By Doug Cunningham

Hobbled by court rulings that let Northwest Airlines throw out union contracts and prevent the union from striking, the Association of Flight Attendants CWA has reached a tentative agreement with Northwest giving the airline the huge concessions it was after. AFA-CWA’s Master Executive Council Vice-President Andy Wisbach.

[Wisbacher]: “It's still a deal that represents $195 million of concessions to the company. We were able to get some movement on some non-economic items - I understand some scheduling issues and things like that. But as far as the economic items, there was no change on that."

Northwest flight attendants have twice rejected agreements that included the $195 million in concessions. That represents nearly a 40 percent cut in wages and benefits. Wisbacher says he has no sense of how they’ll vote this time. He says the U.S. legal system and the National Mediation Board have failed to protect the interests of workers in this case.

[Wisbacher]: “The American worker has been failed not only by the bankruptcy court, but by the National Mediation Board, which has refused to release us
into a cooling off period so that we could use the leverage of the right to strike at the bargaining table."