The $2.5
Billion Question the IAM Doesn't Want to Answer:
Which airline paid its flight attendants more: union NWA or non-union Delta?
In response to an ill-conceived, poorly executed IAM flyer regarding pay history at Delta, a group of grass-roots flight attendant truth activists, responded with this handout (Link HERE), which lists a comprehensive, line by line comparison of Delta and NWA flight attendant pay rates for the past 26 years. The IAM flyer (authored by the former NWA-AFA webmaster, who took over a year to post the last, tragic, NWA-AFA flight attendant union contract on the union’s website), tries in vain to make some unclear point about pay history at Delta. The epic fail of the flyer (other than the murky point it’s trying to make) is that it cherry-picks data that favors the author’s political position, rather than providing the Delta flight attendants the unbiased and complete facts and truth that they deserve and need to make informed, rational decisions.
The IAM, by omitting pertinent facts and valid information, obviously thinks it will dupe readers into believing that Delta flight attendants took pay concessions for no other reason than they lacked union “representation”. But the truth is that the pay cuts occurred within all employee groups (whether union or non-union) and they occurred as a result of geopolitical and macro-economic factors (two Gulf wars, terrorist attacks and U.S. and global recessions) that were well beyond the control or influence of any airline or any union.
So the true, relevant (and very revealing) question is really: “Over an extended period of time, which airline has paid its flight attendants more, non-union Delta or union Northwest?” The handout authored by the grass roots group answers that question completely, factually and irrefutably, and also asks readers to consider these important points:
Which airline paid its flight attendants more: union NWA or non-union Delta?
In response to an ill-conceived, poorly executed IAM flyer regarding pay history at Delta, a group of grass-roots flight attendant truth activists, responded with this handout (Link HERE), which lists a comprehensive, line by line comparison of Delta and NWA flight attendant pay rates for the past 26 years. The IAM flyer (authored by the former NWA-AFA webmaster, who took over a year to post the last, tragic, NWA-AFA flight attendant union contract on the union’s website), tries in vain to make some unclear point about pay history at Delta. The epic fail of the flyer (other than the murky point it’s trying to make) is that it cherry-picks data that favors the author’s political position, rather than providing the Delta flight attendants the unbiased and complete facts and truth that they deserve and need to make informed, rational decisions.
The IAM, by omitting pertinent facts and valid information, obviously thinks it will dupe readers into believing that Delta flight attendants took pay concessions for no other reason than they lacked union “representation”. But the truth is that the pay cuts occurred within all employee groups (whether union or non-union) and they occurred as a result of geopolitical and macro-economic factors (two Gulf wars, terrorist attacks and U.S. and global recessions) that were well beyond the control or influence of any airline or any union.
So the true, relevant (and very revealing) question is really: “Over an extended period of time, which airline has paid its flight attendants more, non-union Delta or union Northwest?” The handout authored by the grass roots group answers that question completely, factually and irrefutably, and also asks readers to consider these important points:
·
For 16 of the past 26 years, the Northwest
flight attendants were under significant pay concessions ( from 1993-2000 and
again from 2005 to 2011). Northwest flight attendants would have remained under
concessions until a joint contract with Delta flight attendants was voted in.
It took seven years to get a joint contract at US Airways/America West and
Continental/United negotiations are in their third year. Given a similar timeline, Northwest flight
attendants would likely still be under full concessions today.
·
When cuts were made at NWA and Delta, due to macroeconomic
factors, the reductions were always LESS at Delta than at NWA and
restoration/raises came more QUICKLY at Delta than at NWA.
·
Over a 26 year period, Delta flight attendants
flying 80 hours per month earned a total of $123,068.40 MORE than their
Northwest colleagues flying the same number of hours. That averages out to
almost $5,000 more per year.
·
If Delta and Northwest had each had 20,000
flight attendants over the past 26 years (each flying 80 hours per month), Delta would
have paid out over $2.5 billion more in flight attendant pay than Northwest!!!
Inoculate your brain from the IAM’s random cherry-picking
and truth manipulation.
View the flyer and the year by year comparison (from 1988 to
today) of the Delta and Northwest flight attendant pay rates (HERE).
Please share this email with others. Please print the flyer
and ask others to do the same so we can share FACTS with one and all. When you
encounter an IAM supporter simply give them a copy or email them one so they
can tell you if the FACTS and the MATH provided are wrong.
Sincerely,
Jose Arturo Ibarra
