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COPYRIGHT 2005 The Dallas Morning News
Byline: Eric Torbenson
Oct. 31--LAS VEGAS -- Maybe traditional airlines aren't so much broken as permanently changed.
In three decades of collective bargaining, organized labor built some of the best contract terms of any business. But over the past three years, airlines have coldly eviscerated those deals in a mad dash to slash costs.
At the Las Vegas World Aviation Forum last week, some leading industry players said they believe unions at traditional carriers will never get their negotiating leverage back.
Any carrier unable to compete with low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines Co. will simply push the bankruptcy button -- or threaten to push it -- and hire lawyers to re-write labor deals.
"The gun's been handed back to management," said Jonathan Orenstein, head of Mesa Air Group.
"If their costs are too high, they'll just use bankruptcy to blow up labor. It's a new world."
Consider how the old-line network carriers found themselves in the current mess, with nearly 60 percent of the...
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