Northwest Flight Attendants Reject Cuts

FA for NWA wrote:

You can only kick the dog so many times before he bites and he finally bit back. Hats off for the FA's standing up for what we believed in. Frankly I'm tired of hearing pilots cry or pilots wives cry about they've got to sell thier second home when I've got to worry about my only home. Who are you to judge that we should give up so much, to help those at the top to keep what they have and more, made off the backs of employee's who are here for the long run while Owners, CEO's and Upper Management take our money and run. With the paycuts they wanted from the FA's, we would either have to fly more or get another job on the side to make it even out. None of the TA benefited me, they want Professional Flight Attendants for McDonald's wages. And for upper management to say they are going to impose what they want on the FA's is crazy. I really believe they think they are above the law or high one. Did they really think we would be so frightened by thier threats that we would vote yes? Think again.

NWA needs professional flight attendants, but professional flight attendants do not need NWA! I would not take any cut. I say strike until you get back everything you have lost.

Why should flight attendants that have to work their tails off 14-22 hours a day, only have 11 days off a year and only earn 15-30K a year have take pay cuts to provide golden parachutes for a lot of fat, incompetent managers?

Strike!

a pilot wrote:

Change is hard. Our industry is in turmoil.
What bothers me the most about this is all anyone ever does is point at some other guy and blame him. Sorry, this will get us as employees nothing. The sad part is we will stumble around and complain about a pay cut and do nothing to try to strategically position ourselves and our company for the future. The unions and their ridiculous diatribe only serve to magnify the problem. We shouldnt be worrying about a stupid pay cut. We should instead be trying to work with these guys to position ourselves to succeed in the future. The industry will continue to change. We need to anticipate the changes and adjust. The unions ought to try to strategically develop plans to deal with this, not just make plans to produce signs and gather people for a strike.
It takes two sides to make a war. We employees need to own this problem too. Failure to do so will result in nothing but all of us on the street. I guess some would like that and I guess I don't understand why.
Don't bother to respond to this posting if you want to say something about thieving management people. You would just be proving my point.
I would be interested if there were ideas out there as to how we can make plans to work with our employer to ensure NWA succeeds.

First of all find a management team interested in running an airline. This team does not care if NWA succeeds nor do they care about you or the rest of the employees. The bottom line is that if we worked for free they would ask us how many pints of blood would we like to give. The management is not interested in working with us but against us. You should know that by now. They have spent millions trying to prove their point with the jiffy lubers. It would have been cheaper to keep our real mechanics but NWA wasn't interested.

I suspect you are one of the pilots who kept telling us that we had to accept this TA........yeah right. Nine hour layovers after a fourteen hour day. The nine hours include you deplaning the customers and walking to the hotel van pick up area. Oh and if the hotel doesn't have a room for you, you must find your own room. After 30 minutes of searching you can then call crew scheduling for assistance. Section four of the TA......Of course you have to be curbside one hour before departure so how many hours do you actually think we get to sleep before the next 12-14 day. It isn't all about the money as you and some people seem to think. The flight attendants know that we had to give monetary concessions but when it comes to these draconian work rules forget it. This TA sets the profession back at least 40 years and I am proud of my group that we came out in record numbers and voted no.

a pilot wrote:

Change is hard. Our industry is in turmoil.
What bothers me the most about this is all anyone ever does is point at some other guy and blame him. Sorry, this will get us as employees nothing. The sad part is we will stumble around and complain about a pay cut and do nothing to try to strategically position ourselves and our company for the future. The unions and their ridiculous diatribe only serve to magnify the problem. We shouldnt be worrying about a stupid pay cut. We should instead be trying to work with these guys to position ourselves to succeed in the future. The industry will continue to change. We need to anticipate the changes and adjust. The unions ought to try to strategically develop plans to deal with this, not just make plans to produce signs and gather people for a strike.
It takes two sides to make a war. We employees need to own this problem too. Failure to do so will result in nothing but all of us on the street. I guess some would like that and I guess I don't understand why.
Don't bother to respond to this posting if you want to say something about thieving management people. You would just be proving my point.
I would be interested if there were ideas out there as to how we can make plans to work with our employer to ensure NWA succeeds.

Perhaps all the unions should have worked together from the beginning and formulated a plan together? A day late...A dollar short. It will never be the same company as management has successfully pitted every work group against each other. Wondering when NWA tried to solve any problems with its employees. Sounds to me in reading that NWA is the one that never holds up its part of the good faith agreements. Perhaps the employees have had it.

Maybe the F/A's should be flying the planes and the cry-baby pilots working the back because it seems like you guys had the brains and the balls to stand up for your rights.

Congrats to a very strong, PROUD GROUP!!!

p.s. I was also sick of the stupid comment that pilots wife said about giving up the second home. We should all be so lucky - some of us still can't afford to buy ONE home.

Sure, go ahead and strike. Then, when you're replaced by folks who are willing to work under the conditions you are not, cry in your root beer while cursing management, customers, scabs, and whoever else comes to mind.

...and gain nothing.

If you have made other career plans, you are wise. If you plan to 'bring the company to its knees,' and have no other goals in life, you're in for a very rude awakening.

Lotsa luck!

pmiotking wrote:

Thanks all of you Very Brave F/A's.

I guess you would rather see the company go out of business and everyone lose their jobs.

Good job NWA FA'a.....there is always so much more the media and certainly management never reveal or talk about. Your courage is to be admired. And just a reminder as to how despicable management can be...at AA, we, the FA's, said NO,NO,NO to liars and back door deals. But, old union as well as upper company management,scammed and broke more rules ( and possibly laws) than I can recall in our concessionay vote. We got stuck like a pig the first time. But, it will never happen again. FA's from every major airline have been reduced to living like dogs in the street when working...no rest, no food, no breaks of any sort. The fight is not over, never will be. Listening Arpey??

a pilot wrote:

Change is hard. Our industry is in turmoil.
What bothers me the most about this is all anyone ever does is point at some other guy and blame him. Sorry, this will get us as employees nothing. The sad part is we will stumble around and complain about a pay cut and do nothing to try to strategically position ourselves and our company for the future. The unions and their ridiculous diatribe only serve to magnify the problem. We shouldnt be worrying about a stupid pay cut. We should instead be trying to work with these guys to position ourselves to succeed in the future. The industry will continue to change. We need to anticipate the changes and adjust. The unions ought to try to strategically develop plans to deal with this, not just make plans to produce signs and gather people for a strike.
It takes two sides to make a war. We employees need to own this problem too. Failure to do so will result in nothing but all of us on the street. I guess some would like that and I guess I don't understand why.
Don't bother to respond to this posting if you want to say something about thieving management people. You would just be proving my point.
I would be interested if there were ideas out there as to how we can make plans to work with our employer to ensure NWA succeeds.

Just wondering but at what point do you think employees should make a stand, how much is enough? Do you make these comments because of your love and concern for the F/A's and other N.W. employees or because you are worried about how this will effect you?

I assure you that the industry is in a bad position and it will take some changes for any airline to continue to exist. I submit that the first change for Northwest should be a new management team that can get the support of the employees back. The team there now has told to many lies and have treated too many people badly to continue to operate. Change must come but it should start at the top with a new group who can operate an airline instead of putting the blame on everyone else for their lack of skill and knowledge in the efficient operation of an airline. New leadership now should have been the first request by the employees when Northwest went into bankruptcy. I believe the creditors had rather keep the airline running even if a new management team must be hired. The time to play the ACE card folks.

Continental Airlines is hiring too....My friend just left NWA after 10 yrs, and loves continental already in 4 mos time.

SWA Observer wrote:

Now that NWA has 'leashed' the pilots into a lousy contract they are back-peddling and making public their sentiments about dumping the pensions. Does that come as a surprise to anyone? Did anyone actually think they would hold up their end of the bargain? NWA Management playing foolish games with foolish pilots. They'll deserve that $35k annual pension. Oddly enough, most of us would languish with a $35K pension - but not the pilots!
"Purple Hearts" to all the mechanics and flight attendants that actually stood up for their rights. And if NWA does go down the tubes fear not - Southwest will be hiring. We will be ramping up over the next three years in unbelievable numbers - and you will LUV our management and employees!

you sound like an FOOL

Seattle-ite wrote:

Sure, go ahead and strike. Then, when you're replaced by folks who are willing to work under the conditions you are not, cry in your root beer while cursing management, customers, scabs, and whoever else comes to mind.
...and gain nothing.
If you have made other career plans, you are wise. If you plan to 'bring the company to its knees,' and have no other goals in life, you're in for a very rude awakening.
Lotsa luck!

Strike! NWA will be replaced by better airlines.

Just a customer wrote:

Strike! NWA will be replaced by better airlines.

Always the antagonist!

Northwest has a long and troubled history of executives raping and pillaging the company (which was the last leveraged buy out of the 1980's), to the former president Richard Anderson who was overpaid in both cash, benefits and stock options. The board of directors at NWA should be replaced with some new blood. It's outrageous that the working people of America continue to get screwed by the corporate robber barons such as Wilson and Checchi at NWA. It's time every corporate executive took a 50% pay cut (hell, it should be 75%). If payments were predicated on performance to this elite and hypocritical group, they would on food stamps! The FA's earn their money, with little or no support on every flight. They can't offer service because NWA in its ignorance has shed every amenity it once offered, down to the peanuts. It's time that bankruptcy judges were replaced by new boards and labor agreements remained in force. NWA is the nations'greatest disgrace in the form of air travel and corporate abuse (in the airline industry).

Enough is enough. SUPPORT THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS!

The other thing they should do at NWA is to fire some of their idiots at the station management level. They can start with Andy Deininger of EWR!

[Better airlines? Are you kidding? You're in Canada, and Air Canada is a bad as it gets.......... Get real!

The pilots and ground service agents need to support a picket line for the FA's. The reason that NWA has been divided and conquered is that each group thinks only of itself. Ground the airline, and the bullshit will stop. Keep working, and they will slowly replace every labor group. It's what they've been working on now for the last decade!

I also congratulate the flight attendants. Do not take a cut of any kind, stand strong, sand united and stand for your rights!

STIKE AND STOP THE GREED!!!!

JAY wrote:

[Better airlines? Are you kidding? You're in Canada, and Air Canada is a bad as it gets.......... Get real!

WestJet is coming...

Airline management = Serial Rapists... It's about time a group of employees stood up for justice!