IAM Says If You Can't Beat 'Em... Ask Them To Join YOUR
Union
In just over eight months, replacement mechanics hired at
Northwest Airlines to fill in for striking members of the Aircraft
Mechanics Fraternal Association have gone from being oft-maligned
pariahs, to themselves being courted by AMFA-rival International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers -- the current
ground workers union at the airline.
The Detroit Free Press reports the union has circulated a
petition among 275 mechanics who work at Detroit Metro Airport,
requesting signatures in order to bring about an election to give
those mechanics the chance to vote in the IAM as their union. The
mechanics were brought in last August to replace striking members
of AMFA.
"It's needed. There has to be some sort of security or
protection, whether it's job security ... or wages or work rules,"
said Stephen Gordon, president of the union's Local 141. "The
ripple effect will bring stability to other labor organizations on
the Northwest property by having some sort of solidarity with one
another."
That may not sit well
with AMFA, who technically has the right to bargain for the
workers, too. That's not something the union is likely to do,
though, after having publicly insulting all replacement mechanics,
as well as its own members who later crossed the picket line.
Nevertheless, AMFA does not plan to sit idly by as another union
steps into the ongoing Northwest Airlines mechanics miasma,
according to AMFA Local 5 president Dennis Sutton. He says the
union remains actively involved in grievance proceedings for fired
replacement workers, and wants to be involved in safety issues for
Northwest mechanics.
Should IAM succeed in its bid to bring the currently union-less
replacement mechanics under the union umbrella, it would return
Northwest mechanics to the same union the airline's mechanics, as
well as its plane cleaners, voted to leave eight years ago... for
AMFA.
AMFA doesn't believe turnabout is fair play.
"We've always been
quoted as being the raiding union," AMFA's Sutton said. "When a
union's on strike, if you... do a card drive on them, that's wrong.
That's raiding a union."
There is also the question of whether striking workers are
eligible to vote in the election to oust AMFA -- a matter that
current labor law remains unclear on, according to Neil Bernstein,
a labor arbitrator and professor of law emeritus at Washington
University.
As was reported in Aero-News last
year, AMFA-represented mechanics at Northwest voted to
strike the bankrupt carrier after reaching an impasse with
management over Northwest's proposal to cut wages by more than 25
percent, as well as outsourcing some of the mechanic's work and
laying off all unionized plane cleaners.
For its part, Northwest said through a spokesman that the
company does not comment on union matters.