Delta raises may create friction on union front

Delta Air Lines executives late Tuesday granted raises of 3 to 4 percent to their nonunion employees. When those pay increases take effect on Jan. 1, their unionized counterparts at Northwest Airlines will be getting pay hikes of 1 to 1.5 percent.

That difference is one more issue that Delta, which acquired Northwest last month, must grapple with as it tries to blend the largely nonunion Delta workers with the highly unionized Northwest employees.

The smaller raises for the Northwest employees were negotiated by their labor unions during bankruptcy, and now the uneven raises have drawn criticism from the heads of Northwest's flight attendant and ground workers unions.

Delta CEO Richard Anderson has said Delta cannot award pay raises to Northwest's union employees while union representation issues are unresolved.

In a Tuesday employee memo, Anderson and Ed Bastian, Delta's president and Northwest's CEO, said they have encouraged the unions to "begin quickly addressing representation issues so that pay and benefits packages for all employees of the new Delta can be aligned."

The Delta executives have pledged to bring the pay of Delta employees up to an "industry standard" rate of pay by the end of 2010.

Meanwhile, Tuesday's announcement is likely to spark immediate labor conflict.

One company, two workforces

The Jan. 1 pay raise is the second in less than a year for Delta's nonunion workers. In July, when oil prices hit a record high, Delta's executives moved forward with a 3 percent pay hike for Delta workers.

Most nonunion Delta employees will see a 3 percent raise on Jan. 1, while mechanics and flight training procedures instructors will get 4 percent raises.

Northwest's workers had been told by Anderson Thursday that they would be ineligible for a Delta raise planned for Jan. 1, prompting protest letters to Anderson Monday from top leaders of Northwest's flight attendants and ground workers unions.

Stephen Gordon, an International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers leader, wrote that "we expect our members to receive wage increases at the same time and in the same amounts as comparable Delta Air Lines' employee groups."

Under their contracts, the Northwest attendants are scheduled to get a 1 percent raise on Jan. 1, while the ground workers and mechanics will get a 1.5 percent increase.

In a Monday interview, Bastian said, "Our goal is to bring all of the employees into a single pay and compensation philosophy and package. We are not looking to divide the workers at all." After the merger closed, Delta awarded stock in the new company to Northwest and Delta employees.

This year, the Northwest and Delta pilots negotiated a joint contract, which brought Northwest pilots up to Delta pay levels. The new contract includes a 5 percent pay raise next year for the entire pilot group.