More Union busting by the Airline Industry..Alaska Airlines

A labor standoff at Alaska Airlines could cost the jobs of the company's Seattle baggage handlers, who then could replace less senior unionized workers in Alaska.

If the airline hires an outside vendor to handle bags at its Seattle hub, it would be a chaotic summer for passengers, union officials said
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The baggage handlers rejected the airline's final contract offer Thursday, with 85 percent of union voters saying no, according to the union.

Eighty-two percent of voters also authorized a strike, union officials said.
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The union represents 952 Alaska Airlines baggage handlers - about 500 in Seattle and 450 in Alaska, including 57 in Juneau, and a few elsewhere.

Alaska Airlines has said it may lay off the Seattle workers and hire an outside vendor to handle baggage there, at a potential savings of $13 million a year.
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Alaska Airlines pilots' pay was cut by about one-fourth recently, following an arbitrator's decision. The pay decrease, and other terms of the arbitrator's decision, saved Alaska Airlines $80 million to $90 million, the company said.

http://juneauempire.com/stories/051105/sta_20050511001.shtml

More Union Busting by the Airline industry

Unions are lobbyists for workers.

at AA. Methinks they didn't get a 25% paycut, or even worse, laid-off. In a "free-market" system, shouldn't the boss of a business losing money be the first to take a hit, somehow that would seem obvious. Why isn't it that this doesn't happen then. Oh that right, it's not a free market, it's an elitist market, where those with money cannot lose it, and those without, cannot make it.