Northwest Airlines flight attendants have offered to give up 1,553 jobs and accept a 22.5 percent pay cut, but the bankrupt airline's management has not responded to the proposal which was made on Tuesday, a union official said Friday.
"We have gotten to the point where we need to get a deal out to our members so the members can speak directly to the company," Karen Schultz, spokeswoman for the carrier's flight attendants told The Associated Press. She was speaking outside of a New York bankruptcy courtroom, on the eighth day of hearings on Northwest's request to do away with its employee collective bargaining agreements.
Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest Airlines Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, is looking for $1.4 billion in wage and benefit cuts from employees. It says it needs the cuts to emerge from bankruptcy and compete effectively with low cost carriers.
Schultz said the flight attendants have not heard a response to their proposal from Northwest management as of Friday morning. Schultz said the 1,553 cuts could come in the form of early an early retirement plan for senior and higher paid workers.
Northwest has asked for $195 million in concessions. Schultz said the offer made by the union made on Tuesday would meet the airline's request.
On Thursday, a Northwest airlines executive said the carrier wants to replace 30 percent of flight attendants on its international flights with non-U.S. flight attendants, roughly 800 people, to save $20.2 million. The carrier also said it needed to hire foreign workers as flight attendants because of their language and culture skills to better serve international flights.
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