David Field WASHINGTON DC
A widely predicted US airline labour crisis has not happened, though the prospect remains of another summer of sporadic and possibly illegal worker protests.
The intervention of President George W. Bush to avert for 60 days an industrial action against Northwest Airlines by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which now cannot legally act before10 May at the earliest, has set the tone. The union is seeking its first contract at Northwest.
The president's action, the first such move before an airline strike had actually begun, has sent a signal to unions at other airlines, perhaps encouraging them to step back from the brink and instead return to the often dilatory negotiating process. At Delta Air Lines, government mediators have drawn out the process by refusing to release the airline or its Air Line Pilots Association union into a 30-day cooling off period. Talks between the two resumed in mid-March.
Delta chief executive Leo Mullin says that the president's action at Northwest was "customer-oriented" and suggested that Bush would step in again at Delta, although there has been Delta has "no specific assurances" he will. Under US transport-labour law, the 30-day countdown would begin if the National Mediation Board offered to arbitrate the dispute and then either the airline or the union declined its offer of arbitration.
But the board has not made any such offer, effectively mooting the 1 April strike date the pilots had announced with great fanfare. The Delta pilot union has been negotiating toward a new contract since summer 2000.
At United Airlines, a federal court said the International Association of Machinists must be barred from any slowdown. A lower court judge had earlier decided that an order would not be effective in keeping machinists from slowing down operations by writing up excessive numbers of mechanical problems on planes.
After the wide publicity given to summer 2000 flight delays and cancellations, when some United pilots refused overtime, even a low-level mechanics campaign can have the effect of driving away passengers. Some analysts believe United has yet to regain all the passengers who have avoided it since last year.
The possibility also remains that Association of Flight Attendants membership at United will begin random flight interruptions this month under its CHAOS (Create Havoc Around Our System) campaign. Although courts are split on the legality of CHAOS, it is not an action that the president could halt. The CHAOS tactic, which the flight attendant union has patented, targets specific flights or flights on specific routes for cancellation, sometimes with advance public notice.
Both the United unions are concerned about job losses if United wins approval to take over US Airways. The machinists are negotiating a new contract while the flight attendants are negotiating an interim pay raise.
Source: Airline Business
