Home > Statement of Protest and Solidarity with Northwest Strikers

Statement of Protest and Solidarity with Northwest Strikers

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 25 August 2005
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Un/Employment Strikes USA

Statement of Protest and Solidarity with Northwest Strikers

Submitted to Portside by Peter Rachleff

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Sisters and Brothers:

As I am sure you know, 4,400 mechanics, cleaners, and custodians represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association have been on strike for 4 days at Northwest Airlines. The issues they are facing will soon face all of us. They have dug in for a substantial fight and they intend to win, despite NWA’s "preparations" which have been lauded on page one of the New York Times. Despite the clarity of the issues, the leadership of the International Association of Machinists and the AFL-CIO has been determined to undermine this strike because they blame AMFA for "raiding" the IAM at NWA and other airlines in the late 1990s.

I do not have the time or space here to go into an explanation of why and how the NWA mechanics turned to AMFA, nor do I propose to offer a point-by- point
validation of AMFA’s history and their approach to trade unionism. These are worthy issues and they deserve careful and considered debate. But, at the
moment, 4,400 mechanics, custodians, and cleaners are in the fight of their lives and they need support. NWA management’s strategy rests on the assumption that AMFA has been, is, and will remain isolated. It is crucial
that unions, labor activists, and progressives respond quickly and loudly to challenge this assumption. I am offering you the "solidarity statement" below as a way to announce your support of these workers.

Last night, activists in the Twin Cities organized an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Hormel strike. More than a dozen veterans of the strike
(which occurred in Austin, 100 miles away) attended,
amdist a crowd of about 100 local union activists. The
parallels between the Hormel strike and the Northwest
Airlines strike are stunning, from the employers’
determination to bust the union and impose substantial
wage, benefit, and workrule cuts, to the unwillingness
of the "leaders" of the labor movement to step up and
support strikers. Leaders and rank-and-file members of
AMFA Local 33 also attended, and several spoke about
their struggle. Activists from the flight attendants’
union (PFAA) and IAM Local 1833 (NWA) also expressed
their solidarity and informed us about what is
happening on the job itself during the strike, even
among workers who have crossed AMFA’s picket lines.

When a coffee can was passed in the audience, more than
$1200 was collected! Here in the Twin Cities, we are
convinced that THIS IS A STRIKE THAT CAN BE WON. But it
is critical that unions, union activists, and
progressives stand with AMFA and its striking members.
Here in the Twin Cities, supporters of the strikers are
pressing their union leaders to sign on to the
statement below. We are also organizing a formal
support committee and organizing a food bank. Please
sign on to the statement below and circulate it to
others to sign.

Please reply to me at rachleff@macalester.edu.

Love and Solidarity,
Peter Rachleff
Professor of History
Macalester College
St. Paul, Minnesota

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A STATEMENT OF PROTEST AND SOLIDARITY

As union leaders and activists, we want to make it
clear that we stand against the behavior of Northwest
Airlines management and with the workers of Northwest
Airlines and their unions as they seek economic
justice.

For too many years the management of Northwest Airlines — and other U.S. corporations — has demanded that workers give more hours, more effort, and more of their lives to their jobs while receiving reduced
compensation, less security, and less respect. At the
same time, management has taken home fat compensation
packages, stock options, bonuses, and golden
parachutes. NWA management is now in the midst of
spending, by their own admission, more than $100
million to bust the mechanics’ union. They are
recuiting hastily trained scabs and employing the
infamous union-busting Vance Security company to
intimidate the hard-working men and women who have
given decades of their lives to Northwest.

NWA management has demanded that mechanics allow the
contracting-out of the 53% of their work that remains
since management already contracted out 38% of it.

Fewer than one-fourth of the mechanics employed in
2000 will continue to have jobs. For those who remain,
management demands a 26% wage cut and the emptying of
their underfunded defined-benefit pensions into 401K
plans tied to the stock market. NWA management has
demanded that flight attendants undergo a 40% cut in
their overall compensation. They are seeking similar
cuts from other workers and, if they are able to force
the mechanics and the flight attendants to accept these
cuts, these other workers — pilots, baggage handlers,
ticket agents, clerical workers, and others — will
have little base from which to resist. The flying
public will also have many reasons to question the
safety of NWA flights. NWA management’s behavior is all
too familiar. It mirrors the actions of Hormel, the
Detroit newspapers, Caterpillar, Staley, Delphi Auto
Parts, Enron, and United Airlines. It also sets the
stage for other corporate employers to demand that
their workers and unions allow expanded outsourcing
of work, accept slashed wages and benefits, and give up
the pensions that they have sacrificed for over many
years.

This must stop. These actions by NWA management,
combined with their abuse of the trust of Minnesota
citizens, tax-payers, and state government, make them a
suitable poster child for the labor movement’s renewed
efforts to educate, organize, and mobilize all
Americans — native-born and immigrant, blue collar and
white collar, manufacturing and service, women and men,
union members and non-union members. All of us need to
say "NO!" to this kind of behavior.

NO to union-busting! NO to corporate greed! NO to a race to the
bottom of the economic ladder! We union leaders and
activists stand against Northwest Airlines’ behavior
and we stand with Northwest’s workers and their unions
in their struggle for economic justice.

Forum posts

  • What is wrong with your Airline industry. In Europe tickets are cheaper and planes are younger. Also the make huge profits - f. e. Lufthansa, Air France - even with higher costs they spend on staff.
    Hmm, they should tell you where the stashed the money.