Union negotiators have left town, leaving a federal judge as Northwest Airlines Corp.'s last hope to block a flight attendant strike that could begin as early as Friday night.
Flight attendants are angry that Northwest imposed pay cuts and work rules that the rank-and-file had rejected, and they say they'll begin sporadic, unannounced strikes anytime after 9:01 p.m. CDT Friday. Northwest, already operating under bankruptcy protection, has said a strike like that could kill it.
Just nine hours before the strike deadline, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero will have to make a snap decision on whether to intervene. Marrero will grapple with obscure provisions of labor law, but the core question is: Can airline employees walk off the job after their bosses unilaterally cut their pay and change their work rules?
Marrero's job will be complicated by the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which generally bars judges from blocking strikes. Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper, who has spent much of the past year overseeing Northwest's reorganization, agreed that a strike could kill the airline, and that both sides would benefit from more time to cool off. But he found that the Norris-LaGuardia Act bars him from stepping in.
The Association of Flight Attendants said its strike preparations were gaining momentum, and it has been holding classes all week in cities where Northwest flies to train flight attendants on its "CHAOS" strike strategy, for "create havoc around our system."
More than 300 flight attendants showed up for a single class in Detroit, and union officials said hundreds of flight attendants have attended the classes in Minneapolis. Northwest has some 7,300 active flight attendants.
The union has said firing any who strike would be illegal. Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch wouldn't comment on that.
At one class Thursday in an office building across from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, about 45 flight attendants watched a video about job actions at Alaska Airlines. The union said flight attendant actions, including striking some individual flights and handing out union leaflets to passengers on board one flight, forced the company to make a better deal.
But that was in 1993. CHAOS hasn't been used since then except as a threat. The union claims that's because it's such an effective threat. Indeed, in 2000, US Airways threatened to shut the whole airline down rather than allow flight attendants to conduct a CHAOS campaign. They eventually made a deal before any job actions took place.
"It really is kind of a brilliant strategy," said Darryl Jenkins, a professor of airline management at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.
"This is the least costly way of disrupting the entire system. The actual, real disruption is small," he said.
On Thursday Northwest said it "has a range of alternative options to respond to any AFA work action and it will take all necessary action to avoid inconveniencing customers. We will continue operating our normal schedule safely.
"We have a plan in place to ensure that our flights are properly staffed with certified flight attendants to meet both FAA and NWA requirements and the needs of our customers," the company said in a statement.
Northwest officials have refused to say whether it has lined up replacement workers, which is how it crushed a mechanics' strike that began in August 2005.
"They tell me they have a plan. They certainly did with mechanics," Jenkins said.
"Northwest is the type of company that, if it says it will carry out something, it will. The Association of Flight Attendants is the same."
Tom Parsons of bestfares.com, an online discount travel agency, said he doubted that flight attendants could really disrupt Northwest's operations much. And he pointed out that leisure travelers are generally locked into nonrefundable tickets. But business travelers are another story.
"It disrupts the loyalty of their best-paying customers," he said. The same business traveler who pays the most is often the one holding a fully refundable ticket and with it, the freedom to fly on another carrier.
"That's the ticket that Northwest really doesn't want to lose," he said.
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