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 Congress held another hearing on the proposed Delta Air Lines Inc.-Northwest Airlines Corp. merger on Wednesday, providing labor groups opposed to the deal a chance to vent but seemingly doing little to keep the transaction from closing as scheduled by year's end.
The House Committee on Education and Labor's Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions held the hearing to assess the impact the merger could have on workers, even though aviation labor "doesn't come under the jurisdiction or purview of this committee," as ranking Republican John Kline of Minnesota noted. Perhaps for that reason, the hearing lacked the big names that showed up at Congress to discuss the deal earlier this year. Delta sent a vice president from the HR department, while Northwest sent one of its external lawyers. And while some airline unions were on hand, noticeably absent from the witness list was any representative from the Air Line Pilots Association, a group whose members from both airlines have signed on in favor of the deal and are in the process of working on a plan to combine seniority ranks. The unions who did show up, the International Association of Machinists and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, count Northwest employees among their ranks but not Delta workers. The flight attendants union lost an organizational vote at Delta earlier this year but do stand for Northwest attendants, while the IAM represents Northwest's 12,000-plus customer service agents and airport ramp workers. They are concerned workers at the combined company might not elect to continue union representation, leaving those Northwest employees without the union voice they currently rely on. Patricia Friend, representing the AFA-CWA, claimed that absent what she called an "overwhelming voter suppression campaign" by Delta the airline's flight attendants would currently be unionized, and worried something similar would happen when the combined group decides whether to be union represented. Robert Roach of the International Association of Machinists meanwhile warned elected officials the deal could create a burden to taxpayers, saying that his group, along with some analysts, worry the merger might not work out as planned. Roach noted that should the merger fail, the new Delta could end up in Chapter 11 and dump its remaining pensions on the federally backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Meanwhile MIT professor Tom Kochan outlined research that -- shockingly -- claims mergers that result in labor harmony work out better than those wrought with disharmony. He warned that flight attendants appear ripe for a clash, but said "profound conflict" can be avoided if management reaches out to the unions ahead of time. Kochan also suggested the Department of Justice address labor issues as part of its review of the deal. - Lou Whiteman See TheDeal.com story on House and Senate hearings on the Delta-Northwest deal Categories Deal Video
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