Airlines Refuse to Share New Profits with Flight Attendants

[Omaha Steve]

Full article: http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/08/09/airlines-refuse-to-share-new-profits-with-flight-attendants/

Airlines Refuse to Share New Profits with Flight Attendants

On the website for Northwest Airlines, you will find all sorts of special offers to entice you to fly Northwest, including a “best fare guarantee.” Too bad the company’s management doesn’t see fit to give a “best pay guarantee” to its flight attendants.

The same is true for the newly combined US Airways and America West. Although the airline industry has taken a turn for the better, management is still trying to stiff its workers.

After members of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA/CWA) on July 31 rejected a second tentative contract agreement, Northwest imposed new work rules. The imposed contract, designed to produce $195 million in annual savings for the airline, which filed for bankruptcy last year, cuts workers’ benefits and pay by 40 percent, the union says.

The imposed work rules triggered the workers’ right to strike under the Railway Labor Act, which governs labor-management relations in the aviation industry. Flight attendants already are leafleting at airports around the country to let passengers know that as soon as 9:01 p.m. CDT on Aug. 15, Northwest could be thrown into CHAOS™ (Create Havoc Around Our System™), AFA-CWA’s strategy of targeted work actions using random, unannounced strikes.

Here’s what Mollie Reiley, interim president of the Northwest Master Executive Council, has to say:

Northwest flight attendants have been pushed too far. Now we’re going to push back. There is only so much we can give. The wage and benefit cuts that Northwest management has imposed on us are far too deep, especially with all the executives getting in line for huge bonuses. We’re now going to show these executives that there are consequences to their greed.

Northwest is not alone among greedy airline management. While flight attendants from the newly combined US Airways and America West are striving to reach a good contract, the company announced last week it will give managers a 3 percent pay increase this fall. Yet management has insisted at the bargaining table that the new flight attendant contract not raise costs. While managers will get a pay increase, the majority of America West flight attendants have not had a raise since May 2004.

[ThomCat]

1. Nail the executives to the wall.

They'll claim credit for everything but take responsibility for nothing. They'll demand that everyone else take cuts, but they'll take bonuses.

Nail them to teh wall. :grr:

[flpoljunkie]

2. Airlines feel secure they can screw their employees wiith impugnity w/Bush

This goes for all big corporations, including, of course, the media conglomerates who fail to stand up for truth, justice, and the American way of life--the promise that if you work hard and play by the rules you will be okay.