Attendants at Northwest Talk of Easter Strike

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — The union representing 6,700 flight attendants for Northwest Airlines said Thursday that the contract the airline plans to impose April 1 is unacceptable and warned travelers about the possibility of a strike during spring break.

“Northwest intends to force a strike,” Dennis Quinn, the Teamsters’ national strike coordinator, told a news conference.

Quinn stopped short of saying flight attendants would strike. “We are keeping our options open for the peak travel season which is approaching,” he said.

This is a continuation of the threat the union has made since a Feb. 26 strike deadline passed, he said. Since then, the attendants have been free to strike but have not done so, and the airline had been free to impose its latest contract offer.

“However, as the travel increases over spring break and Easter, it is to our advantage to keep ready for a strike. We have not set a firm strike deadline at this time,” Quinn added.

While the union has made this threat before without taking any action, Quinn said: “It is moving into a situation where there are no other alternatives but a work stoppage, and that it is a very good reason for you to indicate, yes, we are serious.”

Meanwhile, a taped message on a Teamsters hot line for flight attendants criticized the contract and said the company’s move to impose it did not end the union’s right to strike.

Pay Scale Issue

“Northwest assumes you will accept this substandard contract. Please show them how wrong they are,” Dottie Malinsky, president of Teamsters Local 2747, which represents the Minneapolis unit, told attendants on the taped message.

“This company action will backfire on them. Nickel and diming the employees is not going to change the bad management at Northwest,” she said.

Terry Erskine, vice president of law and labor relations for the Eagan, Minn.-based airline, announced Wednesday that Northwest could not allow the situation with the union to continue and will impose the contract April 1.

Erskine, who said he would not rule out making changes in the contract before then if the union comes forward with suggestions, said the airline had not talked with the union about its plan to impose it.

Claudia Bushbaum, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 2747, said the airline’s offer to negotiate on the contract was meaningless. Northwest is unwilling to bend on the issue of when to elevate lower-paid employees, who are on what the company and union call a B pay scale, to higher pay scales, she said.

“If the company does not come back to the table and negotiate and move off of their position of the extended B pay scale, there is all likelihood we will strike when the time is right,” Bushbaum said. “They’re willing to sit across the table from you and say they’re going to negotiate, but sitting across the table from you and saying ‘no’ is not negotiations. And that is exactly the way Northwest negotiates when we talk about the B pay scale,” she said.

Under the new contract, Northwest says union membership would no longer be a condition of employment. Bushbaum, who called that a “union-busting tactic,” said Teamsters’ lawyers were reviewing the legality of this action.

Erskine said Wednesday that, if attendants decide to strike now, the airline is prepared to hire permanent replacements.