Victory to Northwest AMFA Strike!

The strike by 4,400 Northwest Airlines mechanics and cleaners, members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), is a crucial battle for every airline union and the entire labor movement. When the AMFA ranks walked out on August 20, the carrier set in motion a long-planned, massive operation to bust the union, bringing in more than 1,000 scab mechanics. Northwest has suffered from delays, cancellations and grounded planes, but it is far from crippled—a result of the outright treachery of the leaders of the other airline unions, which are scabbing on the strike. The capitalist media gloat about Northwest’s “brilliant” planning of the union-busting operation and what it portends for all airline unions and the rest of labor. But all their plans would go down the tubes if airline unions followed the elementary union watchwords: Picket lines mean don’t cross! One out, all out!

Northwest has thrown down the gauntlet to organized labor. Several AMFA members have aptly described the strike as a “war.” But as one striker in Detroit told Workers Vanguard, “We don’t have a battle plan.” The leadership of the AMFA craft union helped isolate the strike from the beginning with cocky assurances that their members were indispensable to the company and could win on their own. They didn’t even set up a strike fund before the strike. This is not surprising for a union that uses its dues to pay a law firm to run its affairs.

AMFA members don’t lack determination, but they can’t win alone!What’s needed first of all is for AMFA to call on the International Association of Machinists (IAM), the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) and the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA) to stop scabbing and join the picket lines. There are already individuals fighting within those unions to do the right thing. Addressing a strike support rally in Minneapolis on August 27, Peggy Lubinski, who was fired for honoring AMFA picket lines, told her fellow flight attendants: “You need to walk!” An IAM baggage handler walking the picket line in Detroit told WV that he had been fighting for his union to stop scabbing.

To their credit, some Machinists, individually and in groups, have refused to do AMFA’s work. The Independent Pilots Association at UPS announced its refusal to handle Northwest cargo, and mechanics at KLM, one of Northwest’s alliance partners, are refusing to service Northwest planes. United labor action against Northwest could help lay the basis for one industrial union for all airline workers—from pilots and mechanics to baggage handlers, cleaners, flight attendants and customer service agents.

Northwest provoked the strike by insisting that AMFA accept the elimination of more than half its jobs, including outsourcing all facilities and ground-equipment maintenance and cleaning and custodial work, on top of a 26 percent cut in wages, higher health insurance premiums, reduced sick pay and a freeze on pensions. Overall, the company wants to squeeze $1.1 billion out of its workforce.

Airline unions have enormous social power—the world economy simply could not function without them. But instead of using that power, airline unions have been picked off one by one through devastating rounds of wage-slashing, pension-stealing and outright union-busting. It’s time to turn this around, and the recent strike at London’s Heathrow airport gave a taste of the solidarity in action needed to do that. Hundreds of British Airways (BA) ground staff walked out in solidarity with fired food-service workers. Airline operations were crippled for nearly a week, costing BA $70 million, and the airport was paralyzed for two days. The workers did this in the face of laws barring such solidarity strikes, showing the potential for tearing up anti-union laws through united labor action (see accompanying article).

Now, every union in the industry must do what’s necessary to ensure that AMFA is not defeated. As we wrote in WV No. 849 (27 May) when the United Airlines bosses ripped off their workers’ pensions:

“A hard-fought battle is necessary and could inspire a broader upsurge in class struggle—not fighting only assures greater misery in the future. The unions must make use of their weapons: their numbers, organization and collective muscle. The watchword should be: ‘One out, all out; shut down the airports!’ After all, the carriers cannot outsource everyone’s job. Further, the crisis in the industry is worldwide; airline workers would find allies among unionized labor at their companies overseas and among those workers in struggle at foreign carriers.”
more at http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/index.html

A union strike fund has been established. Send donations to: AMFA National, Attn: NWA Strike Committee, 67 Water St., Suite 208A, Laconia, NH 03246.