NWA mechanics strike

[Check 6]

NWA mechanics may strike as early as midnight

According to Reuters, NWA made its "last best offer" to mechanics, who could strike as early as midnight tonight.

[DLKAPAstrikesagain]

Sucks to be a NWA elite I guess. Any word on what caused the Nosegear failure down in sunny Guam?

[Plastic Bug]

On Strike

I guess it's official.

http://www.amfanatl.org/

It will be interesting to see if the Pilots who have striked or the Flight Attendants who have striked, or heck, those that have gone out in sympathy with totally unrelated organizations who have striked will back up the mechanics of NWA.

I have the uneasy feeling that they won't.

PB

[Airbubba]

Looks like the pilots and FA's will cross the mechanics' picket line this time...

[Airbubba]

Northwest ALPA has crossed picket lines before, most notably in the Flight Engineers International Association strike in the 1960's.

Of course, they call people who cross their lines SC*BS...

[DownIn3Green]

I agree, Airbubba.

It seems like NWA pilots have forgotten the "J/S Protection List" which has all the names of the EAL pilots who returned to work in Aug 89 at the direction of the EAL MEC.

NWA may manage to save their airline, their pilots having learned a valuable lesson on the backs ofthe EAL pilots they refuse their J/S's to.

How pathethic and two-faced.

[DownIn3Green]

Of course they will, Airbubba.

They obvivously don't have the convictions of their words and deeds to back them up through their actions.

They also have no doubt forgotten those EAL pilots who in Aug 1989 returned to work at the direction of the EAL MEC, crossing the IAM picket line.

I wonder if their names will also go on the ALPA "J/S Protection List"?

If not, they should.

What's going to happen when an NWA flight needs to be serviced by union workers at another airline? I'll bet they won't be first in line for fuel...for example.

[Two's in]

NWA appear to have thought about this...

Latest from USA Today...

Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) members still on the job at the strike deadline — 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday — quietly and quickly walked away from their posts and turned in their IDs and security badges before joining fellow union members on the picket lines.

But the nation's fourth-largest carrier said it has been preparing for the strike for more than a year and a half. Last week Northwest said it has 1,200 such replacements and 300 maintenance managers available for day-to-day repairs. Meanwhile, Northwest negotiated contracts with third-party maintenance vendors, both in the United States and overseas, to take on more heavy overhaul and component repair work. Most of those vendors, including KLM, the Dutch carrier that has been Northwest's long-time alliance partner, already handle much of that work for Northwest.

As a result, the strike appeared to have little impact on Northwest's operations as of late Saturday morning. The airline's busiest airports reported only a handful of delays or cancellations.

[Airbubba]

Well, in fair disclosure concerning my earlier comments, I've been a member of both ALPA and FEIA over the years so I have to consider a little historical perspective in times like this.

The latest ALPA off the record spin is that the mechanics want the pilots and F/A's to continue working so it will cost NW more money. Maybe so, who knows? As I recall, the NW pilots have a contractual right not to cross a picket line, not sure about the flight attendants.

Anyway, here's the public pronouncement through the NW ALPA hotline:
___________________________________

MEC Hotline Friday, Aug. 19th.

This is Northwest Master Executive Council (MEC) Chairman Mark McClain
with a Special NWA MEC Hotline recorded on Friday, August 19, 2005, at
11:03 p.m. Central Time.

AMFA STRIKES – ALPA PILOTS TO REPORT TO WORK (8/19/05)
At 11:01 p.m. CT Friday, August 19, 2005, NWA AMFA's leadership called a
strike after AMFA and NWA management negotiators failed to reach
agreement on a new contract before the 30-day-cooling-off period expired.

The NWA MEC, in a Special Meeting held via teleconference, elected to
not engage in a sympathy strike, judging that it would not be in the
best interests of NWA pilots. As a result, all NWA pilots should report
to work as scheduled and fly their trips as assigned. Again, all NWA
pilots should report to work as scheduled and fly their trips as assigned.

Management has advised ALPA that operations will likely be affected over
the coming days as a result of a large number of aircraft currently out
of service and a high volume of MELs on in-service aircraft, so please
continue to exercise your patience and professionalism.

We will continue to update you with new information as it becomes
available. Please check this Hotline regularly.

EXTRA VIGILANCE RECOMMENDED (8/19/05)
This is a reminder that you should be extra vigilant when performing
your duties. Be careful to ensure that you have the correct aircraft
logbooks and that all aircraft and flight paperwork is properly
completed and up to date. Line checks are valid until 0600Z of the
eighth UTC day, including the day of the check. Information on
time-limited MELs and CDLs can be found on page 15 of the MEL
introduction. All aspects of our operation are subject to increased FAA
scrutiny, so make sure you have all required documents, equipment, and
up-to-date manuals in your possession. Please report any unusual
activity or any safety or security problems to the ALPA Safety Operation
Center (800-NWA-ALPA ext. 374).

SECURITY/SAFETY CONCERNS DURING AN AMFA STRIKE (8/19/05)
You may encounter AMFA picket lines or face other safety/security issues
while attempting to report for work. If you have safety concerns, you
must contact your chief pilot and explain your situation and concerns.
NWA management is responsible for ensuring your safety when you report
to work. After you talk to your chief pilot, please call the ASOC to
inform ALPA of the situation.

INDIVIDUAL SYMPATHY STRIKE QUESTION (8/19/05)
A pilot who refuses to cross AMFA picket lines and report to work may
suffer consequences. ALPA does not know how the company will deal with
this type of situation. There is a risk the company will take
disciplinary action or discharge a pilot who engages in this activity by
asserting that it believes the right to honor a picket line in this
manner is not protected by the Railway Labor Act. There is also a risk
the company might treat a pilot who engages in this activity as joining
in the AMFA strike, with his right to return to work governed by legal
doctrines for striking employees. If this occurs, challenges by ALPA
and/or the pilot to the company's action would ultimately be decided in
legal proceedings.
Given these circumstances, pilots contemplating individually withholding
their services should call the ALPA Safety Operations Center
(800-NWA-ALPA, ext. 374) beforehand to obtain further guidance.

*** This marks the end of today's Hotline. Until next time, fly safe,
fly the contract and remember that over 500 Northwest pilots are still
on furlough.

[Wino]

This is a tough one for a lot of reasons.

Leave out who crossed who's picket lines (the mechanics didn't honor the pilot's line in 98) in the past and just think about the present going forward.

AMFA is trying to squeeze the company... but not too hard or it will shut down. If the pilots honor the picket line its pretty much strait to armegeddon, northwest liquidates, end of story. On the other hand if the pilots keep the operation going somewhat but use their pens in a proper manner and don't cut any corners, then the pressure will build over a week or two the company to negiotiate in better faith with the mechanics.

From the pilots point of view, they have been carrying most of the freight on the union pressures. "If the pilots go with us, we shut the company down". Well, that may be true and it has a lot to do with people who clean aircraft making 40k, but how does it benefit the pilots in the long term? The Pie isn't unlimited anymore.

This isn't a case of a company making huge profits and just being stubborn (as Northwest was notorious for). This is a hurting company and a hurting union just trying to move the cut line around somewhat. Its also a case of the mechanics laying in bed with the unskilled which is a tough thing to do, it hurts the mechanics a lot, while helping the unskilled somewhat.

So traditional views of UNIONISM probably don't apply here. This isn't the original National Airlines under Bud Maytag who just liked the scrap with his unions....


Cheers
Wino

[DownIn3Green]

Thank you AirB for clarifying your background, however it was not neccessary. As far as I'm concerned your posts have always been levelheaded and well thoughtout, whatever the subject.

And for you, Wino, even though your title suggests otherwise, I suspect you are also able to see both sides of an issue, at least based on your last post...

However, whatever the situation is this time, I personally have a hard time with comments such as "forget about the past" and "this situation is different...

We have all been in "different" situations in the "past", and you're right in saying what is done is done.

With that said, how about a big ALPA "Thank You" for the EAL guys and how about removing those Aug 89 guys from "the list".

Until that happens, I really can't see how this situation is really "apples and oranges".

If I remember correctly, the EAL MEC's message was "Get your jobs back guys and let's fight from the inside"...

Same as NWA now, and AA during their F/A strike one Thanksgiving...

[Wino]

I actually agree that the crawlbacks probably shouldn't be on the list.

I am not sure of the exact circumstances however, and if the MEC was replaced a few hours later, then the MEC is still binding, even if they reversed themsevles.

Eitherway it hardly matters at all anymore. Most of the crawl backs have now retired.

There are record keeping problems with the list. One guy I am positive is a crawlback has a new hire employee number etc... On the other hand there are those that crossed the first day or were hired as replacements (including one woman who went on the crash a DC-9)

So its a terrible can of worms, and its really a chapter from a different era in Aviation. Back then the only people that would have benefited from a strike were OTHER union members and it was up to them to make sure that it didn't happen.

Now its the JetBlue's and other non Union/ALPA entities out there that are licking their lips at the prospect of NWA demise.

Cheers
Wino

[yamaha]

There is nothing to discuss here.
The pilots should be out with the mechs and let the company carry out its threat to close.

Will they close it?

HELL NO

[DownIn3Green]

Wino,

I AM sure of the circumstances, (of the EAL 89) and I beg to differ that "most" are not now retired. Many are, and many are not...even more have left aviation all together...

EAL ran a type rating mill with management ck airmen before their authorization was pulled, and many of those folks are now at other airlines...easy to get a job at Emerites or the Pacific Rim with that B-757/767 or A-300 type...

However, many of us who "drank the cool-aid" and followed the MEC lost a lot...only to have to try to get it back again sans benefit of the J/S for interviews, etc...

Therefore...I agree it is water under the bridge, and time won't heal old wounds...but like ALPA says they won't forget, neither will I...

I thank my maker every day for my aviation career, and if I had it to do over there are a few things I would change (with the benefit of Monday morning QB'ing) one of which I would most likely be one of the "Golden 201" (first day "sc@bs") at EAL considering how I feel about being sold out by ALPA...

And no matter how you feel Wino, Capt. Chamb...in was a friend of mine, and what happened to her a/c that fateful day in May 96 over the everglades has nothing to do with her politics...

Her ability as a Pilot, Captain and Friend had nothing to do with why that jet crashed (have you read the accident report?) and I take personal offense that you would bring this up in a discussion regarding ALPA and picket lines....

Thank you...rant over...but not forgotten...

[Wino]

actually I flew with her as well at Grand Airways, before she went to a 1900 operator (Air LA?) and then on to valujet. and she struck me as possibly the most unlucky person in the world. (she had an incident at gcn with an elk). But... had she not made earlier decisions she NEVER would have been in a valujet cockpit in the first place.

She would be at United NOW decrying her lot in life as she takes pay cut after paycut. So her decisions did haunt her and eventually she paid the ultimate price for it... Candy had a few other incidents as well. None of them as near as I could tell her fault... Just unlucky.

Small world, aint it?

And the ones I referred to as retired were the crawlbacks, not the newhire/type mill ones. They are still around. What I meant by that is that innaccuracies in the list are harming less and less of the crawlbacks. However, new hires were much younger overall then the crawlbacks. It will be around 2029 before the last of the newhires retires (assuming age 60 remains in place)

Cheers
Wino

[DownIn3Green]

Wino, with this I can agree...

[Airbubba]

Looks like the other unions are damning AMFA with faint praise...
________________________________________

Northwest Employees Get Little Support

Union's Isolation From Other Groups May Be Opportunity for Airline

By Amy Joyce

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; D01



In a world known for solidarity and brotherhood, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association stands almost alone among labor unions, even as 4,400 of its members walk the picket line.

The Northwest Airlines Corp. mechanics and cleaners who went on strike Saturday are the first workers at a major U.S. airline to hit the picket line in seven years. But, despite major upheaval in the industry where many pilots, flight attendants and other workers have had to make concessions in pay and benefits, the striking workers are finding little support from other unions.

AMFA, which grew in recent years by winning members away from other unions, is an outsider in the labor movement. "They are a go-it-alone union. They are proud of that," said Richard Bank, director of collective bargaining with the AFL-CIO. "They made their living raiding AFL-CIO affiliates with that message. So it's rather surprising to see them now calling for solidarity with their cause."

But what happens to AMFA and its Northwest mechanics could have a broad impact on organized labor and the airline industry, well beyond Northwest Airlines, according to labor experts.

"This is a perfect target for Northwest," said Charles B. Craver, a professor of labor law at George Washington University. "It's a union that is sort of weak. It's not AFL-CIO. If this were [the AFL-CIO's International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers], Northwest might be a little more nervous."

The airline's other employees have continued working during the strike. In contrast, nearly 1,000 baggage handlers, counter agents and other employees walked off the job earlier this month in sympathy when employees with a British Airways caterer were fired, causing the airline to cancel hundreds of flights.

Other industries, struggling to deal with their own labor costs, will be watching the strike closely. Northwest said it needs to cut labor costs by $1.1 billion, and its pilots have agreed to a 15 percent pay cut. AMFA said the airline is seeking to cut its mechanic workforce in half and cut the remaining workers' pay by 25 percent.

Since its inception, AMFA has been perceived as an upstart by the AFL-CIO. It was "more of a rogue union that came in and took advantage of a period of high grievances with machinists and promised these guys the world," said Robert A. Bruno, professor of labor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. AMFA's big break came in 1999 when the mechanics at Northwest decided to decertify the machinists union and move to AMFA instead.

That created a major rift with the AFL-CIO and its member unions, which accuse AMFA of stealing members. The discord remains between the AFL-CIO and AMFA and between AMFA and the unions that recently split from the AFL-CIO. That leaves the union largely on its own during its biggest fight yet.

The relatively small union was founded in 1962 to represent only skilled mechanics. Then in 1999, it pulled Northwest's mechanics away from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. In 2003, United Airlines' mechanics also left the IAM and joined AMFA after the IAM agreed to a 13 percent wage cut.

AMFA has about 17,000 members, compared with the IAM's approximately 100,000.

That pattern of "raiding" has isolated AMFA from other, more established unions, which refuse to respond to the strike. That leaves Northwest Airlines with little resistance and what will probably be a relatively easy time ridding itself of workers represented by AMFA.

"I think the mechanics have shown a lot of courage but not much longer-term strategy here," said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley. "The kind of outreach that is necessary to have a much broader base, they really didn't do."

As it became clear AMFA might strike, it asked other unions for support -- with little success. The IAM's general vice president, Robert Roach Jr., wrote AMFA's leader, O.V. Delle-Femine, saying, "It is about time that AMFA recognizes that it cannot win a major labor dispute standing in isolation." He went on: "IAM members will not be duped into standing with AMFA. AMFA has never honored an IAM picket line."

AMFA received similar cold responses from other unions.

However, the union and its strikers are receiving other kinds of support, said Steve MacFarlane, AMFA spokesman. "We're getting a tremendous amount of help from all the other unions individually. We're getting all kinds of information from our fellow workers" who remain on the job, he said. "We never expected the others to honor our picket line, but of course we would have welcomed that," he said. "But we never calculated that as a part of our strategy."

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union has spoken out in support of AMFA. "I ask all ILWU members to do everything in their power to help these workers in the struggle as if it were your own," James Spinosa, international president, said in a letter to the union's locals.

The employees and staff of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will not be flying Northwest Airlines. But the group is not organizing a formal boycott, and its members are making their own decisions about how they will respond, said Leigh Strope, a Teamsters spokeswoman. Not flying Northwest is "a show of respect for the workers at Northwest Airlines rather than a sign of support for AMFA," she said Friday in an e-mailed statement.

In the long run, the lack of support for AMFA may have more of an effect than unions anticipate, according to some labor watchers.

"If the workers don't stand together, Northwest may be able to destroy this union because it is not a big union. It may then go on to the flight attendants and baggage handlers," Craver said. "And if they are able to get away with it, it will embolden all the airlines. And worse yet, it will spread to other unions in other industry where they demand huge concessions or else."

[thefinalfrontier]

Another snippet of information you people might like to know.
In Tokyo NWA management is looking to outsource all their cabin maintenance eventually and in the long run drop as many mechanics as they can.
They are talking to their IFE maintainers - MAS/Panasonic to handle this.
This is just the start in the Far East.
Would you let an IFE person lose on your cabin items?

[jetAdrinker]

Mr tff, you are obviously talking without knowing what you are saying. Most IFE engineers have a UK CAA license or a EASA engineers license and in top of that an FAA license, and the ones I know are very good engineers!

[thefinalfrontier]

Mr J.A.D.,

You have obviously not read the jist of my post.
It is about this company Outsourcing their maintenance to a cheaper option and with the possibility of shedding some more of their mechanics.
It just so happens they are talking to MAS about this.MAS's speciality is IFE not cabin/airframe maintenance.
For info, NWA operate under the FAA and Japan comes under the unbrella of the JCAB, so your statement about most IFE engineers have a UK CAA lisense or EASA license is irelevant in this context.
MAS employ locally in the area, so I would imagine no one there has a European license.
Unless you know better?
Also most items in the cabin field apart from IFE and lighting are on the airframe side of things.Most IFE personnel are of the avionics side.
At the end of the day how would you like it if your company outsourced your maintenance and let go it's own mechanics, of which maybe you were one?