Adding insult to injury
Northwest Airlines gives workers facing layoffs cost-saving tips in booklet by Pewaukee firm
By MARY SCHLANGENSTEIN
Bloomberg News
Posted: Aug. 17, 2006
Northwest Airlines Corp. is apologizing to workers offended by company suggestions on how to save money, including buying jewelry at pawnshops, getting auto parts at junkyards and taking shorter showers.
The list, titled "101 Ways to Save Money," was part of a booklet for employees being laid off as bankrupt Northwest reorganizes. The Eagan, Minn., carrier gave out 60 of the booklets before it began getting complaints, and it cut the list from remaining copies, spokesman Roman Blahoski said Wednesday.
The 165-page booklet was created for Northwest by NEAS, an employee assistance company based in Pewaukee. A spokeswoman for NEAS referred calls to the airline.
On the NEAS Web site,
www.neas.com, the company says it started in 1982 with "one office, one phone." Currently, NEAS says it has service sites in all 50 states, Canada, Puerto Rico and many overseas locations. The company says it serves 300 organizations throughout North America, and its clients include Northwest Airlines, CUNA Mutual Group, Pleasant Co. and GMAC Mortgage.
"We are people who truly listen, who genuinely care, who are available at all times, and who know how to enhance the lives of employees and support the productivity and profitability of employers," the company Web site says.
Northwest, the fifth-largest U.S. airline, is reducing pay and benefits and shedding jobs as it trims labor spending by $1.4 billion annually to exit bankruptcy as soon as 2007. The job cuts include 1,000 machinists as well as members of other unions.
"This is disgraceful that somebody at Northwest Airlines would send this out to a long-term employee facing having no job telling them to do certain things that are very degrading," Robert Roach Jr., general vice president of transportation for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said in an interview.
"We sincerely apologize to our employees for any offense this list caused them," said Crystal Knotek, senior vice president for ground operations. "We have taken appropriate action with our managers and vendors to ensure that all materials are properly reviewed in the future."
Part of the booklet dealt with coping with job loss, options for job transfers within Northwest and relocation advice, Blahoski said in an interview.
Suggestions on the money-saving idea list included giving homemade cards and gifts, asking doctors for prescription-drug samples, borrowing a dress for "a big night out" and giving children hand-me-down toys and clothes. "Don't be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash," the list said.
"A lot of these people are hoping to come back to work someday at Northwest Airlines," Roach said. "When they see this, it's very demoralizing.
This is a reflection of management ability at Northwest." The union is sending a letter of protest to Chief Executive Officer Doug Steenland, he said.
"First they took our money. Then they took our contract," the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said on its Web site. "Now the geniuses that run Northwest Airlines are insulting not only our intelligence, but our dignity as well."
Northwest has asked a federal bankruptcy judge to block the attendants' union from striking over the imposition of $195 million in annual wage and benefit cuts in a new contract. A judge let the carrier set the terms after attendants rejected two agreements negotiated with Northwest.
The attendants union has said it will begin a series of unannounced, random work stoppages as soon as Aug. 25.
Rick Barrett of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
From the Aug. 17, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
.
TC
Gotta run, wife's calling me to bed. Gotta love "first night back from a trip" sex! 
