Machinist Union Weathers the Storm

In negotiations, the IAM insisted the airline contribute to its fully funded $8 billion pension plan, which covers 75,000 workers at 1,700 companies, plus 69,000 retirees. Though it won't contribute any more than would have gone to the 401K plan it favored, United resisted.

"United was getting ready to abrogate the [old] contract," says Robert Roach, IAM general vice president. "They were afraid of what the other unions would say if we had a pension plan and the others did not. But we told them we must have the pension plan or we would shut the airline down."

Another Chance at Northwest?

In August 2005, about 4,000 AMFA mechanics, cleaners and custodians struck Northwest. The airline's final offer was to cut back to 2,750 mechanics, to cut those mechanics' salaries by 25%, and to provide up to 26 weeks of severance and benefits for workers who lost jobs.

Today, Northwest employs 880 mechanics. The workers who are gone did not collect severance or benefits.

Northwest mechanics had ousted the IAM in a bitter 1998 union election, after the IAM negotiated a concessionary contract. In 2001, AMFA negotiated its first contract. Salaries rose, but AMFA traded off the ability to outsource up to 38% of its work. Over the next four years, about 5,000 of Northwest's 9,795 AMFA members lost their jobs, partially as a result of industry downsizing.