this probably isn't anything to do with the "BIG NEWS".......but it was in yesterday's Startribune:
03/03/2005
Dispatchers at Mesaba Airlines have rejected a tentative agreement that included annual pay raises.
It's unclear when management and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) will return to the bargaining table.
Tom Wiley, president of TWU Local 543, said Wednesday that rank-and-file dispatchers turned down the agreement on Tuesday, but he declined to release the vote totals.
All 23 Mesaba dispatchers voted on the tentative agreement, but Wiley did not speculate on why a majority rejected it. "We will have meetings with the membership in the relatively near future to discuss those issues," Wiley said.
Eagan-based Mesaba operates regional flights for Northwest Airlines. About a year ago, Mesaba narrowly averted a strike by its pilots. Currently, Mesaba's mechanics are conducting a strike authorization vote.
The existing contract for Mesaba's dispatchers is amendable on May 26. It includes a 15-year pay scale and the top rate is $23 an hour.
When the tentative agreement was announced on Feb. 22, management and the union's leadership stressed the fact that an agreement was reached after only seven bargaining sessions.
"We regret that the expedited process could not produce a ratifiable agreement," Mesaba spokesman Dave Jackson said Wednesday. The two sides will consider a "more traditional and expanded" process for the next round of talks, he said.