Daily Archives: August 22, 2005

Northwest Machinist Strike: Well Laid Plans Kept Their Planes Flying

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Micheline Maynard:

Over the last 18 months, the airline analyzed every job represented by the mechanics’ union at every airport and calculated the skills required to fix each of its planes. It then decided how many of those workers it actually needed and what kind of replacements it would require in the event of a strike.

Some differences between the airline’s old and new approaches began to appear.

Before the strike, union rules specified that only members of the mechanics’ union, known as AMFA, could deliver planes to airport gates. But on Saturday, the pilot of a Northwest 757 in Detroit, upon discovering his plane was not ready, hopped into a pickup truck and went to the hangar to fetch his plane, rather than keep crew and passengers waiting, airline officials said.

Meanwhile, members of the machinists’ union, which usually handles tasks like baggage handling and customer service, took on the task of cleaning Northwest’s cabins between flights at its hubs here and in Minneapolis, a job that was previously done by the mechanics’ union.

Northwest is the Dane County Regional Airport’s (Still without WiFi!) largest airline. More.

5Mbps for $50 – Move to Iowa

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Madison continues to fall behind in true 2 way broadband, as Jon Van illustrates:


The Mudd Group uses high-speed optical fiber lines supplied by the Cedar Falls Utility, a municipal operation that offered affordable high-speed data connections years before the local cable TV operator or phone company made such services available.
Municipalities from Lafayette, La., to Philadelphia are moving to provide residents with broadband connections, while in others, such as Geneva, Batavia and St. Charles, voters rejected the idea. The initiatives, which proponents say boost local economic development opportunities, are spurring intense battles across the nation with cable and phone companies, which believe the competition is unfair.
The issue is whether it’s appropriate for government entities to use taxpayer money to invest in infrastructure that is also a commercial technology because it’s offered by cable and phone companies.