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The ground workers union at Northwest Airlines want to organize the company's mechanics, hired to replace those who went on strike in August.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is collecting signatures from 275 Northwest mechanics who work at Detroit Metro Airport to prompt an election so those mechanics can have a chance to vote in the IAM as their union.
If the IAM succeeds, it would return Northwest mechanics to the same union the airline's mechanics and plane cleaners voted to leave eight years ago. After hearing from mechanics who say they want a new union, the IAM started collecting signatures.
"It's needed. There has to be some sort of security or protection, whether it's job security ... or wages or work rules," said Stephen Gordon, president of the union's Local 141 in Romulus. "The ripple effect will bring stability to other labor organizations on the Northwest property by having some sort of solidarity with one another."
Technically, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association -- a longtime rival of the IAM -- can bargain for those workers, a right the AMFA has said it won't give up, despite publicly insulting replacement workers and union mechanics who crossed the picket line.
Since the strike started in August, AMFA has been involved in grievance proceedings for fired replacement workers and wants to be involved in safety issues for Northwest mechanics, said Dennis Sutton, president of AMFA Local 5 in Romulus.
Sutton views the IAM's move to organize replacement mechanics as an attempt to raid AMFA, eight years after AMFA drew members away from the IAM.
The IAM's success could depend on whether striking mechanics are eligible to vote.
Labor law is unclear about that, said Neil Bernstein, a labor arbitrator and professor of law emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. Most likely, he said, a majority of current mechanics and striking mechanics would need to sign off on holding an election to replace AMFA.
If that's the case, the IAM not only would have to convince the airline's 880 mechanics to call for an election, but also AMFA's 2,000 remaining strikers, who have been protesting the carrier for about eight months.
The strike followed an impasse over the airline's proposal to cut wages by more than 25%, outsource some of the mechanics' work and lay off all of its unionized plane cleaners.
Northwest, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, said it needed to make the changes to compete with low-cost carriers that outsource much of their maintenance work.
When mechanics walked off the job, Northwest deployed replacements. Wages for those Northwest mechanics top out at $26.53 an hour, compared to the $36 top hourly wage AMFA mechanics received.
Northwest's flight attendant, ground worker and pilot unions didn't support the strike, which ensured that Northwest's plan to replace its striking mechanics would keep the airline flying.
Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said the company doesn't comment on union matters.
With 13,400 members, the IAM is the largest union at Northwest.
In 1998, Northwest's 10,000 mechanics and aircraft cleaners left the IAM, answering recruitment calls from the smaller, more specialized AMFA, due to concerns that the IAM, part of the AFL-CIO, didn't adequately represent their interests.
"We've always been quoted as being the raiding union," AMFA's Sutton said. "When a union's on strike, if you ... do a card drive on them, that's wrong. That's raiding a union."
The IAM is also trying to recruit mechanics at Spirit Airlines and ground workers at Continental Airlines and Northwest commuter carrier Mesaba Airlines.
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