Northwest Settles With Some Machinists

One of two machinists union worker groups has accepted a pay-cut package from Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines.

Members of the customer service and reservations staff of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers OK'd the bankrupt airline's proposal to achieve cost cuts of $190 million per year. But members of the union's equipment service unit rejected the proposal.

Terms of the airline's offer included reducing the current court-imposed wage cut from 19 percent to 11.5 percent and replacing the airline's faltering pension plan with the union's pension plan. Northwest's proposal also called for numerous job cuts, reduced healthcare benefits and station closures.

The ratified agreements will take effect upon approval by the bankruptcy judge overseeing the carrier's financial affairs.

Northwest said it will ask the court to abrogate its contract with those bargaining units of the union that rejected the cost-cutting proposals.

Northwest Airlines is the world's fifth-largest airline with hubs at Detroit, Minneapolis, Memphis, Tokyo and Amsterdam, and about 1,200 daily departures.

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