 U.S. airline ticket prices rise 4.1 percent
Associated Press
Labor disputes continued to dog three of the nation’s largest airlines yesterday.
Flight attendants at American Airlines voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if a contract agreement can’t be reached with the carrier, while United Airlines took the standoff with its mechanics to a federal appeals court in hopes of barring a work slowdown.
Meanwhile, representatives of Northwest Airlines and its mechanics union will return to Washington to meet with federal mediators March 7, just five days before the union would be free to strike.
American and the union representing its 23,000 flight attendants have been negotiating a new contract for more than two years. Members of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants have periodically picketed to express displeasure at the airline’s offer for pay, retirement benefits and work rules.
Negotiations broke off in December and yesterday, union officials said, a rank-and-file vote on a potential strike was favored by 96 percent of the more than 90 percent of the membership that voted.
"We don’t want to go on strike, but we won’t settle for a substandard contract," said union president John Ward. Fort Worth, Texas-based American issued a statement saying a strike is far from certain.
"We believe our flight attendants deserve an industry-leading contract package, and that’s what we’re prepared to provide," said Sue Oliver, American’s head negotiator and senior vice president of human resources.
A walkout at American, the nation’s second-largest carrier, could be months away — if ever — and legally could occur only with the tacit approval of federal mediators. Two days of talks are scheduled to begin next Friday.
For Northwest mechanics, the ongoing negotiations could be further complicated by President Bush. Bush said this month he would create a presidential emergency board to force Northwest mechanics to keep working for at least 60 more days if they can’t reach a deal with the airline by March 12, when a mandatory 30-day "cooling-off period" ends.
Since the strike countdown started, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association repeatedly had asked Northwest to resume talks without mediators, but the airline had said it would go back to the table only when called by the National Mediation Board.
Elsewhere, United Airlines, still stalled at the bargaining table, took its mechanics back to court yesterday in another attempt to win a restraining order it says is needed to block a work slowdown.
United attorney Robert Siegel told the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the mechanics, encouraged by their union, are continuing to disrupt operations — and travelers’ plans — by slowing down maintenance work and writing up unnecessary repairs.
[back to top] |
