Editor's note: What does it feel like to be an employee at Northwest Airlines? The following letter, from longtime Northwest Airlines employee Patricia Bledsoe to NWA CEO Doug Steenland, will give you some idea.

November 11, 2005

Mr. Doug Steenland
President and CEO
Northwest Airlines, Inc.
5101 Northwest Drive
Eagan, MN 55111

Dear Mr. Steenland,

As a Northwest Airlines employee and active union member for over 20 years, I am concerned for the well-being of my co-workers, and the future of Northwest Airlines. Therefore, I am compelled to convey to you the anger, frustration, mistrust and injustice I am feeling.

In the St. Paul Pioneer Press business section dated October 13, 2005, the front page article addressed the fact that Northwest Airlines needs to clear the way to slash its labor costs by some $1.4 billion annually. This article states that Northwest Airlines argues that its employee pay and benefits are far richer than its rivals. It has a graph which shows the average earnings per employee are between $65,000 and $70,000 per year.

I am not sure which of the employee groups Northwest is referring to in this article, but I can assure you that these amounts do not accurately reflect the earnings of any of the work groups that I am familiar with. In 1989, a topped out Level A clerical employee was earning $11.95 per hour; today they earn $14.18. With the 19% pay cuts that Northwest plans to impose, this same clerical employee will be earning $11.49, a decrease of 46 cents per hour from their 1989 wage. A topped out reservation sales agent made $16.13 per hour in 1989. Today, at $20.14 per hour, a 19% pay cut will bring their hourly wage down to $16.31, or an increase of just 18 cents over the last 16 years.

On top of this, we are now being asked to pay 25% of our medical costs with increased deductibles and co-pays. We are being charged for the privilege to fly on one of our aircraft. You want to reduce our sick pay by 75%, take away our sick accruals, reduce our vacation and holidays, and one can only guess what you will end up doing with our pensions.

Many of the employees that I work with have small children and day-care expenses. In the majority of these cases it will cost them more to work here than they will earn. How do you suppose they will feed their families?

Southwest Airlines, one of our known rivals, pays their reservation sales agents $24.00 per hour, offers more holidays and only a 2% contribution to their medical plan. Southwest Airlines has been a profitable rival carrier for many years and they pay their employees a livable wage and decent benefits.

In checking with sources such as the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I found that in salary, bonuses, restricted stocks and other long term incentive payments, your earnings have increased from $2,228,203 in 2002 to $4,421,480 in 2004. Southwest, JetBlue and even American Airlines CEO's salaries are all below $700,000.

According to these facts, it looks like the only high labor costs that are far richer than its rivals would be those of you and your upper Management Team. I would like to challenge you and your expert upper Management Team to lead the way, show us how easy it is. For the next five years, you lower your salaries to what you were earning in 1989.

WE ARE NOT THE PROBLEM!

You have said that in order to retain the expertise of your Upper Management team of 40 that you must pay them accordingly. If they are such experts then why do you need 40 of them? If they are such experts, how did Northwest Airlines end up in bankruptcy? You have placed blame on 9/11, SARS, the war, the hurricanes, and the soaring cost of fuel. Personally, I believe these excuses to be nothing but a lot of unethical corporate corruption. Each of us as individuals has been touched by each of the above unfortunate events in some way or another. We are still expected to pay our debts and so should Northwest Airlines.

Southwest Airlines upper management had the foresight to hedge on fuel prices. Northwest did not! Southwest is profitable. Northwest is not! Yet you want to reward your Upper Management Team for their lack of expertise at the expense of the dedicated employees who gave concessions in the early 1990s in exchange for stock options that you and your incompetent Upper Management Team has since stolen from us.

We are not just an employee number, we are real people, human beings that have worked for this company for 5, 10, 20, 30, and in some cases even more than 40 years! These are the employees that have been committed to this company and they are the employees that deserve to be paid a fair wage for a day's work.

Patricia A. Bledsoe
Eagan, Minnesota