Union Thinks So

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) Local 33, serving Northwest and Mesaba Airlines, say that Northwest is overstating the SARS threat in order to continue avoiding obligations in its labor contracts.

Here's how they figure that: in a letter to AMFA officials, Northwest said that because of SARS it is invoking the "force majeure" clause that would release Northwest from contract commitments affecting wages and job security. Earlier, Northwest invoked the "force majeure" clause because of the Iraq conflict, but labor groups challenged Northwest's legal justification and President Bush's declaration of the end of major fighting in Iraq weakened the case for continued use of the "force majeure" assumption.

"Force majeure" refers to unforeseen events that can justify modifying or excusing the performance of contract obligations -- "acts of God," they were sometimes called, in the olden days...

SARS scare overstated, says Union.

"According to a May 5 report from the International Air Transport Association, there have been five cases of SARS from a total of 200 million air passengers since March of this year. That's far from the scale of catastrophe needed to justify force majeure," said AMFA Local 33 President Jim Atkinson. "If SARS becomes a major health problem for air passengers, wait till then to talk about force majeure. If the bigger problem now is fear of SARS, Northwest should move to reduce this fear, not fan the flames by prematurely invoking a force majeure emergency."

Travel dropped, though...

Atkinson said, "Northwest traffic dropped 13 percent in April compared to a year earlier, with a 24.7 percent decline in transpacific traffic. The airline has provided no data on the specific impact of the SARS threat, yet is attributing these drops to SARS. We're disappointed that Northwest would risk reducing the public's confidence in flying by overstating the SARS threat in order to avoid contract obligations. This is bad for customer relations and bad for business."

Does any airline want SARS, or anything else, to reduce its passenger traffic, just to aid a union negotiation? Apparently AMFA Local 33 thinks so.

FMI: www.nwa.com; www.amfa33.org