My son and I are flying SEA to MSP on the red-eye Monday morning. I'll give a full report then, including my shunning of the NW mechanics as a cross back out their picket line to get to my ride.

In the interim, you can do some spot checks yourself using the Flight & Gate Status feature of http://nwa.com. I did a spot check of MSP/SEA flights this morning, and everything looks peachy! ^

-Alan

Well, but then I would have to believe that driving down workers salaries was good for me and everyone else. And I don't. So I can't. See, it's harder than it looks once you engage the brain in the process.

By the way, I dont' want my post to be taken to say that I think either the management or union is right.. I think both sides have room to compromise. I am not as familar with the NW situation as others, so I don't know what the solution is...

Star Tribune is reporting very few problems (no article link to prevent banishment!). In fact, they say things are supposedly running better today than they have been this last week due to the slowdown practiced by the mechanics. So the replacement mechanics are supposedly clearing out the backlog left by the union mechanics. IMHO, not a very smart strategy to do a bad job your last week. Really lowers expectations for the replacements. How bad does it look that they can do your job better (and cheaper) than you?

It's not as simple as you make it sound. There's so much more to BOTH sides of the story.

Methinks yours makes you blind:

Work & Life: Executives insulated from NWA pension fears
H.J. Cummins, Star Tribune
August 11, 2005 WORKANDLIFE0811
Page: 1 2




One person who doesn't have to worry about the future of his Northwest Airlines pension is former CEO Richard Anderson.

When Anderson left the company last year, he took his pension with him in the form of a check for $3,028,700.

Such lump-sum payments are not available to Northwest mechanics, pilots or other union workers at the airline, who receive one pension from the company.

Anderson's check covered three separate pensions that he received from Northwest: the regular pension plan, his excess pension plan and his supplemental executive retirement plan, or SERP as they're known in the business world.

This is not to pick on Anderson. Top executives at Northwest still have these three pensions, including new CEO Doug Steenland.

This is not even to pick on Northwest. Executive pensions this size are standard across U.S. corporations.

But Northwest's retirement plans, and how they fit into its cost-savings efforts, is a central fairness issue to the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which is heading toward an Aug. 19 strike deadline. Northwest wants to slash worker compensation by $1.1 billion a year and replace traditional pension plans -- which pay a set amount each month -- with a plan that includes a 401(k) match.

Northwest's pension plans for all union and nonunion workers are underfunded by about $3.8 billion. It has warned that it may have to file for bankruptcy protection unless it gets help from both Congress and its unions.

401(k)s replace some pensions

The situation is fluid. At the end of this month, for example, the pensions of salaried workers will be frozen and replaced with 401(k)s. That's what management wants its unions to accept, too, and some have indicated a willingness to negotiate that possibility.

Union workers at Northwest have a pension based on years of service. For AMFA members -- mechanics, custodians and cleaners -- that amounts to $85 a month for every year they work, Local 33 President Ted Ludwig said. A mechanic who retires at 65, after 40 years at Northwest, will collect about $40,000 a year.

Northwest's salaried -- nonunion -- employees have been covered by a regular pension plan that pays them 60 percent of their top 60 consecutive months of work, though the maximum salary for the purposes of calculating a pension is set by the federal government. Last year it was $205,000, or less than half of Steenland's 2004 salary.

Northwest's excess pension plan exists to cover salaries above that $205,000 federal limit. Steenland and three other executives are covered by the excess plan, the company explained in its 2005 proxy statement.

The supplemental plan, or SERP, adds multipliers to boost the pensions for four top executives, the proxy says.

For example, it credits Steenland with 15 years of service for every five he works. It also pays him pension credits at twice the rate applied to regular salaried workers.

The proxy estimates that Steenland's combined pensions, if he retires at 65, will be $947,417 a year.

Northwest declined to say Wednesday whether the additional pension plans for Steenland and other executives will be subject to the freeze that will be imposed on the plans of salaried workers.

Y'all come on over to UA. You (the taxpayer) are already going to be footing the bill for their pension plan, might as well make use of that expenditure!

Waaaaayy OT (and sorry), but what banishment for posting links? I thought the rule was NOT TO POST the entire article but an excerpt and a link

Okay. Would you, if we went back to November of 2003, be willing to stop using your AT&T Wireless phone because they were planning on laying me off and moving my job to India? I told many of my friends who were customers about my plight, and I didn't get a single sympathy churn out of any of my friends in the process! I am gathering that you are pledging that you would have turned in your wireless phone back to AT&T Wireless and gone without... yes?

Since I live in MSP, I am going to continue flying NW. But I admit, I am doing it as a friendly because I am a satisfied NW customer, and I am siding with management on this action as I think management is doing what it needs to in order to keep NW viable and running. If NW folds, I will be sucking it up at the HHH terminal to fly Sun Country, or -- better yet -- to fly AirTran (formerly ValuJet). Not a pretty picture... capiche?

-Alan

Yes, I first heard it more than 20 years ago. At the time, I was working the one and only unionized job I have ever held. It was an eye opening experience for me and I quickly came to realize that many unions exist primarily to protect the slackers more so than anything else. Coffee Break is a very appropriate term for a "Union Man's Dog."

CEO's , CFO's, pilots and and mechanics make the same thing = market wages. Most of them get paid the same as another guy at the same size of company in the same industry - generally speaking.

Except at NW - where the mechanics are making above-market wages. That sitituation always gets corretced, unless you've had your head in the sand for 30 years.

If a CEO doesn't like what he makes, he should go find another job. Same with a CFO, an accountant, an HR manager or sales reps. Or go retrain for something else. A neighbor got laid off from a technology job and retrained as a Physical Therpaist. Loves it. Best thing that ever happened to him.

LTRS seems to think that union memebers are robotical non-thinkers who have no control over their own fate - slave labor whose destiny can only be controlled by others. How condescending. When you work for someone else, you do what your told and you get paid what they decide to pay you - and it's not an entitlement. If you don't like it, leave and do something else.

Same with a pilot or mechanic. Or a sales rep. It's a free country.

Do the NW mechanics still have to pay union dues when they are on strike?

And the point is that these NWA guys really put their time in..........
and were probably promised pensions in their contracts...

the American dream is supposed to be that you work hard for 30 or 40 years , then you get rewarded, not "punched out" of the time clock and deemed "nonessential" !

NW had two rounds of layoffs/furloughs already that reduced the number of AMFA-represented personnel from 9333 to around 4500 as force majure actions based on 9/11, SARS, and Iraq. This contract called for reducing the 4500 or so remaining to around 2200.
AMFA's seal says knowledge, skill, integrity and their slogan is Safety in the air begins with quality maintenance on the ground. While not personally a member of AMFA, those both seem to me as pride in their work and things that would assist a company.
No. That's in the Q&A on www.amfanatl.org.

My SO is jetting around the country today on a few NW flights. So far, no problems or delays in MEM (though the strike affected that hub the least), so perhaps NW is holding their end of the bargin and really trying to show how the strike isn't affecting ops?