"The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks changed everything"About 1,200 union jobs have been eliminated since mechanics and plane cleaners walked off the job three days ago, Northwest Airlines said Monday, as it uses the strike to impose many of the cost-cutting changes it demanded during months of contract negotiations.
Northwest has closed 29 of 32 maintenance bases at airports across the country -- all except Detroit, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said independent companies, with less expensive nonunion workers, have been hired to fix planes at those airports and to clean its planes at every airport.
That eliminates the jobs of about 400 mechanics and 800 plane cleaners, who are among the 4,400 members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association walking picket lines.
Ebenhoch said the airline is considering the legally thorny question of whether to make the 1,200 replacement mechanics it hired to keep flying through the strike into permanent employees.
http://www.freep.com/money/business/nwa-bar123e_20050823.htm====
Discount cards that Northwest managers gave employees for a job well done have become a picket-line symbol of how little the airline values its striking plane cleaners.
The cards say "Thanks for Your Hard Work," and are worth $3 off at restaurants like Taco Bell and Quiznos in the McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metro Airport.
"The recognition coupons ... are used by members of the Detroit management team to recognize a job well done. They are used with all of our Detroit employee groups and distributed by supervisors," Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said Sunday. But in a nice gesture gone wrong, at least one Northwest manager continued to give plane cleaners the thank-you cards through their last shift before the strike began Friday....
Rhonda Traylor said she refused a card offered to her. "I thought it was a slap in the face," said Traylor, 43, of Detroit, who has worked as a plane cleaner for 10 years.When workers brought the cards to a Friday night rally, they became a symbol of Northwest's penny-pinching ways. "How insulting after 16 years?" said aircraft cleaner Laura Byrd, 35, of Belleville, after receiving a coupon on her last shift Thursday....
http://www.freep.com/money/business/card22e_20050822.htm
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
