Northwest Mechanics Walk Out

Mechanics struck Northwest Airlines Corp. early Saturday, resisting big pay cuts and layoffs that would have cut their numbers almost in half. The nation's fourth-largest airline pledged to keep flying with replacements.

Flight attendants at Northwest Airlines said Friday they wouldn't join a walkout by mechanics, removing one big threat to the airline's plan to fly through a mechanics strike.

Pilots also said they wouldn't join a strike, but it was flight attendants who had been seen as the most likely union to engage in a sympathy strike.

"Our members' vote is that we will not be calling a strike," said Robert Krabbe, a spokesman for the Professional Flight Attendants Association. "We do recognize that there will be those members who wish to respect AMFA's picket lines, and to them we pledge all of our available resources to defend and protect their choice."

The strike appeared inevitable long before the deadline, with the union saying the two sides weren't meeting face-to-face in a federally mediated session in Washington.

At the union's headquarters in suburban Bloomington, Steve MacFarlane, assistant national director for the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, said the union had "no choice."

"Truly, we are fighting for our very futures and our families," MacFarlane said.

Julie Hagen Showers, Northwest's vice president of labor relations, said the airline made a "fair and equitable" offer given its economic circumstances.

"We will now be implementing the contingency plan we have spent 18 months preparing," she told reporters in Washington.

Northwest says it is losing about $4 million a day and wants its mechanics, cleaners and custodians to take a 25 percent pay cut. It also wants the right to lay off another 2,000 so it can send more of their work to outside vendors. Northwest has already slashed their ranks from 8,390 in 2002 to 4,427 now.

Northwest has said it needs $176 million worth of savings from mechanics as part of $1.1 billion in annual savings from all its employees. It said it made its "last, best" offer on Thursday night, though it wouldn't give details. The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association said the offer wasn't good enough.

Jim Young, spokesman for the AMFA, said the mechanics would rather see the airline go into bankruptcy than agree to Northwest's terms. The union, which represents 4,427 of Northwest's 40,000 workers, decided to strike at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Over the past year and a half Northwest has lined up about 1,200 replacement workers, plus 400 vendor employees and another 300 to 350 managers for a total replacement force of 1,900. And it shifted to its slighty smaller fall schedule on Saturday, earlier than usual.

Mechanics union leaders have predicted that a strike will seriously disrupt the airline.

It's the first major airline strike since Northwest pilots grounded the airline for 20 days in 1998. AMFA has struck only four times in its history, most recently in 1980.

In May, AMFA mechanics at bankrupt United Airlines threatened to strike if a judge imposed pay cuts. Instead, mechanics approved a contract that included a 3.9 percent pay cut and fewer benefits.

Northwest is seeking $1.1 billion worth of annual cuts from its employees. Last fall, pilots agreed to a 15 percent pay cut worth $300 million when combined with cuts for salaried employees. The pay cut sought for mechanics amounted to about 25 percent.

The carrier has some of the highest labor costs in the industry. And all older airlines have been battered by rising oil prices and travelers' shifts to newer discount carriers.

Northwest employs 4,427 mechanics, cleaners and custodians represented by AMFA, down from 8,390 in January 2002. Of its current AMFA workers, 3,118 work in the Twin Cities, 964 work in Detroit, and 120 work in Memphis.

And the airline has taken advantage of a contract provision that allows it to send as much as 38 percent of its aircraft maintenance to outside contractors.

As the deadline drew near, dozens of mechanics and their family members gathered in a parking lot near the union's regional headquarters in suburban Bloomington. Within sight of a Northwest maintenance hangar, they grilled hot dogs, drank beer and waited for news.

"I'm afraid they're going to try their best to break our union," said Joe Woods of Atlanta, a Northwest mechanic for 23 years. "If they want to fight, this is a good place to start one."

A huge question for both sides was whether other Northwest unions would cross a mechanics picket line. Only the flight attendants appeared to be seriously considering a sympathy strike — and Northwest said it had replacement workers for some of them, too. A flight attendant vote on whether to strike was scheduled to end one minute before the mechanic strike deadline.

Northwest went to court Friday to seek an injunction against a walkout by flight attendants, but there was no immediate ruling.

Ground workers and pilots didn't say whether they would honor a picket line, but they had been considered unlikely to. Pilots granted concessions earlier, and relations between the mechanics union and the ground workers union —, the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers —, have been poor since 1998, when AMFA took over representation of mechanics from the Machinists.

On Friday afternoon, a federal judge barred mechanics at Northwest regional carrier Mesaba Airlines from staging a sympathy strike. Those mechanics are represented by the same AMFA locals that represent Northwest mechanics at hubs in Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis.

"The effects of a disruption in Mesaba's operations would be felt in thirty-three states and three Canadian provinces," Judge David S. Doty wrote. "Twenty-one cities and towns where Mesaba is the lone scheduled airline stand to lose all commercial air service. Thus the public interest favors issuance of the order."

The strike is the first at a major airline since Northwest pilots grounded the airline for 20 days in 1998. AMFA has struck only four times in its history, most recently in 1980.

Shares of Northwest fell 10 cents to close at $5.38 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock had surged 10 percent on Thursday after investor Philip B. Korsant disclosed he had bought a 6 percent stake in the company. The stock had gained 38 percent since Monday.