Mechanics strike Northwest Airlines

WASHINGTON -- Mechanics went on strike against Northwest Airlines early Saturday after refusing 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.

After months of talks broke off here just before midnight Friday, union spokesman Jim Young said the mechanics would rather see the airline go into bankruptcy than agree to Northwest's terms. The Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association represents about 11 percent of Northwest's 40,000 workers. The strike began just after their midnight deadline.

Flight attendants, ground workers and pilots at Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest said they would not join the walkout by mechanics.

Julie Hagen Showers, Northwest's vice president for labor relations, told reporters here that the airline will operate a full schedule on Saturday.

Young said the company did not negotiate in good faith because it had a contingency plan to use contract workers as replacements for the strikers.

AMFA National Director O.V. Delle-Femine said in a statement that the union expects flight schedules to be disrupted "because 4,500 AMFA technicians who average 20 years of live experience on Northwest's fleet are being replaced by 1,500 people who in many cases have little or no live experience on the type of aircraft Northwest flies." He said their training was "woefully inadequate."

Showers said the company's final offer was fair and equitable. The airline wanted to get $176 million in savings from the union.

"AMFA was unable to meet the saving targets we needed," she said. "It would have been irresponsible not to have a plan in place." Showers said the contingency plan would realize the desired savings.

At the union's headquarters in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Steve MacFarlane, assistant national director of AMFA, said the union had "no choice."

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

Among other unions at Northwest, only flight attendants had appeared to seriously consider a sympathy strike. They voted against a strike at midnight Friday. Robert Krabbe, a spokesman for the Professional Flight Attendants Association, said some flight attendants won't cross the mechanic's picket line. "To them we pledge all of our available resources to defend and protect their choice," he said.

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 slightly smaller fall schedule on Saturday, earlier than usual.

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 sought $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 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."

Ground workers said they wouldn't honor the picket line. 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."

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.