business

Flight attendant Danita Kelly understands that Northwest Airlines needs to restructure its costs to emerge from bankruptcy, but she doesn't think workers should have to endure concessions for 5½ years.

Kelly, a 60-year-old Northwest flight attendant from Seattle, was part of the lopsided majority that voted against her union's proposed contract with the airline. While the two sides are headed toward a court showdown, Kelly remains hopeful that a new deal can be forged that attendants would find more palatable.

"Northwest does not want an angry workforce conducting business with the public," Kelly said. "Negotiations would be in the best interests of both parties."

Today, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper will meet with attorneys from both sides. Leaders of the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA) want renewed bargaining, but Northwest is expected to ask Gropper for a speedy decision on its motion to allow it to cancel the current attendant contract.

Throughout the bankruptcy case, Gropper has pushed Northwest and its unions to find common ground. So far, no judge has presided over a major airline bankruptcy in which pay rates and work rules are imposed on union workers.

Gropper could hear additional arguments from the parties next week and then issue his decision soon afterward.

Kelly was among a number of Northwest attendants who responded to a Star Tribune request to explain their votes on the contract agreement that was defeated Tuesday by a 4-1 ratio.

Many stressed that the long duration of the contract was a major issue in their decision, because they want to avoid being trapped in low wages while watching the airline's finances recover. They also want people at all levels of the company to share equally in cutbacks.

"Northwest will begin making profits from our harsh sacrifices, and management will continue to get bonus after bonus, while the hard-working, dedicated flight attendants are under these harsh pay cuts," said one Twin Cities-based attendant who voted no.

(Almost all of the attendants who shared their comments with the Star Tribune did so on the condition that they not be identified, saying they feared the airline might discipline workers who give unauthorized interviews.)

Another flight attendant, who is based in Detroit, said she voted no because the tentative agreement would have done away with or significantly altered work rules that had been negotiated over decades. She said that she's already taken a second job to make ends meet because of the steep drop in her income since temporary cuts took effect at Northwest last November.

In addition to that 21 percent reduction in base pay, PFAA leaders agreed last fall to other cutbacks that would allow Northwest to immediately reach 60 percent of its goal of $195 million in annual savings from the union. For example, extra pay that had gone to pursers was reduced, per diems were cut and payments for short-staffing of flight crews were suspended. In addition, sick pay was reduced.

Attendants argued that the individual pay cuts they faced from the rejected agreement ranged from 30 to 40 percent.

Another issue that raised the ire of flight attendants is the elimination of "ground pay."

Under the current contract, if a flight is delayed for a mechanical reason or bad weather, flight attendants are paid after one hour of the delay. That compensation would have been lost under the tentative agreement.

"No pay while working is a slave in my book," said a male attendant from the Twin Cities.

"Can you imagine sitting on a full airplane ... in a snowstorm and not get paid for it? I don't know anyone who goes to work and doesn't get paid," said a female attendant based in Los Angeles.

In a letter to flight attendants following the contract vote, PFAA President Guy Meek said, "You have made it clear that you must have improvements in areas such as [contract] duration, sick leave, vacation and ground time in order to consider ratification" of another agreement.