Northwest Flight Attendants Vote on Tentative Contract

The 9,200 flight attendants at Northwest Airlines now are voting on a tentative agreement reached after a week of intensive bargaining between AFA-CWA and Northwest management. The agreement was approved by the local presidents, members of the Northwest Master Executive Council, and submitted to the membership for ratification. That vote will be completed July 31.

Negotiators reached the agreement on July 17, the date the federal bankruptcy court authorized the airline to cancel its existing flight attendant contract.

"With the airline in bankruptcy, this deal was always going to be about survival," said Mollie Reiley, Northwest Interim Master Executive Council (MEC) President. "We left no stone unturned and have made a significant difference together, but this is not a day that we celebrate. We have an agreement that will give flight attendants hope for the future and one that allows us to fight another day." 

Flight attendants voted down a previous tentative agreement, negotiated by the Professional Flight Attendant Association, by an overwhelming margin. AFA-CWA was elected as the new union for the Northwest flight attendants on July 6 and went to work immediately, restarting negotiations that led to the tentative agreement.

"The Northwest flight attendant negotiating committee and professional AFA-CWA staff did an outstanding job, making some critical improvements to the agreement reached by the flight attendants' previous union," said AFA-CWA President Pat Friend. "But it's still a lousy deal for the career flight attendant and yet another example of the power of the corporate bankruptcy laws in the hands of airline management."

"Our flight attendants rightfully demanded to see improvements in the terms of the previous tentative agreement," said Reiley. "We have addressed the areas that caused the greatest concern in order to make this agreement one that we can live with today and build upon in future better times at Northwest Airlines."