Northwest can void flight attendant contract

updated 8:10 p.m. ET June 29, 2006

A bankruptcy judge said Thursday that Northwest Airlines Corp. can throw out its union contract with flight attendants if two more weeks of talks don’t produce a deal.

“We reserve the right to strike” if that happens, union spokeswoman Karen Schultz said.

The memorandum of law from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper was a major victory for Northwest.

For the rank and file, the only bright spot was Gropper’s decision that Northwest could impose the terms rejected by an 80 percent vote of flight attendants earlier this month — not the harsher terms Northwest had offered earlier in negotiations, as the airline had wanted.

Gropper wrote that talks have gone on nearly long enough.

“Unless real progress is made in the negotiations, however, any additional delay would be inappropriate, as it would fail to recognize the Debtors financial plight and their need to move their Chapter 11 cases toward a conclusion,” he wrote.

Flight attendants and the airline met for just over an hour on Thursday but failed to reach a deal. Northwest has claimed the right to impose terms even without a judge’s order, and its promise not to do that was to expire on Friday.

Gropper ordered the airline to propose a formal order within three days, and it appeared that the two-week clock would not begin running until after that. In addition, flight attendants have promised to give 15-days notice of any plans to strike, pushing any potential strike back into early August. The airline has said a strike would be illegal.

Gropper urged the two sides to keep talking.

He said he was “requiring the parties to make one last effort to reach a ratifiable agreement. Nevertheless, it is clear that the process of negotiation cannot drag on indefinitely.”

The union said it has met the company’s demand for $195 million a year in cost savings through wage cuts and work-rule changes and other concessions. But the union has recently pushed to limit management bonuses, stock options “and other monetary excesses to protect our airline’s treasury,” according to a written statement issued after Gropper’s decision.

PFAA President Guy D. Meek said Northwest is “driving a larger wedge between management and loyal, hardworking employees. Nevertheless, given the judge’s order, we will continue to negotiate for these changes, in an attempt to bring reason to NWA’s board room.”

Mike Becker, Northwest’s senior vice president of human resources and labor relations, said Thursday the agreement the flight attendants rejected was the result of extensive negotiations involving substantial compromise on both sides.

Gary Chaison, an industrial relations expert at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., said Northwest has less leverage than it might appear, because of the union’s strike threat.

He said that just because Northwest has won the legal right to impose terms soon doesn’t make it a good idea. It could miscalculate on the seriousness of the union’s strike threat, or on the damage to employee morale by imposing terms.

“I hope they’re listening to their labor relations experts and not their lawyers in this one,” he said.

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