The Nation - News from Feb. 28, 1988

Northwest Airlines labor talks broke down after 22 hours and 6,700 flight attendants were declared to be on strike, but no pickets materialized and a Teamsters Union spokesman said later that there was no walkout. Later in the day, negotiators met again to discuss the company’s latest offer, Teamsters spokesman Jeff Musto said at the union’s strike control headquarters in Minneapolis. The union had threatened to strike Friday night, when the attendants’ old contract expired, but the talks went on past the deadline. The strike was delayed pending the outcome of the renewed negotiations, Musto said. The airline proposes to stretch from five to nine years the time in which an employee advances from a “B” or lower pay scale to the “A” schedule, a change the union is resisting. The union also wants a three-year contract rather than the 4 1/2-year pact offered by the airline.