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Mesaba Airlines Plan Could Mean Near Poverty Wages for Workers |
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Flight attendants at Mesaba Airlines today are telling travelers and the general public that the airline’s plan to impose wage and benefit cuts could bring their wages to near poverty level.
The informational pickets at Detroit Metro Airport, Memphis International Airport and the U.S. District Courthouse in Minneapolis also are protesting a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge’s Oct. 24 rule barring members of the Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) from exercising their right to strike.
Says Tim Evenson, president of Mesaba Master Executive Council:
Mesaba management and the bankruptcy court have already conspired to destroy our contract and now they are denying us the right to use the only tool we have to protect our careers and our livelihoods. This is yet another example of how the legal system fails to protect the average citizen and continues to cater to corporate America. But I have a warning for the executives who thought this was a good idea: this fight isn’t over. Our crusade to protect our careers has only begun. We will continue to fight this decision not only for Mesaba flight attendants, but for all flight attendants who will walk in our footsteps.
In an angry response to the judge’s no-strike ruling, Air Line Pilots (ALPA) President Capt. Duane Woerth says the decision undermines fundamental worker rights.
The court’s decision exposes just why the United States—the home of democracy—is on the Human Rights Watch List. In no country in the developed world have basic workers’ freedoms been so completely undermined. The Bankruptcy Court, with its decision, is trampling on the basic rights of workers and the foundation upon which this nation was built. ALPA will spare no effort or resource to reverse this decision and protect our pilots’ fundamental rights.
Bankruptcy Judge Gregory Kishel is the same judge who earlier this year blocked Northwest Airlines flight attendants from exercising their right to strike. Northwest is the parent company of Mesaba.
On Oct. 17, Kishel gave Mesaba permission to break its contracts with its unions—the AFA-CWA, ALPA and the unaffiliated Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association—and impose the wage and benefit cuts as part of its bankruptcy plans. The airline threatened to make those cuts today. But the airline has delayed the cuts as talks continue, says an AFA-CWA spokesperson.
In early October, the unions presented a plan to save the airline 15 percent in labor costs through wage, benefit and work rule concessions. Says Evenson:
Management still needs to reach consensual agreement. They have won the right to impose cuts, but if they do, it could be the beginning of the end of the airline. People cannot afford to work for poverty level wages.
The unions have appealed the no-strike ruling, but it could be a lengthy wait for a hearing. After Northwest imposed pay and benefit cuts on its flight attendants earlier this summer, Kishel barred the AFA-CWA from exercising its right to strike through its unique CHAOS™ (Create Havoc Around Our System™) strategy of targeted work actions using random, unannounced strikes. The appeal of the ruling won’t be heard until Nov. 28.
BTW, Northwest is the same airline that told its workers that one way to deal with the impending wage and benefit cuts was to try a little dumpster diving or just to move someplace cheaper.
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