NWA Caves in

NWA attendants reveal deal's terms The agreement includes sick pay and work-rule improvements for the airline's 8,200 flight attendants.

Northwest Airlines flight attendants would receive higher sick-leave pay and 600 "early out" severance packages under a tentative agreement that the attendants union negotiated with the airline.

The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) released a summary of the agreement on Friday night. The labor deal will be submitted to the carrier's 8,200 flight attendants for a ratification vote.

Not a word about hourly pay. Only about holding time and sick pay. Those are small ticket items affecting a small number of people. Looks like AFA caved in again.

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Since the total concession amount stayed the same ($195M?), then by definition the changes would just be categorical. There's are many ways to come up with the same number, but when you must arrive at the same total dollar amount, then naturally it's just moving around the dollars to different pay types, which affects different FA's in varying degrees.

Either that, or you do the same amount of work with fewer FA's and have less of an hourly pay reduction, which was attempted in TA1 with the outsourcing of the Pacific flying and was imposed with the increase in the monthly max (or line value minumum, whichever term you prefer).

The FA's have, from the beginning, had the freedom to choose how to get to the $195M, but finding the right mix of concessions that is palatable to the majority would seem like a monumental task.

It seems to me that the AFA did the only thing they could do with the circumstances they were given. They put up a good fight through the courts, and alas, the only option remaining in order to ensure the $18K claim per FA was to accept the only number NWA would/could agree to.
 

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