NWA ground workers union sues Delta

The ground workers union at Northwest Airlines today sued Delta Air Lines in federal court, arguing that the carrier is violating federal law through its efforts to integrate the seniority lists of the unionized Northwest workers and nonunion Delta employees.

Delta acquired Northwest in late October and recently asked the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) to provide representatives to meet with Delta workers to discuss a process for blending their seniority lists.

The IAM has refused to take part in those meetings and said in its lawsuit that Delta must wait until the National Mediation Board has declared that a "single carrier" exists and the employees from both airlines vote in a representational election.

The IAM represents Northwest ground workers, such as baggage handlers and customer service agents, and their Delta counterparts are nonunion.

The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents Northwest flight attendants, also has declined to take part in the seniority integration meetings with Delta employees. The AFA recently filed a similar lawsuit against Delta.

"Delta executives seem eager to short-circuit this process even though they admit we will not actually be integrated -- flying together on the same flights -- until the end of 2010," Kevin Griffin, president of the Northwest attendants union, said in a Friday message to his members.

Griffin said that the AFA would "not let the new company and their executives push us into something that we all may come to regret."

In its litigation, the IAM said that Delta executives have engaged in "unlawful interference" regarding the rights of airline employees to choose their "representative."

At some point, representation elections will be held for the ground workers and flight attendants at both carriers.

Delta spokesman Anthony Black said today: "The IAM's complaint challenging our seniority integration process was filed on the heels of an almost identical one by the AFA, and it is not unexpected. We believe the position taken by both IAM and AFA is wrong as a matter of law and does not serve the interests of our combined work groups."

He added that the seniority integration issue "is one of the top issues on employees' minds" and Delta argues that a quick resolution "will allow all employees to more quickly benefit from the merger."

Liz Fedor ? 612-673-7709