Ah, there’s nothing like a little classist profiling to get rival unions a little fired up.
Remember that Northwest – Delta merger that was announced earlier this year? Wondering why you haven’t heard much news from it lately? Well, the brass has got their noses to the grindstone working hard to get congress to approve of the merger before the new administration moves in. And the pilots, well, they’re still arguing too.
You might recall that the two carriers earlier put the merger on hold because the pilots couldn’t agree on seniority issues. In the end, they decided to merge anyway and let the pilots figure it out during the process.
As Politico most-gently points out though, there are deep rooted difference between the pilots and the unions. Pete Janhunen of the Air Line Pilots Association put it like this: “When you work with Delta guys, you tend to think of a Fortune 500 company… Northwest is a little more upper-Midwest, a little more working-class and less formal.”
Mind you, this isn’t the only thing that sets the unions apart. But it’s one more barrier that the unions have to overcome before they can handshake on their integration.
I for one, work with a Northwest pilot right now who is the most pleasant, friendly person I have ever met. Perhaps Politico was painting with a bit of a wide brush.
[Interesting sidenote: check out the comment on the Flickr photo from one of our favorite regular Gadling contributors. Thanks for the photo!]