Breaking the union
There are only a few hours to go until the deadline for the Northwest mechanics' strike.
Curly Tales has the best blog coverage of the Northwest strike that I've seen:
Countdown to getting your attention!
Strike Imminent I
Strike Imminent II - Hired Goons!
Strike Imminent III - Bush/Cheney
Strike Summary - The Big Picture
The big picture post is a good place to get up to speed with what the mechanics are facing.
I'm convinced that NWA management is not compromising because they want to break the union. After a long, failed strike the union will be powerless and NWA will be able to maintain their planes in Southeast Asia on the cheap with no problems.
Every strike I hear about fills me with a sense of dread. The odds in a strike have always been against the workers. Today's federal labor regulations tilt the tables to management under the guise of fairness. Companies are allowed to cooperate to break a strike, but unions are not. In the best of times, complaining to the National Labor Relations Board is a multi-year slog through bureaucracy that few individuals can handle, so corporations are free to act with near impunity to try to destroy the union.
Even the right to organize is a right in name only. Elections are contested and dragged out, while organizers are fired.
This leads to the pathetic weakness of unions today. And no one cares, unless they strike. And they usually lose. How depressing.
(For more on the sad state of the labor movement in the US, check out Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back by Chicago labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan.)
posted by Luke Francl @ 5:05 PM |
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28 Comments:
You're not telling the whole story here.
NWA management is not compromising because this union is simply a bunch of greedy assholes intent on driving the airline to bankrupcy.
I have no idea how you can paint these clowns as sympathetic. Not even any of the airline's other unions will support them. They tried to hose the groundworkers (more union guys) utilizing the well tested "French" technique (AKA I'll help you if you promise to eat me last.)
I disagree with your assumptions as well. While I agree that odds are against workers, the rules only come into play when workers have established an adverserial relationship. Making management lose so workers can win is not a very forward thinking, long range strategy. If you are intent on going down that road, its clear you were doomed before striking became an issue.
The notion unions can't cooperate is false. Often unions strike in sympathy etc. (not in this case but it certainly happens.) Just as silly is the idea that businesses can cooperate. Businesses are always free to cooperate OR more commonly compete. This is an inherent strength of capitalism, not an anti union trick.
Your boy curly doesn't bemoan the Labor Relations Board, in fact, he's cheesed Bush isn't saving his ass with more bureaucracy.
Certainly its true that companies are free to resist unions, either existing or organizing. But its also true unions are free to try to organize where unions don't exist. In this they may act with near impunity.
The right to organize is still strong, its just that the need to organize is gone, and most people are smart enough to know that benefits really never existed and working for a union is much more frustrating and unsatisfying than trying to work with management to succeed.
Unions have led to the weakness of unions, and people don't support strikes because they are better informed and the motivations of guys like these are so transparent that they just aren't sympathetic.
So I am interested in one fact I couldn't find anywhere. What do these folks make for a wage. The "spin" is half the jobs and a quarter of the pay, but how much is that. Scabs are getting a 2K bonus, free housing and 32/hr. I can't imagine its significantly more than the offer and it sounds like a pretty decent living for a wrench turner.
-Censored
Greedy assholes intent on driving the airline to bankrupcy?
You have got to be kidding me.
The offer is 53% job cuts and 25% wage cut. The union's offer is around 33% job cuts and 15% wage cuts. I don't see how you can call them greedy assholes.
Secondly, its NWA that wants to drive NWA to bankruptcy. I'm not cheesed that Bush didn't step in with more bureaucracy (though he does have plenty to go around), I just didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea that Bush was staying out of it. By not stepping in he set up the one thing that would save Northwest the most money - bankruptcy.
Yes, shocking as it may seem, NWA wanted the strike all along. Its a means to an end, an end to 2,000 jobs in Minnesota.
So Censored, do you like all forms of wellfare, or just the corporate kind? I bet its just corportate, and yet, something inside you must burn a little when you think of that $38 million dollar bond we floated to NWA that's going to come out of your taxes.
I'm not happy about the bond. I didn't like it when it came up, I don't like it now. No matter how many buggy whip makers jobs would be saved with a bond, I'd oppose that too. Clearly the old airline paradigm is not working, and NWA needs a radical change. They seem to be heading in that direction, we'll see if it works.
I don't know why you think the airline is bent on bankrupcy, their plan would avoid it, the union plan necessitates it.
So instead of spinning the half and a quarter BS, how about you (or anyone) publish the real numbers. The strib quotes union officials as saying pay cuts of UP TO 26% - up to. So is it 75/hr instead of 100?
The half the jobs is not the whole story as well. NWA spokesmen said they offered to protect up to 80% of the jobs.
So, UP TO 26% of what, and how much really? What are the wages? How many jobs - not 20-50%, the fact the newspaper is obscuring the numbers leads me to believe something is being hidden.
I certainly don't like the idea of 2000 jobs being lost, but that's really not up to me. The question now is are we going to save 2000 jobs or make it 4000 mechanics and the whole rest of the company?
So far as calling them greedy assholes, based on the reports I've read and heard - cutting a waterline in a maintenance facility (before the start of the strike) and then sabotaging almost all the water and sewage trucks, the fact not even other unions will support them, and passing out T-shirts with human heads in crosshairs and the words "Scab hunter" on them, yeah - I'm sticking with calling them assholes.
I will gladly however, remove the greedy moniker if once all the info comes out it turns out I'm mistaken. (like what is the real concession, not a percentage - the amount of what amount) Too many simple facts missing for it not to be suspicious.
-Censored
If only we could see the real numbers, but I'm still of the opinion that NWA pines for bankruptcy as its the easiest way towards restructuring.
I hadn't heard about the water lines being cut, trucks vandaliezed, etc. Can you point in the direction of the source?
Ask and ye shall recieve. From the Detroit Free Press:
Northwest Airlines Corp.'s last offer to mechanics before they went on strike, according to the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association:
--Mechanics pay falls to $27.28 per hour, from $36.39 per hour.
--Layoff protection granted for 2,750 senior licensed mechanics, about 80 percent of mechanics, according to Northwest. No job protection for cleaners and custodians represented by AMFA.
--Up to six months severance pay for all AMFA members laid off within 90 days of contract. Laid-off workers would get medical benefits and flight privileges for up to six months.
--Two paid holidays eliminated.
--Some aircraft operations taken away from technicians, including taxis, tows and pushbacks from gate.
--Amount of mechanics work that could be given to subcontractors increased.
"but I'm still of the opinion that NWA pines for bankruptcy as its the easiest way towards restructuring. "
replace "easiest" with "only" when dealing with unions. Unions are too big of racketeers when it comes to business restructuring. They want to maintain the status quo and risk losing all the jobs permanently, rather than letting the company restructure and secure jobs in the long run. But union greed and stubborness is going to cost 2,000 jobs, not corporate greed. Unions are there to protect employess from overwork and underpay, not to tell companies how to run their business.
PS thus proving why it was a good thing we voted against unionization at the U of M for grad students
Northwest wanted the union to accept 53% layoffs. That's 2000 jobs right there.
NWA wants to outsource all the mechanics jobs, so it gave the union an offer it couldn't accept. Now, they'll break the union and outsource the jobs like they planned.
P.S.: Look for yet another government bailout when NWA goes bankrupt. So much for capitalism.
Do you REALLY want the cheapest possible wrenches maintaining the only thing that keeps you alive 30,000 feet off the ground?
All the time I hear wingnuts talking about supply and demand, that the market should decide what the cost of, well, anything should be. Don't they comprehend that the skilled labor of a mechanic is a commodity, too, and that said provider of commodity ALSO has the perfect right to get whatever they can in exchange for their commodity, which is skilled labor?
Even a small turboprop airliner has miles of cable and hydraulic lines, avionics, and engines that REQUIRE skilled labor to maintain. Are they telling us that they would trust their lives to the WalMart model?
It has been evident for a while that the airline industry doesn't work on a free-market system.
Maybe those who accuse the unions of greed would be willing to take a tiny 10% pay cut and donate it to Northwest to help fund there restructuring. Or are you a little too greedy to give up 10% of your income. Give up your income that is supposed to send your children to college and secure a decent retirement. I'm supporsed to feel sorry for the airline and tell the workers to suck it up?
This is a 25% pay cut! And you call them greedy? Unbelievable.
it has been evident for a while that the airline industry doesn't work on a free-market system.
Now you're only trying to sound like you know what you are talking about. Remember how that whole deregulation thing occurred and the number of airlines skyrocketed. Oh, and also price wars (classic free market effect). Oh yes and the increasing popularity of smaller airlines such as Champion, SunCountry, etc... where people give up some of the frills of the major carriers in order to save money. Clearly the airline industry doesn't work on the free market.
One more thing, your whole little rant about people who call mechanics greedy should give up 10% of their salary. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you meant higher ups in the company and not we bloggers who are discussing. I would hope you wouldn't be so naive as to think that is a good argument.
I would love to see NWA administration take a pay cut, but yes I was talking about you. I don't give a shit about Northwest, I give a shit about my neighbors and friends. I don't think that people who are not being asked to give up a significant portion of their own income should call working men and women who are fighting for their livlihoods "greedy."
Perhaps you can answer me this question, how would a 25% pay cut in your earning affect your family? Think about it long and hard, then tell me if you think these people should have to swallow that.
Secondly, how is it a free-market when the federal government, the state government, and local authorities (MAC) have all given millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to prop up a failing airline? Northwest wouldn't exist if it weren't for the huge subsidies that you and I pay for.
How free is that?
Finally, since I already brought it up to "censored" and he was able to answer truthfully, doesn't it burn you a little when you think of that $38 million dollar bond we floated to NWA that's going to come out of your taxes?
A simple pro-business or pro-union point of view isn't going to help anyone understand what's going on here. Everyone is going to lose, no matter what, including the people of Minnesota.
You know Tom,
This isn't even close.
These clowns are simply trying to extort exorbinate wages from NWA. The offer they got is still almost $57K a year before any overtime.
That's 57K/yr for being a wrench turner. Its crazy, and yet its the offer.
Even the other unions at NWA aren't supporting these guys.
-Censored
Your asking people to eliminate a quarter of their income. Northwest wants to downsize, so all the employees must downsize first? The union position is "its not about the money, it about the jobs." Think about, 53% job cuts, how are you not going to end up with a strike vote when the chances of you losing your job are greater than 50%? There is no extortion, just fear.
"Even the other unions at NWA aren't supporting these guys."
If you know the real situation between the unions, you know it isn't that simple. I have no soft spot for the union leadership or Northwest management, just my neighbors on the picket line.
Anyways, real incite from all sides of the table can be found at this NWA message board:
http://www.usaviation.com/forums/index.php?s=833d6defa1cd882b881dbfca34caedcd&showtopic=20774
Censored, and your comrades on the Right, I'm confused about something. On the one hand, you actively support being a greedy asshole when the greedy asshole happens to be a wealthy Republican or white-collar middle-management type who wants huge tax breaks plus enormous non-merit-based executive compensation of various sorts. These sorts of greedy assholes seem to be OK with you, indeed I get the impression you think they are necessary to the functioning of a free market economy.
On the other hand, when airline workers want to get together and collectively bargain what sorts of concessions they're willing to make, these sorts of "greedy assholes" are bad for the economy and bad for business.
Anyway, I'm shocked, shocked!, that you -- a military veteran who surely has experienced firsthand the necessity of advanced technical training and skills when maintaining complex machinery -- could find it in yourself to dismiss these NWA skilled workers as "wrench turners". Absolutely disgusting.
David1369 said... Unions are there to protect employess from overwork and underpay, not to tell companies how to run their business.
PS thus proving why it was a good thing we voted against unionization at the U of M for grad students.
David, are you being sarcastic? I can't tell if you think it's a bad thing that unions protect employees from overwork and underpay (b/c surely that is one function of unions we can all agree is a positive one). And yes it is sad thet the (well-compensated science and engineering) grad students voted down a union at the U., since now the rest of the grad student workers have to continue being overworked, underpaid, and occasionally abused by that patrimonial academic culture. Maybe next time...
Clearly I am not being sarcastic. I do think there is a place for unions and that is to protect their members from overwork and underpay. Neither of which are occuring at NWA. Their mechanics are well paid and are paid over-time when applicable. But right now it is in the best interests of the union to cooperate with management and keep the company afloat. Either they do that or risk not having a job at all. I would take my 47% chance at keeping the job versus being out of work and maybe never having a job. I think that the union is going to lose this one and I don't think they are picking their battles wisely.
Mark -
Your first arguement is silly. Since executives are highly paid and covet that high pay, there is moral equivalence with union workers' greed.
The obvious differences are that your union wrench turners have no more (or less) skills than an average worker, yet demand a premium wage. When they get it, it comes exclusively at the expense of another, customer, shareholder etc. That's greed.
While executives rely on merit incentives and individual performance (you don't hear about CFO unions) They have rare skills like leadership, entrepreneurship and valuable experience, and typically get the most compensation when they create wealth, value or satisfaction for others. Its not greed. Its ambition.
So far as your military analysis, what you don't know is that while a CFO spends 4 years getting a finance or accounting degree, gets CPA cert, then 2+ years for a MBA etc, in the army a helicopter mechanic gets 9 weeks of basic training and then 16 weeks of Advanced training. At the end of which, they go turn wrenches on helicopters.
Dude, its semi-skilled labor. There is no comparison. Have you ever heard of a guy who's ambition was to be a mechanic that didn't make it? Its not that hard.
-Censored
I disagree with that which you say. Mechanics aren't "semi-skilled" I would qualify them as necessary skilled labor. The reason executives get paid more is because of the assumed risk of liability. The CEOs and CFOs are the ones who will be burned at the stake if something goes wrong with the airline, not the mechanics.
The median expected salary for a typical Aircraft Mechanic (Jet) in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota is $72,579.
An experienced auto mechanic can make $50,000 or more.
Any idiot can see the reason mechanics make those salaries is because (1) The market, (2) The skills and training involved, and (3) People die if planes and cars aren't in proper working condition. Especially planes.
It's pointless to argue with someone who so clearly despises working people while defending the multimillionaire executives who have nothing to lose by driving the company into the ground.
The people who lose are the people of Minnesota. People who have committed their entire lives to NWA (formerly Republic Airlines) will probably lose their pensions if the company goes bankrupt. The working people will get the shaft. What will the shareholders lose? What will the CEO lose? An investment, some bonuses... but not their livelihood.
Let me rephrase what I said. My point was that if there is a business disaster such as a bunch of planes crashing, an accounting scandal (basically anything short of going bankrupt) it is the CFO/CEOs that are cut off at the head. When I worked at a large national pharmaceutical company it was the President/CEO who took the fall for problems internally. This is what I meant by them having the assumed risk/liability.
You are correct in saying that bankrupcy only hurts the workers, not the execs.
"After talks broke off late Friday, union negotiator Jim Young said the mechanics would rather see the airline go into bankruptcy than agree to Northwest's terms. AMFA represents about 11 percent of Northwest's 40,000 employees."
There ya go, in black and white. So instead of saving 80% of there members jobs and asking there mechanics to take wage concession to what $57,000 a year. all 4400 will lose there jobs. Boy I wish I could pay this unions dues every month. But hey look on the bright side, there will be 3000 jobs to fill with minnesota workers dying for a job.
Anonymous, there's no doubt that Northworst wants to break the union, but they have restrictions. I'm not sure if Taft-Hartley trumpst the Railway Labor Act (cognoscenti please advise), but this is what the law allows: "Carriers can lawfully replace strikers engaged in a lawful strike, but may not, however, discharge them, except for misconduct, or eliminate their jobs to retaliate against them for striking. It is not clear whether the employer can discharge workers for striking before exhausting all of the RLA's bargaining and mediation processes.
The employer must also allow strikers to replace replacements hired on a temporary basis and permanent replacements who have not completed the training required before they can become active employees. The employer may, on the other hand, allow less senior employees who crossed the picket line to keep the jobs they were given after crossing the line, even if the seniority rules in effect before the strike would have required the employer to reassign their jobs to returning strikers."
Anyway your sarcastic bit about paying union dues is sad, evidence that kids should learn some labor history. It's really disgusting to see an attempt at fair collective bargaining be portrayed as "racketeering" by "greedy assholes" when clearly NWA management is now just trying to circumvent the whole bargaining process and tell workers "it's my way or the highway". Fuck that: let's just hope no scab-maintained planes fall out of the sky. (Speaking of which, remember the days when crossing a picket line was one of the worst things a human could ever do? I wonder what these NWA scabs see inside their souls these days.)
The double standard here is sickening.
Union members, fighting to get the best possible wage (in this case, for a 15% pay cut, along with hundreds of layoffs) are greedy assholes.
Management executives, fighting to get the best possible salary are principled businessmen.
So much for the categorical imperative.
Cheap labor conservatives have never been so blatant.
Here is the low down on the RLA that I solicited from a railroad lawyer.
As for the RLA, the biggest thing to realized is that it comes from an age where shutting down the railroad with a strike would be a huge disruption in commerce; there was simply no other way to bring food to cities or grain to market or coal to run industry. And because of the monopolistic ways railroads work, a huge disruption it could be. So the unions got the right to organize, got some pretty generous job protection legislation, and the government got the right to make the employees stay on the job even without a contract.
That's why they have the 30-day cooling off period, that's why grievance and arbitration is so important, that's why it takes years to negotiate the contract, and that's why a Presidential Emergency Board can be implemented to get them back to work. The last major freight railroad strike (outside of the Soo Line in 1992) lasted all of 17 minutes, I think, before the first president Bush sent them back to work and Congress eventually shoved a deal down their throats on crew size issues that we still litigate from time to time. When it's just one carrier, the strike can go on, but I doubt we'll see a major disruption because there will be a PEB appointed.
When the airlines were first becoming unionized, I think that the reason they were placed under the RLA rather than the NLRA was because the need to move people and goods was seen as too important to let a strike drag on and disrupt other segments of the economy.
In essence, the rules are the way they are because the potential ripple effects of a railroad strike are national in scope, while the effects of a strike elsewhere in the economy would be more limited.
Anyway your sarcastic bit about paying union dues is sad, evidence that kids should learn some labor history.
Ok mark, a little history for ya. My gradfather was a vp for the minn. chapter of the AFL-CIO. He was a highly respected man because he believed that the companies future was as important as the workers future. He believed in a fair days wage for a fair days work. he had 6 kids, one was my mother. Every one of them worked union jobs out of highschool. I also worked a union job out of highschool. 1981 to be exact. The only family member to stay with the union was my mom, 40 years at the BN Railroad. All the rest of us went to college. I don't know how old you guys are but my mom and her coworkers were getting ready to go on strike at the BN. Well the president order them back to work without a contract. Did you know your champion of the working man Paul Wellstone voted yes to force them back to work? Just a little history for ya!!! My family bleed DFL. 80% of our family voted for Bush this last election. The union today is about strongarming and if they don't get what they want bringing the company to it's knees. They could care less about the company. Mark, you read about it and talk like your a god damn expert. I and my family have lived and breathed it for 50 years.
There is a contract on the table, there are jobs to be worked, the union has said no thank you.
Who's trying to break the union???
Firing 53% of the workers and giving the rest a 25% pay cut isn't a contract, it's a sham.
Any union that agreed to that is dead. If you were a mechanic, why would you support a union that sold you out? How could you vote for a contract that would eliminate your job?
Why should they give a shit about a company that is tossing them to the curb?
Better to go out fighting. Northwest is going to replace these good Minnesota tax-paying jobs with good Malaysian tax paying jobs.
I say screw you selfish bastards . Reason I just came home from work Where 1500 ford employees are losing there job . Then an northwest dick comes up and says he just bought a toyota camery.I work at ford an dwe do build good quality cars & Trucks, And for those of you that say that is one northwest employee look in your parking lot & I SAY FUCKYOU NORTHWEST EMPLOYEES NOSYMPATHY KISSMYASS
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