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Flight attendants may change unions
Some at NWA want new representation
September 26, 2005
BY JEWEL GOPWANI
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
The flight attendants at Northwest Airlines Inc. have an important choice to make in coming weeks.
Choice of unions
Professional Flight Attendants Association
9,700 members.
Formed in 2003.
Represents only Northwest Airlines flight attendants.
Ousted the Teamsters to represent Northwest employees in 2003.
No major affiliations with other unions, but shares the same legal firm as the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association.
Association of Flight Attendants
46,000 members at 22 airlines; trying to organize Delta and Northwest flight attendants.
Formed in 1945
Part of the Communications Workers of America, which has more than 700,000 members.
Affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
Just as their employer is asking for massive wage and job cuts, there is a push among flight attendants to switch unions.
Some flight attendants are campaigning to leave the 2-year-old independent Professional Flight Attendants Association and join the Association of Flight Attendants, a decades-old union whose members and connections span the airline business.
"I don't think that our current union is prepared for the struggle that we have ahead of us," said Adroomi, a Northwest flight attendant for 28 years, who is leading the drive to collect enough signatures that would force a vote to choose between the two unions.
The PFAA, which represents 9,700 Northwest flight attendants, including more than 3,500 based at Detroit Metro Airport, contends that although it is young, the group is up to the job of negotiating with Northwest and must focus on talks instead of internal strife.
The conflict within the PFAA underscores the divisions within the U.S. labor movement that have already been tested by declining numbers, a bruised economy and corporations demanding more from workers.
Few industries feel the economic burden like the airline business. Battered by rising jet fuel prices and competition from smaller, more efficient carriers that keeps fares low, Northwest has lost $683 million during the first half of the year and expects to be down by more than $1 billion by the end of this month.
The Eagan, Minn.-based carrier is among four major airlines that are restructuring through bankruptcy, where a key target is labor costs, including wages, jobs and pensions.
