Posted on Fri, Mar. 28, 2003
Pawlenty questions NWA execs' bonuses
BY CASEY SELIX
Pioneer Press
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Thursday he plans to chat with
Northwest Airlines executives about whether they should take
six-figure bonuses when 4,900 airline employees are losing their
jobs.
"I don't see how they can justify it.
I don't think
it's fair,'' Pawlenty told about 70 Northwest workers who
gathered in Bloomington to learn about services from the state's
dislocated-worker program.
"Our concerns aren't about a bailout for the company, but
for the workers who lost their jobs,'' the governor told the
gathering, many of them mechanics the group hardest hit in
the layoffs with some 2,000 job losses expected systemwide.
Thursday's meeting at the Thunderbird Hotel in Bloomington is at
least the second time the Republican governor has visited with
workers after a mass layoff. He also met with Blandin paper mill
workers in Grand Rapids after they lost their jobs.
"I think that it was extraordinary that he made it'' to the
meetings, said Paul Moe, director of the state's
dislocated-worker program. "I told him (Thursday) that in my
tenure, a governor has never come and had the guts to stand in
front of 60 to 70 workers who were just laid off.''
Pawlenty also said Thursday that the state would take a
"hard and critical" look at whether the airline is
using war as an excuse for the latest round of layoffs. And, he
said that if the federal government does provide more money to
bail out airlines there should be some strings attached.
Mechanics complained about the airline outsourcing mechanics'
work to Singapore, China and Louisiana, where the work is done
more cheaply though not necessarily as competently.
"The company doesn't want to pay us a living wage,''
mechanic Dennis Schumaker told Pawlenty. "We are seeing
lousy work come back (from outsourcing), and we have to clean it
up. When we get our equipment back we say this is garbage.''
The governor said that although the state and companies have to
compete globally, that should not be based solely on reducing
labor costs.
Bonuses announced this week are a particular sore point with the
union members, who have been asked to absorb most of the cuts the
airline says it needs to survive. The Eagan-based air carrier
paid $450,000 in bonuses to its top two executives in 2002 as
Northwest lost $798 million.
"We will have no comment on the governor's comments,''
Northwest Airlines spokeswoman Mary Stanik said Thursday.
Meanwhile, state House DFL members called on Northwest executives
Thursday to turn over their stock options and bonuses to the
state dislocated workers fund.
Minnesota is using $2 million from the fund to help Northwest
workers while it waits for approval of a federal emergency grant.
The state has applied for $13.9 million in aid to help airline
workers and others affected by the layoffs find new jobs or
retraining.
In another development, Northwest filed two notices of plans to
lay off 33 more workers in the state, bringing the total
Minnesota dismissals to 2,031. At Northwest's other major hubs,
Michigan is losing more than 1,000 jobs and Tennessee, 174.
Northwest has not said where other layoffs will occur.
Pawlenty told reporters afterward he planned to share various
concerns at some point with Northwest chief executive Richard
Anderson. Still, he acknowledged that the state doesn't have
regulatory power over the airline.
Pawlenty also promised to look into the mechanics union's
collective bargaining agreement after a worker said the union
hasn't been able to get grievances resolved in a prompt fashion
since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Casey Selix can be reached at cselix@pioneerpress.com or (651)
228-2123.