In U.S. airline fights, pilots often the last workers standing
Source: Comtex News Network (Associated Press Worldstream)
Airlines are a big union industry, and the big dog in every airline union fight is the pilots. So it's not surprising that they ended up as the last holdouts in the pay-cut negotiations at Northwest and Delta airlines.
The biggest pilot union, the Air Line Pilots Association, has a reputation for being a tough negotiator, but the list of its largest members reads like a who's-who of recent airline bankruptcies _ US Airways Group Inc., UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp.
On Friday, Northwest and its pilots reached a pay-cut deal. Delta's request to throw out its pilot contract was headed for a mediator.
To stay alive, bankrupt airlines have leaned _ hard _ on employees for pay cuts and more flexible work rules. Pilots, who can make $150,000 (?124,800) or more, have been a prime target, putting ALPA in one of its toughest fights since its founding in 1931.
ALPA isn't showing any signs of backing away from the fight. President Duane Woerth rallied Northwest pilots in Minneapolis on Feb. 23, telling them that the airline industry is poised for better times and that they'll be a part of it.
Mechanics and flight attendants generally haven't been able to shut airlines down with strikes. Pilots can. And they know it.
"They are hard and sophisticated negotiators," said Ben Hirst, who was Northwest's vice president for labor relations during a round of concessions in 1993.
"The difficulty in negotiating with them is, if they believe their position is right, they really will take it to the mat," Hirst said. "There's a lot of testosterone."
ALPA can throw a phalanx of lawyers, analysts and actuaries at high-stakes negotiations like the ones last week with Delta and Northwest airlines.
The pilots union has a history "of looking at the airline from an economic standpoint, from an investment standpoint, of really trying to understand the business they're negotiating with," Hirst said.
Woerth said several full-time staffers were working with Northwest union negotiators in New York, and about 60 staffers worked full-time on Northwest talks at ALPA headquarters, with plans to shift their attention to Delta talks next.
But all those union experts can't force airlines to make money. Older airlines (the ones started before government deregulation in the late 1970s) have been in deep trouble in recent years, pummeled by a punishing mix of terrorism fears, rising fuel prices, and discount carriers who grab lucrative routes and often pay their employees less.
The only time that was nearly as bad for ALPA was when Continental broke a pilots' strike in 1983, said George Hopkins, a recently retired airline labor historian at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois.
"But I think now is worse. At least there was a semblance of congressional support for labor unions in the 1980s," he said.
And he said pilots face a danger at least as bad as pay cuts now _ slashed pensions. Federal rules force pilots to retire at age 60, before they're eligible for Social Security or Medicare. So their pension is crucial to their retirement, but those payments are slashed when bankrupt carriers slough off their pensions on the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
While ALPA is the largest pilots' union, it isn't dominant. Pilots at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines _ the United States' largest _ and Southwest Airlines Co. each have their own unions. And many of the newer discount carriers are not ALPA-represented.
"ALPA has been slowly eroding in overall power," said Alan Bender, who teaches airline labor relations at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. And a loosening of rules barring foreign airlines from flying within the U.S. could hand more pilot jobs to non-ALPA pilots, he said.
Hopkins, the historian, said ALPA hasn't had a friend in politics since Republicans took over Congress in 1994, and unions generally have been representing a shrinking share of the work force.
"I have a good deal of respect for Woerth. He's a keen student of the history of his union and his profession," Hopkins said.
"He understands where the industry has been, and where it's at right now. But I don't think anybody knows where it's going."
