Northwest, Pilots Reach Agreement

President Clinton announced that Northwest Airlines Corp. and its pilots union reached tentative agreement Thursday on a labor contract that would end the nearly 2-week-old strike over pay and job security issues.

The fourth-largest airline and the Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents about 6,200 Northwest pilots, reached the agreement after the National Mediation Board stepped in, assisted by Clinton advisor Bruce Lindsey.

“I think this strike is over,” Clinton said in the announcement on the lawn of the White House, flanked by his wife, Hillary, and Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater.

The pilots union said its members will remain on strike until its top council considers the proposal Saturday. No details will be released until then, the pilots said.

For St. Paul-based Northwest, approval would end a string of days with $25 million in lost revenue and $15 million in expenses. It also would ease an intensifying dispute with the federal government over commuter service to 17 small communities.

The National Mediation Board last week called company and union negotiators first to Washington and later Chicago in an attempt to jump-start the negotiations. The talks continued in Minneapolis on Tuesday with mediators shuttling between the two sides and with oversight by Lindsey, the deputy White House counsel.

The pilots union told its members late Thursday that its top council will meet Saturday in Minneapolis “to consider for approval a proposed settlement crafted by pilot and management bargaining committees over the past 56 hours.”

Keith Foster, president of the local Northwest Machinists union in St. Paul, said some mechanics were told to begin preparing planes for service and some schedulers were going to be recalled, Foster said, citing conversations with workers.

The settlement came as costs mounted for the airline, pilots and idled workers. Earlier Thursday, Northwest had extended health insurance to almost 30,000 idled workers through October.

The strike also took its toll on several U.S. cities, including Detroit, Minneapolis and Memphis, where Northwest was the major carrier at the local airports. Northwest had canceled its flights through Sunday in the U.S. and Canada and other international service through Monday. The airline normally has 1,700 daily flights.

The pilots were to receive their last paycheck for earlier work Saturday, Northwest said. They wouldn’t have begun receiving monthly union support of $1,300 until the 35th day of the strike.

Most of the company’s other idled 27,677 full-time workers and 567 part-time employees were to receive their last paycheck this weekend too, Northwest spokeswoman Marta Laughlin said. Before today’s extension, the employees’ health-care coverage was to expire at the end of the month.

The airline still faces the possibility of a strike by its machinists union, which rejected a tentative labor agreement last month and has asked the National Mediation Board to release it from further contract negotiations. Northwest also must reach agreement on four other labor contracts, including one with its flight attendants.