HOME  E-DEMOCRACY 98  E-DEBATE WEB MN-FORUM

Thomas Fiske      Response 7

Question 7: Is Northwest too dominant at Minneapolis/St. Paul International, and what is the role, if any, for the governor in the current situation with the airline?

The struggles of the pilots, machinists and flight attendants at
Northwest Airlines are in the interests of working people
everywhere. The union demands in the fight for new contracts
deserve the support of other unionists and other working people.
These demands include: no loss in wages due to inflation since
the last raise in 1991; stop the contracting out of jobs; defend
seniority rights against company favoritism; no increase in
part-time work; end "B-scale" two-tier wages; and for a livable
pension.

Workers at Northwest Airlines are fighting against a company
which is notorious for rigging high monopoly prices for tickets,
looting the company resources to pay lucrative stock options to
top executives, and paying starting cleaners, baggage handlers
and flight attendants with part-time menial wages with little or
no benefits.

Opinion polls show that most working people will accept the
sacrifices of a strike and back the striking unions. It is the
bosses who are screaming about the negative impact of a strike at
Northwest and the decline in profits that it might impose on
them.

The office of the governor should be used to back the fight of
the unions 100%.

Not only Northwest Airlines but all the major airlines are parts
of a system of monopoly in the airline industry. If the major
airlines were broken up, under the capitalist market system the
monopolies would quickly reassert themselves, as is happening in
the telecommunications industry. What is needed is the
nationalization of the industry with the oversight of committees
of airline workers and representatives of working-class
organizations in the community. Such committees could check on
compliance with safety provisions, monitor costs and ticket
prices, and watch the service that the airlines offer to the
community, including to the rural communities that are so deeply
affected.