This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Airline Workers Losing Perks April 29, 2003 By MICHELINE MAYNARD Workers in other industries could only dream about the rules of everyday conduct established by agreements between the major airlines and their unions over the last few decades. Pilots worked 80 hours or less during an entire month. Mechanics were paid for waving planes away from gates. Flight attendants got to stay in luxury hotels on the road. Over the last two years, though, billions of dollars in losses have forced not just deep pay cuts on airline unions. They also have brought an overhaul of the so-called work rules that will drastically revamp how employees of the major airlines do their jobs. The inspiration is profitable airlines like Southwest and JetBlue, and the goal is survival. But the process of rewriting the rules has brought rancor between unions and management to a new high. Last week, American Airlines' parent, the AMR Corporation, was led to the brink of bankruptcy in part by a fight over flight attendants' schedules. The next test comes today, as flight attendants and machinists at United Airlines, which is bankrupt, vote on a collective $1 billion in concessions sought by the airline, which has asked a court to impose restrictive new contracts on its employees if they do not go along. Executives at airlines that have pushed hard to tighten work rules say the changes are a turning point. "What we've got now is a system that's significantly more competitive and frankly makes a lot more sense," said Jerrold A. Glass, the senior vice president for employee relations at US Airways. Yet, the attack on work rules strikes at the very heart of the airline unions' strength, said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. Their dissolution is viewed within the labor movement as further erosion of the unions' sway. "These are things built over time, and once you go after them, then everything is open," he said. United's employees are voting on a six-and-a-half-year contract that Glenn F. Tilton, the chief executive of United's parent, the UAL Corporation, called critical to the airline's future. United's pilots have already granted $1.1 billion in givebacks over that same period. The United mechanics' union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, was the only airline union to reject contract concessions before the airline filed for bankruptcy last December. A complicating factor this time is an organizing drive by a rival union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Organization, which has fought concessions at other carriers. Airline officials said yesterday that they were hopeful the contracts would be approved by both unions. Even before United secures all its concessions, Northwest Airlines is joining the fray. It has told its employees it wants $1 billion a year in concessions, including sweeping work-rule changes, by July 1, and has issued proposals to each of its major unions. Northwest is not in as bad shape financially as its rivals, but it has watched them successfully, if not harmoniously, roll back work rules. Only last week did Northwest's chief executive, Richard H. Anderson, raise the prospect of a Chapter 11 filing if the airline cannot get the concessions it seeks. The situation dismayed Mollie Reiley, a veteran of three decades at the airline and trustee for Teamsters Union Local 2000, which represents its flight attendants. "They're coming to us and asking us to undo 25 years of negotiating," said Ms. Reiley, flipping through Northwest's contract proposal in the back of a taxicab on her way into Manhattan last week to attend the airline's annual shareholders' meeting. "I don't think there's a union in the country that would willingly step up to this." By far the most significant work-rule change is the elimination of a practice called "receipt and dispatch," in which only licensed mechanics are allowed to wave planes to or from airport gates, even though baggage handlers and other ground workers could easily do the task. The practice required the airlines to keep hundreds more mechanics on staff than were needed to fix airplanes. It also meant mechanics, some earning $100,000 a year or more, had to be scheduled to work during the day, although repairs are made mostly at night. US Airways has eliminated the practice at all but 6 major airports; United wants to end it at 18. In court documents, United estimated that it could eliminate almost 900 jobs if other workers could do the task. Flight attendants at United, US Airways and American also face changes. United, which used to promise flight attendants 17 hours on the job per three-day assignment, now would guarantee only 15 hours. And it is proposing to have crews return from overseas flights after one day's rest instead of two, saving the airline on hotel bills and meals. American stops paying flight attendants the moment they leave a jet, though they might not reach their homes or hotels for an hour or more. Steven Baumert, an American flight attendant based in Miami, said work-rule changes mean that he must spend more time on the job and that he earns less than he did for the same number of hours under the old contract. John McCorkle, a flight attendant at US Airways who writes an industry newsletter, said, "They've basically changed every little thing, and all those little things add up to the employee working more days for less pay." Pilots, by far the best-paid airline employees, have also faced their share of changes. Northwest's proposal to the Air Line Pilots Association, a union with 66,000 members at 42 airlines, would raise the maximum time that a pilot can fly to 90 hours a month, from 81 hours a month now. Pilots also could end up working more days per month. Vacation time is another target. Under Northwest's proposal, pilots would have to abandon the practice of signing up for assignments that start before their vacations end, allowing them to stretch their holidays. Under current work rules, a pilot on a two-week vacation is allowed to bid for a trip that begins the latter part of the second week. Because the vacationing pilot is not available to come to the airport, the airline must call in a reserve pilot, one who is not actively on the job, to take the shift. The pilot who signed up for the assignment gets paid and gets the time off, while the reserve pilot does the work and also gets paid. US Airways already bans that practice, and its contract eliminated another work rule that sometimes caused flights to be delayed for hours. Under previous contracts, if a pilot called in sick, the airline had to bring in a reserve pilot to replace the ill pilot, even if there were pilots on hand at the airport waiting for flights that were hours away. Passengers simply had to wait until the reserve pilot arrived. Now, the airline is allowed to assign the flight to a waiting pilot, and turn that pilot's later assignment to the reserve pilot when he or she arrives. Mr. Glass, the US Airways vice president, said the streamlining has only begun. "To be competitive and survive, we have to keep working at improving the systems we have, and we're not there yet," he said. But Ms. Reiley, the Teamsters trustee, said her members were "getting very angry" and would keep fighting to protect their contracts. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/business/29AIR.html?ex=1052624997&ei=1&en=ab522ed19ed6ce1b HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@xxxxxxxxxxx or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@xxxxxxxxxxxx Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company