Alaska Airlines replaces 472 workers
SEATTLE – Alaska Airlines announced Friday it had laid off 472 ramp employees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, replacing them with contract workers as part of a push to cut costs amid rising fuel prices and tough competition from low-cost carriers.
Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Caroline Boren said the decision came more than a year and a half after the company set out to reach a contract settlement with ramp workers, who handle baggage and guide planes to and from terminal gates.
“It’s been a very hard decision,” Boren said. “But given the current environment – the high fuel prices, trying to move out of four years of losses and facing some stiff competition from low-cost carriers – we felt the $13 million in savings annually was something we had to pursue.”
Robert Roach Jr., general vice president of transportation for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, called the layoffs a “unilateral and illegal lockout” and said the union would take legal action to win back workers’ jobs.
“If Alaska is looking for a fight that may prove fatal to the airline, they have found one,” Roach said in a statement released after the layoffs were announced.
Reading from the contract, Boren said it gives the company the right to “contract out any work for which the company’s cost exceeds the vendors’ charges less material.”
Alaska, the nation’s ninth-largest airline, has about 10,000 employees and is the dominant carrier on north-south routes along the West Coast.
It hired Menzies Aviation contract workers to replace its ramp employees in Seattle, its biggest hub. Contract workers handle ramp service at most of the airline’s destinations.
Menzies provides ground services for more than 500 airline customers worldwide, including Alaska Airlines in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Calif., Portland and all of the company’s Mexican destinations.
“Our success working with providers in other cities gives us confidence that we can continue moving Seattle customers’ bags reliably while reducing our operating costs significantly,” said William S. Ayer, chief executive of the airline and of corporate parent Alaska Air Group Inc., which also runs Horizon Air.
The decision was announced Friday morning before the union’s local office opened for the day.
Roach said the layoffs violate the union’s collective bargaining agreement with Alaska, and the Railway Labor Act, which bars any unilateral contract changes while an agreement is in place.
The current contract began in 2000 and became amendable on Jan. 10, 2004. Contract talks started in September 2003, and in November 2004, Alaska told the union it was seeking outside bids for ramp service. Contract mediation sessions were held this spring after negotiations failed in March.
Members of Machinists District 143 voted down the company’s latest contract offer May 6 and gave union negotiators authority to call for a strike. At the time, the company said it planned to decide by the end of the month whether it would contract out ramp service in Seattle.
Edward W. White, vice president of ground operations, said the company was offering a more lucrative severance package than the one specified in the current contract. The offer, which is subject to union approval, includes nine weeks of pay, as required by law, plus two weeks of pay for each year of service; a $3,000 to $15,000 cash bonus based on years of service; a year of company-paid health care coverage; and travel benefits for each worker.