Friday, August 19, 2005

Fiery airline mechanics go it alone

Union's combative bargaining style will be tested as the scrappy workers take on Northwest.

By Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News

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On the eve of a possible strike, aircraft mechanics at Northwest Airlines find themselves in a familiar position -- all by themselves.

The airline wants to cut their work force nearly in half and their wages by a quarter. Another union said it won't support the work stoppage. Passengers hope their flight plans won't be canceled.

But the mechanics and their union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, have never worried about being the popular kid on the block.

If they had, they probably wouldn't be around today and they certainly wouldn't enjoy some of the highest wages among mechanics in the industry, they said.

The union's faith in itself and tough bargaining style will be tested tonight at midnight, the strike deadline if negotiations collapse. In addition to little if any support from other unions, the AMFA has a meager strike fund.

"You can call us militant. You can call us anything," said O.V. Delle-Femine, the controversial national director of the union. "But we're here to service our membership."

Delle-Femine, set to begin the final day of negotiations in Washington today, has never led a work stoppage, so a walkout would be uncharted waters for the group.

"They're pretty much out there on the limb by themselves," said Darryl Jenkins, an industry analyst in Marshall, Va.

AMFA, which represents 4,420 mechanics and airplane cleaners at Northwest, has a reputation as a stubborn negotiator that squeezes carriers for big raises and pensions, industry observers said. The mechanics earn $70,000 a year.

The union also has angered other labor groups by wooing their members away, the unions said.

The International Association of Machinists, who lost the Northwest mechanics to AMFA in 1998, is still seething over the loss.

In a letter to AMFA this week, the president of IAM District 143 in St. Paul, Minn., said AMFA had belittled IAM's baggage handlers as "bag smashers, lowlifes, ramp apes and knuckle draggers."

"I hope you and your membership are prepared to practice what you have preached. Stand alone," wrote Bobby DePace, the District 143 president.

AMFA has been subjected to much harsher treatment during its stuttering 44-year climb to prominence.

Its leaders have received anonymous death threats, been confronted by bat-wielding members of other unions and, on business trips, had callers tell their spouses they're cheating on them.

To fully understand the union, one must know about its maverick leader and founder, industry observers said.

Delle-Femine, 72, is a feisty workaholic who has pursued a singular vision for more than four decades: Create a union solely for aircraft mechanics.

He saw his membership vanish in the 1980s but, with hardly any members or money for seven years, continued trying to organize workers. Sleeping in airports and once in a police station, he slowly rebuilt the union a second time.

After winning several representation elections at airlines the past few years, AMFA now represents 16,500 mechanics, more than any other union in the United States.

"He's delivered for them," said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo. "He understands. He's a mechanic, not some guy who came out of Harvard Business School. This man is one of them."

The dream began in 1961 when Delle-Femine was a mechanic for American Airlines at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, N.Y. He and two co-workers formed AMFA because they felt their union was more concerned about the bus drivers and subway workers it represented than the mechanics.

The other founders eventually dropped away, but Delle-Femine remained. His goal never wavered: a craft union with craft wages.

Unlike many unions, AMFA allows its members to vote on all issues and allows its chapters to make most decisions. Delle-Femine has a skeleton staff in the national headquarters in Laconia, N.H.

With little money, he crisscrossed the country trying to encourage aircraft mechanics to join his ragtag group. Many already belonged to other unions.

The decision to poach members from other labor groups may now hurt AMFA as it asks other unions to join it in a possible strike, said John Budd, a human resources professor at the University of Minnesota.

"They're facing a very difficult uphill battle," Budd said. AMFA lost all of its members after a wave of airlines mergers in the 1980s. The union was thrown in with much larger labor groups that easily voted them out.

Delle-Femine never stopped trying to organize new workers as former AMFA members, who already paid dues to their new unions, gave their old leader $30 a year.

Detroit News Staff Writer Joel Smith contributed to this report. You can reach Francis X. Donnelly at (313) 223-4186 or fdonnelly@detnews.com.