Striking Northwest Airlines mechanics vented their fury at replacement workers during a rally in front of a Minneapolis hotel on Tuesday, chanting "scabs go home!" and yelling obscenities at two suspected replacements who were eating nachos outside the hotel restaurant.
More than 100 striking workers and members of other unions carried signs and marched in front of the Radisson University Hotel on the University of Minnesota campus while U police looked on.
"Union busters on the attack. What do we do? Stand up, fight back!" the crowd chanted.
The hotel is one of several where Northwest is housing replacement workers, union members said. U clerical workers organized the rally.
The peaceful protest became heated when a few striking mechanics broke away from the crowd to take pictures of diners seated outside the hotel's Applebee's restaurant, commenting loudly that they were photographing "real-live scabs."
As the crowd moved closer, chanting and jabbing fingers at the people eating, the three people at the table two men and one of the men's wife sat impassively, staring.
"You f scabs are taking our jobs!" one worker yelled, inviting the men to a fight.
"Worthless scumbags!" another striker shouted.
Fellow mechanics and police coaxed the crowd back from the diners. There were no arrests.
One of the strikers, who gave his name only as Joe, said he'd asked the men if they were, in fact, replacement workers. They nodded, he said. Several of the mechanics also said the men's photographs were included in shots of suspected replacement workers compiled on the Web site of their union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, Local 33.
But one of the suspected replacement workers told reporters he was "not a scab" but was in town for another reason he couldn't disclose. The other man declined to comment.
U clerical workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), organized the rally as a show of solidarity with the striking mechanics, said Phyllis Walker, president of the 1,800-member local unit.
Walker said her group had been supported by other unions, and by the community at large, during their own strike in 2003, and the mechanics deserved no less.
She promised other local unions would step up to help the mechanics soon.
"Then, you'll understand all the support that you're getting," she said.
Up to now, the mechanics union which antagonized other workers when it broke away from the International Association of Machinists in 1998 has had little formal support from its union brethren. With few exceptions, Northwest flight attendants and pilots have not honored the picket lines.
One of those exceptions was Northwest flight attendant Karen Schultz, 41, of Minneapolis, who joined Tuesday's protest. "We have a spiraling down of wages and a spiraling up of productivity," she said, referring not just to airline workers but to all workers, union and nonunion. "It's kind of a frightening future."
Since the airline's 4,400 mechanics, cleaners and custodians went out on strike Aug. 19, Northwest has hired 1,200 replacement workers, 350 managers and outside vendors to maintain its airplanes.
Representatives from the Radisson, which was criticized during the rally for housing the replacement workers, declined to comment.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
