Northwest-Delta Merger Raises Concerns for Employees

34 years ago, my father took a part-time job with Southern Airlines. A college student who was looking for spending money, the chance to work a stable job with an airline seemed to be a perfect fit. Add to that the chance to go full-time and health benefits when I came along sixteen months later and Southern Airlines took on the look and feel of a career.

Just after my arrival, college took a backburner and my father got more serious about his job in baggage carry, the shuttling of luggage and cargo off and on to planes. With a solid work ethic, my father joined the airline union and began to a career jumping from being based in Memphis to Atlanta, on to Houston, Detroit and Seattle. After a while, Southern Airlines was bought by Republic and about a decade later, Republic was bought by Northwest and this week, Northwest merged with Delta.

Throughout the mergers, the concerns have been the same. With now 34 years in service, my father could retire. But with hearing lost completely in one ear and going bad in the other he could just as well take disability. Noise from the plane's engines caused an ear drum to rupture causing complete loss in his right ear. This forces my father to have to turn to face you to hear out of his left ear or to read your lips.

Almost every man or woman that has worked in baggage carry for any length of time wears the pain of throwing and grabbing bags eight hours a day. With shoulders virtually useless and backs dangling by a thread workers from all airlines have the same fate, a body worn beyond its years because of the labor required on a daily basis. But as a son, what is more disconcerting with every merger is not only the physical toll that my father's body has taken but the continual erosion of his financial health.

In the mid-80s the airline industry was as solid as the automotive industry as far as long-term stability in jobs and benefits. Planes were in the air, packages were shipping and if you were working with Delta, American or Republic you had what was thought of as a good job. The benefits were solid including stock options and a retirement package that was the envy of other industries. But somewhere between then and the early 90s the airline industry began a spiral that continues to this day with fuel costs, insurance and maintenance costs skyrocketing to the point where no airline has been able to receive a AAA bond rating because of the instability in the market place.

This decline has put a beating on the retirement plans of many Northwest, Delta and American Airlines workers. In addition with each merger, lockout and strike the new labor agreement has rarely benefited the working base of each company. It would not be a stretch to say that if you took the salary of an employee in 1985 and put it against that same employee today with eighteen years of added service, there would be little difference in what they bring home on an annual basis. The money is just not there anymore to pay workers.

This means that when my father retires, Florida will not be calling. In fact the question is what will my father do now? If all you have ever done is pull and throw bags as an adult where do you turn? His stock options, while not useless are worth considerably less than any employee ever hoped they would be. The long term health care costs are skyrocketing as the airline's commitment to caring for its retired and older employees is not as strong as you would like for it to be. But who do you blame? The airline isn't making money. In fact the Delta-Northwest merger is about staying alive. Six airlines have filed for bankruptcy in the last two months. The industry is terrible. And no one can be blamed because no one is responsible.

So what do workers like my father and his friends do? They have arrived every day at 5am for thirty years to load and unload planes at the Memphis International Airport for Southern, Republic, Northwest and soon Delta Airlines. Will they be bumped for that same worker who is based in Atlanta? How many workers have 30+ years in and what will Delta offer to get this band of hard-working but aging workers to leave the job behind? Or will the unthinkable happen, something that my father shared with me last month when he and I talked about the merger at his kitchen table.

Will my father be forced to sell his house and relocate to a different city in order to keep his job and the seniority he currently has at the Memphis hub? Those questions remain to be answered and will not be known for the next six months. So until then, the waiting game that has happened three times before begins again.

Goodbye Northwest... Hello Delta...