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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Thursday, March 9, 2000

Northwest Air union to fight firings

EAGAN, Minn. -- Grievances will be filed to protest Northwest Airlines' firing of a dozen flight attendants in connection with an alleged sickout over stalled contract negotiations, a union representative said. Attendants from Honolulu, Detroit, New York, and Los Angeles were among those fired.

Billie Davenport, president of Teamsters Local 2000, the union representing Northwest's flight attendants, said the union will bargain to get the flight attendants their jobs back. Northwest spokesman Jon Austin confirmed the dismissals yesterday after a Twin Cities-based flight attendant was fired in a meeting with the company. Austin declined to comment on any of the firings. Five more flight attendants resigned after being asked about their work absences during the New Year's holiday, he confirmed.

Northwest's lawyers have characterized a higher-than-normal illness rate among flight attendants around the holidays as "guerrilla warfare" by the attendants, leading it to cancel several hundred flights.

UH's Jones to speak at Rotary fund-raiser

Motivational speaker Bob Basso, a former Honolulu television anchorman, and June Jones, University of Hawaii head football coach, will join prominent business leaders as speakers at a half-day fund-raiser for the Sunrise branch of the Rotary Club of Honolulu March 15. Tickets for the event, which starts at 8:30 a.m. in the Hawaii Ballroom of the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel, run from $89 each up to $650 for a table of 10. For information, call 832-0140.

Mortgage rates slip to 8.23 percent

McLEAN, Va. -- The average 30-year mortgage rate declined for the third straight week to 8.23 percent from 8.27 percent last week, mortgage brokerage Freddie Mac said today. In mid-February, the rates on 30-year mortgages hit a 31/2-year high of 8.38 percent.

The average rate on an adjustable mortgage was unchanged this week at 6.68 percent. The average rate on a 15-year mortgage declined to 7.81 percent from 7.84 percent last week.