Big news and yet more losses for workers in America today as the mechanics at Northwest Airlines have gone on strike.
The union representing these workers, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, has said that the strike comes after the airline bargained in bad faith with a clear objective: bust the union in an attempt to deeply hurt workers. The airline's "last, best offer" would have forced about half of the union's Northwest members to lose their jobs -- and Northwest's workforce of mechanics is already just half of what it was in 2001.
Northwest says that it needs to cut labor costs in order to be competitive.
I say that Northwest has a history of attacking its own workers. The last major US airline strike happened in 1998, and then it was Northwest's pilots who felt the squeeze. While Northwest might need to cut labor costs, we need to send a message that this kind of drastic, inhumane slashing of basic health benefits and the mass layoff of workers is not acceptable.
Northwest, working hard to make the union irrelevant, has hired more than 1500 scab workers. Whether they will be able to safely work on Northwest's fleet of aircraft remains to be seen, but I'm a bit nervous as well as angry that anyone would take a union job. Let's show Northworst that we won't support their union busting.
I won't be flying Northwest anytime soon.
northworst...northwest...oh i get it. hahahahahaha you stupid jackass.
anyways, what's crazy is that with all the talk of airlines going under after 9-11, it turned out that american could be profitable by working with its union to cut costs rather than against them. seems like northwest is on the way to fulfilling your prediction of a major airline going under.
I was a total scab this weekend.
Too bad all my frequent flyer miles are with NWA... :(