By Doug Cunningham

Northwest Airlines flight attendants picketed in Detroit Thursday to protest a plan to give 400 executives a 4.9 percent share of ownership in the airline when it emerges from bankruptcy. The executives are being rewarded while the workers who make the airline fly are being forced to sacrifice with deep pay and benefits cuts. The Association for Flight Attendants-CWA is fighting a court-imposed ban on a strike at Northwest and has asked that contract talks with the bankrupt airline be officially declared at an impasse. Northwest has begun making substantial profits - much sooner than it told the bankruptcy it would. So the union maintains that the steep concessions from workers are no longer needed.