than 1,000 Furloughs Possible In NWA Deal

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Mar 14, 2006 3:54 pm US/Central

More Than 1,000 Furloughs Possible In NWA Deal

Minneapolis (AP) ― The tentative agreement being considered by Northwest Airlines Corp. flight attendants could lead to about 1,200 of them leaving the company early under a severance plan.

The plan also includes pay cuts of 21 percent, and would save Northwest $195 million a year. Since filing for bankruptcy, Northwest has renegotiated all of its union contracts.

The union's leadership has not recommended either acceptance or rejection. If the union members reject it, the bankruptcy judge could allow Northwest to impose similar terms.

Professional Flight Attendants Association executive board member Karen Schultz said she has "absolutely no idea" whether rank-and-file flight attendants will approve the agreement.

"There is a fair amount of outrage when they look at this tentative agreement," Schultz said. "It is very difficult to know when the dust settles whether people are going to remain outraged or whether they are going to say this is doable."

She said voting will last 30 days and probably will start in April.

Many flight attendants would see their pay cut by more than 21 percent because of other reductions, such as the elimination of premiums for international flights. About 8,500 flight attendants now staff Northwest's flights, and another 1,200 are on furloughs, Schultz said.

In the tentative agreement, Northwest is offering severance payments and lifetime travel passes for those who leave the company early. The highest payment is $27,000 for flight attendants with 40 years of service. A 21-year employee could receive $21,000.

The early-out program would mitigate some of the layoffs, Schultz said.

Northwest flight attendants would fly more hours under the proposed contract. Currently, they fly 67 to 80 hours per month. The agreement pushes that to 75 to 100 hours; the union estimates that the average will be 87 hours.

Flight attendants have been working under similar pay cuts since mid-November, when union leaders accepted a 20.7 percent temporary pay cut while the new agreement was negotiated. Flight attendants had been earning about $20,000 to $45,000 a year.

The contract includes a 1.5 percent raise in 2007, 1 percent raises in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and a 2 percent raise in 2011.

The contract includes raises of 1.5 percent in 2007, 1 percent in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and 2 percent in 2011.

This is the first contract negotiated by the independent Professional Flight Attendants Association, which replaced the Teamsters at Northwest in 2003.

Supporters of the Association of Flight Attendants have been collecting signatures from Northwest flight attendants and are expected to file them soon with the National Mediation Board to trigger a representational election. So, within a short time, flight attendants could vote on a proposed contract and on which union they want to represent them.

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Northwest Airlines was founded in 1926, when it began carrying air mail from the Twin Cities to Chicago on a pair of rented, open-cockpit biplanes. The company began transporting ticketed passengers almost a year later.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.