SCABS, STRIKEBREAKERS KEEP NORTHWEST FLYING

SCABS, STRIKEBREAKERS KEEP NORTHWEST FLYING

WASHINGTON POST - Northwest Airlines Corp. encountered picket lines and
some flight delays as it weathered the first day of a strike by its
4,400 mechanics and maintenance workers. The first major airline strike
in seven years has set the stage for a confrontation that could reshape
labor relations in a struggling industry. The airline unions, once a
dominant force, have lost much of their power as their members have had
to sacrifice wages and jobs repeatedly to keep the carriers afloat. With
the industry in dire condition, the balance of power appears to be
shifting away from organized labor to airline executives.

Northwest was able to maintain operations largely because its other
labor groups, representing pilots, flight attendants and baggage
handlers, ignored the strikers and reported to work. Airline officials
claimed victory yesterday, saying 14 months of preparations for the
walkout were paying off. They added that no further negotiations with
the union were planned. . .

Northwest prepared for the walkout by lining up 1,300 replacement
mechanics, mostly workers laid off from other airlines who were willing
to work for lower wages. It also arranged for lower-paid contract
workers to perform other jobs such as aircraft cleaning.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001238.html


MICHELINE MAYNARD, NY TIMES - Northwest's plan to use temporary workers
in place of striking members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal
Association took 18 months to create, company executives said, and it
required extensive analysis that began on the tarmac at each of its
airports. It also required the cooperation of other unions and the
federal government - and even consultation with the White House.

The strategy passed its initial test over a light weekend of flights,
but its success or failure will become clearer this week as the airline
resumes its normal weekday schedule. . .

"This gives all of the opportunities now to the companies and to the
replacement workers, and it makes it very, very grim for strikers," said
David Gregory, a labor law professor at St. John's University in New
York. As relations with the mechanics' union deteriorated, Northwest
developed two goals, executives said. Along with staying in the air, it
wanted to cut costs by eliminating 2,000 jobs and embracing the
efficient maintenance systems used by JetBlue Airways and other low-fare
airlines. . . Over the last 18 months, the airline analyzed every job
represented by the mechanics' union at every airport and calculated the
skills required to fix each of its planes. It then decided how many of
those workers it actually needed and what kind of replacements it would
require in the event of a strike. Northwest officials at each airport
were given plans at the beginning of the year spelling out how the
airline wanted jobs to be performed. Then, three months ago, the airline
began hiring replacement workers, who received extensive classroom and
hands-on training in Tucson.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/business/22northwest.html

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POLITICS
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BUSH FIRST PRESIDENT IN 75 YEARS NOT TO VISIT SAN FRANCISCO

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Presidential visits to San Francisco have been
a tradition since Rutherford Hayes lunched at the Cliff House in 1880.
Presidents arrived by stagecoach and jet. One was shot at. Another died.
In all, 20 presidents have visited the city, including every chief
executive for the past 75 years.

Except George W. Bush. Now in the fifth year of his presidency, Bush
has yet to set a foot in the city that was home to his childhood
baseball idol, Willie Mays, and shows no inclination to do so. The White
House is planning a California visit by the end of the month, and San
Francisco is not on the itinerary.

San Francisco, with roughly three-quarters of a million residents, is
the only city among the nation's 25 largest that has not been host for a
Bush presidential visit. If he avoids San Francisco for the rest of his
term, he will be the first president not to visit since Calvin Coolidge,
and only the second in more than a century.

The reason seems plain to even casual observers of American politics.

San Francisco is as politically, culturally and geographically distant
from the president as anyplace in America. Eighty-four percent of the
city's voters cast ballots against Bush in 2000, and 85 percent voted
against him in 2004. The city has voted Democratic in 12 consecutive
presidential elections. "He'd be crazy to come,'' observed Gladys
Hansen, curator of the Museum of the City of San Francisco, which has
documented many of the city's 62 presidential visits.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/21/MNGA5EB32N1.DTL


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SALT LAKE CITY MAYOR CALLS FOR ANTI-BUSH PROTEST

SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE - While Salt Lake's convention industry pondered
the long-term economic impact of Mayor Rocky Anderson's call for
protests against President Bush's visit Monday, the organizers of a
national veterans gathering took the inflammatory rhetoric in stride.
"The president has been to all our conventions except one. And at every
convention, there's been demonstrators," said Veterans of Foreign Wars
spokesman Jerry Newberry. "It's nothing new to us." Anderson sent out an
e-mail to activists last week, calling for "the biggest demonstration
this state has ever seen" to greet Bush when he arrives Monday to speak
to the convention at the Salt Palace Convention Center.

An anti-war rally is scheduled Monday at Pioneer Park. Anderson, a
Democrat who emphasizes the protests would be against Bush, not the VFW
or veterans, encouraged participation from a spectrum of opposition
groups. "Don't let him come to Utah and not see huge opposition. . . .
Let the Bush administration - and the world - hear from Salt Lake City."


http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2960215

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LABOR
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WILL STERN'S PLAN WORK?

HARRY KELBER, LABOR EDUCATOR - [Andy] Stern carried through with his
threat to disaffiliate and build a "new and stronger" rival labor
federation, the Change to Win Coalition. However, he was able to end up
with only seven unions, including his own, in the new coalition. . . How
can Stern create 15 mega-unions with the seven unions in the Change to
Win Coalition? If the mega-union idea is no longer feasible, what's left
of Stern's strategic organizing plans? How will the seven unions that
represent essentially different industries coordinate their activities
in multi union organizing campaigns? Stern has a lot of explaining to do
to those unions that originally supported his reasons for quitting the
AFL-CIO.

Stern's insistence that unions be assigned a "core" industry runs into
another basic problem that involves both the Teamsters and the UFCW. The
Teamsters have been organizing in 19 trades and industries. They
include: airlines, bakery and laundry, car haul, dairy, food processing,
freight, graphic communications, industrial trades, motion pictures and
theatricals, newspapers, magazines and electronics, parcel and small
packages, ports, public services, rail, tank haul, trade shows and
convention centers, and warehouses.

Does Stern think that Hoffa is going to stop organizing in this broad
range of trades and industries and focus exclusively on the union¹s core
industry, transportation? What would happen to the tens of thousands of
workers in those industries who are members of teamsters' local unions?

The same problem exists within the United Food and Commercial Workers.
The 1.4 million-union has several; hundred thousands of members working
in retail, meatpacking, food processing, manufacturing, health care,
public service, chemical, distillery, garment and textile industries.
Will the UFCW be asked to give up its organizing efforts in these
industries and stick to a core jurisdiction, like supermarkets?

Stern's ill-conceived and doomed restructuring proposals, which he had
insisted were needed to reinvigorate the AFL-CIO, became, ironically, a
factor that precipitated the split within the labor movement.

http://www.laboreducator.org/restruct.htm

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WORDS
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"Bush woke up this morning, saw his shadow and now -- six more weeks of
vacation." --Jay Leno