Picketing Mesaba
Union members stand in opposition to wage, benefit cuts

By MIKE O'ROURKE
Associate Editor
Brainerd Dispatch

Friday, April 14, 2006

A dozen union members representing Mesaba Airline pilots, flight attendants and mechanics kicked off two days of informational picketing Thursday morning at the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport.

The Mesaba Airlines Labor Coalition offered literature protesting the company's intent to reduce wages and benefits and held signs as airline passengers passed through the entrance. The coalition planned to picket at five outstate airports Thursday and Friday.

Mesaba Airlines, a regional carrier that serves Brainerd and other outstate cities, filed for bankruptcy last fall but has kept flying since then. In February, union officials said, Mesaba filed an 1113(c) motion that requests authority to reject the collective bargaining agreements and impose its proposed cuts.

Mesaba Airline employees Robin Hugdahl (left), Guy Bosworth, Kevin Inkman and Bill Buttz conducted informational pickets Thursday at the Brainerd Lakes Regional Airport. The picketing was conducted in five Minnesota towns to protest management's plan to obtain pay cuts through the bankruptcy court. Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls

"They (management) haven't shown any real need," said Jason Stein, a union officer with the Association of Flight Attendants. "We'll be the lowest-paid flight attendants in the U.S."

Coalition spokesmen said the management is asking for 19.4 percent cuts in pay and benefits in addition to layoffs that would reduce the number of flight attendants from 461 to 200.

Stein said the unions recognize the need for some sort of worker concessions. The three unions involved in the picketing were Air Line Pilots Association International, the Association of Flight Attendants and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association.

One tactic being considered by the flight attendants, Stein said, is a CHAOS strike, which stands for Creating Havoc Around Our System. The tactic would involve the union randomly striking on specific dates and at specific sites without prior notice, Stein said. The union spokesman said the tactic has been upheld in court in an Alaska Airlines case although some contend it's not a legal tactic.

Capt. Christopher W. Collins, secretary-treasurer of the Air Line Pilots Association International, said the company-imposed cuts, if executed, would make Mesaba's pilots "the worst-paid pilots in the industry."

Both union spokesmen said the workers want to work out a settlement with the company.

The union representatives said in their literature the annual starting pay is currently $21,000 per year for pilots, $14,000 for flight attendants and $27,000 for mechanics. The cuts proposed by Mesaba, union officials said, would mean that in 2012, a starting pilot who elects family health insurance would gross $10,700 annually.

Mesaba Airlines spokesman Jon Austin said he thinks the company has made the case for the proposed cuts, both in the courts and in its communication with employees.

"It's an extremely difficult time for both the airline and the industry and the cuts we're proposing are painful but in our judgment they're also necessary if the airline is going to survive," Austin said. "If there's an industry or business that's in worse shape than the airline industry, I don't know what it is."

Union officials accused the management of playing a corporate shell game, maintaining that Mesaba generates more than 95 percent of MAIR Holdings Inc.'s revenues. MAIR Holdings is Mesaba's parent company and the union said it held $120 million in cash and equivalents when Mesaba filed for bankruptcy. Because MAIR Holdings is not in bankruptcy, the union claimed, employees and creditors do not have the right to access those assets.

Austin responded to that charge by saying it was irrelevant.

"It's a side issue," he said. "It has nothing to do with the economics of Mesaba. Mesaba, if it doesn't restructure, won't continue to exist."

MIKE O'ROURKE can be reached at mike.orourke@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5860.