[Peace-discuss] More on NMA strike

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Here's a statement of solidarity with Northwest workers on
strike, from Monthly Review magazine.  It's at
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/amfa2005.html>. --CGE]


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.

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