Why Big Labor hasn't aided striking mechanics

Mr. MacFarlane suggests that the larger union movement is being petty at the expense of the striking mechanics, a move that could impact other workers in labor disputes across the country. Professor Chaison concurs, especially now that Northwest is talking about hiring the replacement workers permanently. "What Northwest is doing here is two things: They're telling AMFA that 'we're going to do without you, this will essentially break you, and we can get away with it,' " he says. "The other thing they're doing is serving a warning to their other unions ... so the other unions won't even press their case."

As a result AMFA believes it's in other unions' best interest to support it. It also disputes the AFL-CIO's contention that it "raided" other unions' members. IAM mechanics at Northwest and United had come to AMFA, not the other way around, says MacFarlane. The mechanics were dissatisfied with their current representation, he contends, but more important, they wanted their own craft-based union, like the pilots and the flight attendants have.

"All of these people are welcome in the AFL-CIO. Why aren't we?" asks MacFarlane. "It's because AMFA is an independent union, and independent unions are not welcome in the union family. They've set up this system whereby they want to have a monopoly on all of the workers in this country."

But one union member's monopoly is another's mass solidarity movement. From the AFL-CIO's perspective, it's AMFA that has been playing outside the rules.

"They come in when workers are most disgruntled and most disturbed, when unions have had to give back in the face of the declining revenues and bankruptcies in the industry," says Larson. "They use others' misfortune as their platform."

Even as this union battle simmers beneath the AMFA strike, labor experts like Chaison say a larger labor war could be lost. The strike comes at a time of "tremendous weakness" in the labor movement, he says. If Northwest management succeeds, the larger movement could be tarnished in two crucial ways, Chaison adds. It would send a signal to US workers "that unions result in strikes and lost jobs" at the same time it would "embolden American business."

"Northwest could give seminars on how to break a union," he says. "If the situation is right, and you're willing to invest the time and money, you don't have to worry about strikes because you can get what you want."

But the labor movement insists that's not the case. "You cannot make broad conclusions. This is an exceptional situation that involves a particular organization," says Esmeralda Aguilar of the AFL-CIO. "I don't think this will have wider implications because of the nature of this particular organization."

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