Hawaiian Air union
will take strike vote
PITTSBURGH » The board of the country's largest flight attendants union authorized a national strike yesterday after its president accused the airline industry of using the bankruptcy process to cut workers' pay and eliminate other benefits.
Airlines such as UAL Corp.'s United and US Airways Group Inc. are using the bankruptcy process to cancel union contracts and impose deep pay cuts that are threatening flight attendants' careers, said Patricia Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants.
She also noted that the bankruptcy process is being used to terminate pension plans and eliminate health coverage for retirees.
The union, which represents 46,000 members employed by 26 airlines, said it will immediately start the process of taking strike votes at four airlines -- United, US Airways, ATA Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines -- and will tally the votes by the end of December.
From there, the union will wait until there is an action in bankruptcy court.
"Our entire industry is in turmoil and the careers of our flight attendants all hang in the balance," Friend said yesterday in Pittsburgh. "Almost everywhere we look, flight attendants are being forced to work longer hours with reduced rest time, and all for ever-decreasing wages. This must stop."
A spokesman for Hawaiian Airlines said the situation at the Honolulu-based carrier was different from the other airlines.
"Hawaiian is doing better than other airlines, in large part because of our employees," said Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner.
"We think that Hawaiian's employees should get better contract deals than their counterparts elsewhere," Wagner said. "That's why the wage cuts and layoffs occurring at other carriers are not being proposed at Hawaiian."
US Airways, for instance, on Friday asked a bankruptcy judge to cancel the collective bargaining agreement for flight attendants and several other unions. The airline then wants to impose a 15 percent pay cut on the flight attendants, with no pay raise until 2008, and eliminate their pension plan.
The judge has scheduled a hearing on the motion for the beginning of December and has 30 days to make a decision.
If the judge cancels the collective bargaining agreement, then US Airways attendants will be on strike and "will be supported by their sister and brother flight attendants within the AFA," Friend said.
It was unclear yesterday how many flight attendants -- and from what airlines -- would strike if US Airways attendants were to strike.
The union would probably use "our trademark chaos strike tactic, which involves intermittent strikes without notice as to flight, time, day, airport," union spokesman David Kameras said.
US Airways spokesman David A. Castelveter said the airline continues to negotiate.
"We understand the union's frustration with what has happened to the legacy airlines and the impact it has had on flight attendant careers," Castelveter said. "A strike, however, by law is not permitted under these circumstances. It would ground this airline and send approximately 5,400 flight attendants to the unemployment lines."
