According to a September 11 strike update posted on the AMFA website, union negotiators agreed to accept the company’s newly proposed cuts, but negotiations broke off over the amount of severance pay those losing their jobs would receive. Steve MacFarlane, assistant national director of AMFA, told union members in a September 10 hotline message, “We all know that at some point an agreement must be reached. We also know that any tentative agreement is going to be extreme by any measure.”

Striker Jim Inman, a member of AMFA Local 33 at the Twin Cities, Minnesota, airport,” said, “I thought the company’s latest offer was junk. We went out for something better. We are going to keep fighting.”

Two days after negotiations broke off, the United Auto Workers union announced a donation of $880,000 to assist AMFA members on the picket lines. In Seattle, the strikers were invited to present their case to a September 8 International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 19 meeting. “The local voted to contribute $9,000 to help workers and their families continue the fight,” said executive board member Jim Burns. ILWU member John Fisher reports that a dozen longshore workers joined the strikers the next morning for an expanded picket line at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. “We have to treat this strike as our strike,” Fisher said.

Northwest said it would begin to permanently replace the strikers on September 13. Only five of the thousands of striking mechanics in Minneapolis have crossed, the Associated Press reports.

Northwest declared bankruptcy September 14. The same day Delta Air Lines, the country’s third-largest carrier, also filed for bankruptcy. Delta has asked pilots for a second round of wage and benefits cuts, on top of $1 billion they gave up last year.
 
 
Related articles:
How workers in battle transform themselves
Working-class response to Gulf Coast disaster at center of New York event on 9/11
Strikers at Boeing brace for long fight  
 
 
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