Airline Workers Organize to Fight Concessions at Multiple Carriers

Just as Northwest Airlines pilots Wednesday accepted a new contract that cuts pay, a new group is trying to unite airline workers to fight concessions in the industry.

Airline Workers United, made up of airline employees from carriers and labor activists from across the country, doesn't want to represent airline employees. Instead, it wants to help workers talk about their experiences with concessions, think of ways to stop them and eventually reclaim the wages and work rules they lost.

"We all face the same problems. It's just they come at us at different times in different places," said Richard Turk, a mechanic at United Airlines and a founder of Airline Workers United.

The new group makes its debut today in Dearborn, Mich., as part of a larger labor conference, sponsored by grass-roots labor newsletter Labor Notes. The three-day conference aims to strengthen the labor movement at the rank-and-file level.

Founding members of Airline Workers United will talk about industry trends, including concessions, bankruptcy and outsourcing as well as how to develop a strategy to resist more givebacks.

"It's pretty clear that one union at one airline can't stop what's happening," said Kip Hedges, a Northwest ramp worker in Minneapolis and an Airline Workers United founder.

The creation of a rank-and-file group is a sign to unions to figure out how to avoid concessions in the future, said Gary Chaison, professor of management at Clark University, in Worcester, Mass. "This is the pent-up frustration with concessions that occurs with the rank and file," he said.

Airline Workers United's goals are enormous considering the financial problems at the nation's major carriers. Northwest and Delta are reorganizing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and United exited bankruptcy in February.

All have negotiated lower wages and stricter work rules with unions, negotiating under a looming threat that a bankruptcy judge could throw out their contracts.

On Wednesday, Pilots at Northwest ratified a contract that cuts wages 24 percent. Flight attendants start voting Sunday on their own concessionary deal that cuts wages 21 percent.

Flight attendants at United took two rounds of wage cuts at about 9 percent each. Pilots at Delta took a 32.5 percent pay cut in 2004 and are considering additional concessions.

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