Northwest wants to outsource some union jobs
It's another sign that Northwest, which filed for bankruptcy-court protection last month, wants to become a "virtual airline," with all sorts of jobs previously claimed by organized labor outsourced to cheaper workers, some overseas, the paper writes. The carrier has told its bankruptcy-court judge that it will ask the court to cancel its current labor contracts if the unions don't agree by mid-November to new terms that would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The airline is proposing to have 75 percent of its flights across the Atlantic and Pacific and all of its flights between Amsterdam and India staffed by "regional flight attendants" who aren't currently members of the Professional Flight Attendants Association union, which represents Northwest's 9,800 U.S.-based flight attendants.
Several of the largest U.S. airlines -- including AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines -- already employ less expensive foreign nationals as flight attendants, but the practice is limited and mostly inherited from the days when these carriers bought international routes from ailing forebears like Pan American World Airways and Eastern Airlines.
Northwest's concessionary plans also take aim at its pilots and ground workers. The new regional airline Northwest wants to start would allow the pilots to be members of the Air Line Pilots Association, but not ALPA members from Northwest's seniority list. There would be no limits on the number of planes that would fly for the new carrier and wages would be "average for the regional airline industry," or much lower than those at Northwest.
"They have staked out a really extreme position," says Capt. Hal Myers, spokesman for the ALPA branch at Northwest. "Whenever they negotiate, they tend to overreach. This is completely outside the box of what other carriers have or have asked for." The pilot said ALPA has offered to keep that regional flying within its union at lower costs, and is worried that Northwest ultimately would spin off or sell the new unit, taking all of those jobs away from the union.
Lisa Treon
10/26/2005
Northwest Airlines is seeking to outsource some flight-attendant jobs on overseas routes, as well as some pilot and ground-worker jobs. Emboldened by its success in beating a mechanics strike with an army of replacement workers, Northwest now wants to farm out some of the positions filled by senior flight attendants on coveted international routes, The Wall Street Journal reports.10/26/2005
It's another sign that Northwest, which filed for bankruptcy-court protection last month, wants to become a "virtual airline," with all sorts of jobs previously claimed by organized labor outsourced to cheaper workers, some overseas, the paper writes. The carrier has told its bankruptcy-court judge that it will ask the court to cancel its current labor contracts if the unions don't agree by mid-November to new terms that would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The airline is proposing to have 75 percent of its flights across the Atlantic and Pacific and all of its flights between Amsterdam and India staffed by "regional flight attendants" who aren't currently members of the Professional Flight Attendants Association union, which represents Northwest's 9,800 U.S.-based flight attendants.
Several of the largest U.S. airlines -- including AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines -- already employ less expensive foreign nationals as flight attendants, but the practice is limited and mostly inherited from the days when these carriers bought international routes from ailing forebears like Pan American World Airways and Eastern Airlines.
Northwest's concessionary plans also take aim at its pilots and ground workers. The new regional airline Northwest wants to start would allow the pilots to be members of the Air Line Pilots Association, but not ALPA members from Northwest's seniority list. There would be no limits on the number of planes that would fly for the new carrier and wages would be "average for the regional airline industry," or much lower than those at Northwest.
"They have staked out a really extreme position," says Capt. Hal Myers, spokesman for the ALPA branch at Northwest. "Whenever they negotiate, they tend to overreach. This is completely outside the box of what other carriers have or have asked for." The pilot said ALPA has offered to keep that regional flying within its union at lower costs, and is worried that Northwest ultimately would spin off or sell the new unit, taking all of those jobs away from the union.